Events Surrounding Recent Murders on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota

_{Photo by Owen Luck}

From ‘Report on Federal, State, and Tribal Jurisdiction: Final Report to the American Indian Policy Review Commission’ (1976). With regard to this particular text within that report, it should be noted that co-author, Shirley Hill Witt, is of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and the National Indian Youth Council

Subject : Events surrounding recent murders on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

To : John A. Buggs, staff director, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Events surrounding the murder of two Native Americans in separate incidents during the past 6 weeks on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota have again called into question the roles of FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] police in law enforcement on the reservation. Numerous complaints were received by MSRO [Mountain States Regional Office] alleging that these two agencies failed to act impartially or to respond properly in the aftermath of the two murders which are the subject of this memorandum. More seriously, the media published allegations that the FBI was perpetrating a coverup to protect guilty persons.

In view of the seriousness of these charges. Dr. Shirley Hill Witt, regional director, and William F. Muldrow, equal opportunity specialist from the Mountain States Regional Office, were asked to gather firsthand information on events which transpired. FBI and BIA police officers, attorneys, tribal officials, and other persons involved in events surrounding these two murders were interviewed on March 18 and 19 in Rapid City, S. Dak., and on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Additional information was gathered through the mail and in telephone interviews.

Following is a brief summary of events which transpired according to the persons contacted.

Wanblee, a small town on the northeastern portion of the reservation, is largely populated by so-called “full blood” or traditionally oriented Native Americans. This community helped to oust incumbent Tribal President Richard Wilson by a three-to-one vote against him in the recent general election on the reservation. The chairman of Pine Ridge District, an area strongly supportive of Wilson on the reservation, was quoted on January 23 as saying that Wanblee needed “straighting out” and that people would come to do it.

On Friday evening and Saturday morning, January 30 and 31, according to Wanblee residents, several carloads of heavily armed persons reported by eyewitnesses to be Wilson supporters arrived in the town. Sometime Saturday morning, shots were fired, allegedly by this group, into the house of Guy Dull Knife. BIA police in town at the time called for reinforcements which arrived promptly but made no arrests of the persons identified by eyewitnesses as the ones who did the shooting.

Shortly following this incident that same day, Byron DeSersa, a resident of Wanblee, was shot and killed during a high-speed automobile chase, reportedly by persons recognized by passengers in DeSersa’s car as being the same individuals responsible for terrorizing the town earlier. Attackers jumped out of their cars to chase those who were with DeSersa and he bled to death for lack of immediate medical attention.

Following DeSersa’s death, the FBI, which has jurisdiction over felonies, was called and two agents arrived that afternoon. Sporadic shooting continued in the town through Saturday night and two houses were firebombed. Residents reported that despite their pleas, law enforcement officers who had cross-deputization powers and were present at the time, did nothing to stop the shooting. Despite the fact that one person had already been killed by gunfire an FBI spokesman told District Chairman James Red Willow that the FBI was strictly an enforcement agency and had no authority to act in a protective capacity. Saturday evening one person, Charles David Winters, was arrested for the murder of DeSersa. No attempt was made to apprehend or arrest the other passengers in Winters’ car, even though persons who were with DeSersa when he was shot claimed that they were chased by Winters’ companions after the shooting and could readily identify their attackers. Nor have any further arrests been made in connection with the terrorization of the town over a period of 2 days. The case is at present being investigated by a grand jury in Pierre.

Tbe second series of events — about which Witt and Muldrow conducted an inquiry — began on February 25 when a rancher discovered the partially decomposed body of a Native American woman beside Highway No. 73 a few miles east of Wanblee. Two BIA policemen and an FBI agent responded to the rancher’s report and brought the body to the Pine Ridge Hospital where an autopsy was performed on February 25 by W. O. Brown. M.D.. a pathologist from Scottsbluff, Nebr. He issued a verbal report that day to the effect that she had died of exposure. He found no marks of violence on her body except evidence of a small contusion. The dead woman’s hands were severed and sent to a laboratory in Washington. D.C., for fingerprint identification, both the FBI and the BIA claiming that they had no facilities to do so themselves due to the state of decomposition of the body.

On the morning of March 3. the body, still unidentified, was buried in the Holy Rosary Cemetery at Pine Ridge. The FBI reported that in the afternoon of the same day they received a report from the Washington laboratory that fingerprint tests revealed the dead woman was Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a Canadian citizen wanted in connection with a bench warrant issued November 25 in Pierre for default of bond on a firearms charge. She also was under indictment by a Federal grand jury in connection with a shootout with Oregon police last November 14. Relatives of Aquash in Canada were notified of her death on March 5, and news of her identification was released to the media the following day. Immediately, relatives of the dead woman and others who had known her expressed their disbelief that she had died of natural causes. On March 9, citizens of the town of Oglala. where she had lived for a time, publicly demanded a full investigation of the circumstances surrounding her death. Relatives, represented by attorney Bruce Ellison of the Wounded Knee Legal Committee, requested that the body be exhumed for further examination.

On March 9, 6 days after the body was identified, the FBI filed an affidavit with the U.S. district court and received a court order permitting exhumation for “purposes of obtaining complete X-rays and further medical examination.” X-rays had not been considered necessary during the first examination.

On March 11 the body was exhumed in the presence of FBI agents and Dr. Garry Peterson, a pathologist from Minneapolis, Minn., who had been brought in by Aquash’s family to examine her body. X-rays revealed a bullet of approximately .32 caliber in her head. Peterson’s examination revealed a bullet wound in the back of the head surrounded by a 5 x 5 cm. area of subgaleal reddish discoloration. Incredibly, this wound was not reported in the first autopsy and gave rise to allegations that the FBI and/or the BIA police had covered up the cause of her death. The fact that officers of both agencies examined the body en situs, wrapped in a blanket beside the road and far from any populated area, yet still did not suspect foul play, leads credence to these allegations in the minds of many people. Hospital personnel who received the body at the hospital reportedly suspected death by violence because of blood on her head.

Other persons are of the opinion that Anna Mae Aquash had been singled out for special attention by the FBI because of her association with AIM leader Dennis Banks and knowledge she might have had about the shooting of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation last summer.

These two incidents have resulted in further bitterness, resentment, and suspicion toward the FBI. They follow months of turmoil on the reservation in the aftermath of the FBI shooting incident when allegations were rife that the FBI engaged in numerous improper activities including illegal search procedures and creation of a climate of intimidation and terror.

A contrast is seen between the Wanblee incident, where a person was killed and shooting was allowed to continue over a period of 2 days, and the incident in July when 2 FBI agents were shot and nearly 300 combat-clad agents, along with the trappings and armament of a modern army, were brought in “to control the situation and find the killers.” Reservation residents see this as disparate treatment. This, along with what at the very least was extremely indifferent and careless investigation of the Aquash murder, many residents feel reveals an attitude of racism and antagonism on the part of the FBI toward the Indian people.

Because of the circumstances surrounding the events mentioned here, along with the record of an extraordinary number of unresolved homicides on the reservation, and incidents of terror and violence which have become almost commonplace, the sentiment prevails that life is cheap on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The more militant and traditional Native Americans have concluded that they cannot count on equal protection under the law at the hands of the FBI or the BIA police. Many feel that they are the objects of a vendetta and have a genuine fear that the FBI is “out to get them” because of their involvement in Wounded Knee and in other crisis situations.

Feelings are running high and allegations of a serious nature are being made. MSRO staff feel that there is sufficient credibility in reports reaching this office to cast doubt on the propriety of actions by the FBI, and to raise question their impartiality and the focus of their concern.

I. T. Creswell, Jr., S. H. Witt