Law | Opinion

Tara Houska: Native people more likely to be shot by police

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Tribal activists led a protest against the police officer shooting of Christopher Capps in Rapid City, South Dakota, in June 2010. In a March 16, 2015, decision, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said Capps, who was never shown to be armed with any sort of weapon, was shot in the back by a Pennington County Sheriff's deputy. Photo by Estella Claymore / Native Sun News

Attorney Tara Houska explores the disparities facing Native Americans in their encounters with the justice system:

Last August, the Center on Juvenile Justice and Criminal Justice reported that despite being less than 2% of the US population, Native Americans are the most likely racial group to be killed by law enforcement. This fact is often overlooked in stories referencing violence against people of color—the conversation is largely a black and white binary, and even that binary is often denied and suppressed. “All Lives Matter” comes to mind.
Sadly, for Native America being overlooked is nothing new. Our voices are seldom in the mainstream, our issues disregarded. Native media and alternative media are frequently our only platforms, with the rare article reaching a wider audience.
One of the biggest stories to finally percolate into the public consciousness came through the Washington football team name controversy. And yet even there Native erasure was apparent, as we saw decades of protests and lawsuits against the Washington team turned into a “liberal PC crusade.” The few Natives featured in mainstream media were painted as fringe activists, and told there were “more important things to worry about.
A country actively engaged in taking down confederate flags and denouncing symbols of racism remains lukewarm—if not downright celebratory—of the dehumanization and racial caricaturing of Native Americans because well, that’s different. Never mind that Native Americans are statistically far more likely to be the victims of a hate crime than any other racial group besides African Americans.

Get the Story:
Tara Houska: One of the racial minorities most likely to be killed by police is also the most overlooked (Quartz 8/14)