Law | Opinion

Tim Giago: More lives are being lost in shootings by police officers

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Elijah White Magpie, 1992-2015. White Magpie was shot five times by a police officer in Rapid City, South Dakota, in 2013. He survived the shooting but died last November while serving a prison sentence. Photo from Facebook

Looking for help that never came
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji – Stands Up For Them)
Editor Emeritus, Native Sun News
www.nsweekly.com

When someone shoots and kills another person, it is called homicide.

If a police officer in South Dakota shoots and kills someone it is called “justifiable homicide.”

There is a huge problem in this state because police officers and medical doctors are not properly trained to identify and deal with mental illness. Whenever confronted by a mentally disturbed person the first action of the police is to shoot to kill.

Time after time individuals turn themselves into the local hospital for mental problems and time after time they are given a bottle of pills and sent on their way.

Elijah Whitemagpie was a 20-year-old Lakota man with a drug and alcohol addiction problem leading to a state of mental instability. One night he was spotted with a knife in his hand at the local library. Some say he threw rocks at the library window.

When confronted by the police he advanced toward them, according to a police report, with knife in hand and he was shot five times by a Rapid City police officer. Whitemagpie survived the bullet wounds.

After a trial and conviction he was sent to the Jameson Annex Prison where he tied a sheet around his neck and committed suicide. He should have been sent to a hospital for treatment rather than to prison.