Patrol cars in Rapid City, South Dakota. Photo by Rapid City Police Department
Notes from Indian Country
Life takes on a game of watch, listen and wait at times
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji – Stands Up For Them) It was in February that my step-son Earl was shot to death by a Rapid City police officer. I now think it was a needless deaths. First of all, Earl had a mental problem. He was taking medication and getting psychological assistance in an effort to combat his illness. It was the way that he was gunned down that still bothers me. He was shot through the heart by a police officer with a high-powered rifle. In his mental state Earl truly believed that there were two men at the Cornerstone Mission, a homeless shelter; that had evil intentions of harming me and his mother. He truly believed that. He went to a pawn shop and bought a handgun. If the pawn shop owners had been supplied a list of people with mental problems they would not have sold him the gun. There is no such provision in the laws of Rapid City to make that happen. Some family members knew he had a gun, but failed to alert his mother and me. If we had known we would have definitely taken the weapon from him. The day of the shooting, a Sunday, I was at the office working and he stopped by the house to visit with his mother. She said he was very quiet, but she did not sense anything wrong. After he left our house he went to the Mission with the intent of shooting the men he felt wanted to kill us. He wounded one of the men and was pointing a gun at the other when the police arrived. They supposedly shouted at him to put the gun down but he continued to hold it in his hand. A police officer with a rifle fired his weapon shooting Earl in the heart. He was not aiming the pistol at the police officer. A rifle? Let’s look at that for a minute. I used to be an avid hunter. I also passed the Marksmen test during my Navy basic training at the Marine Corps Training Camp at Camp Elliot near San Diego. Given the same set of circumstances, and armed with a rifle, I know that I would have been able to aim and shoot at a less vulnerable part of his body. Anyone with any marksmanship whatever would have shot at his legs and given the close range of the shooter there would have been little chance of missing that target and a life would have been spared. There is no apparent communications between the police of Rapid City and the mental health facilities in this City. Why not? In past years Native American men were shot to death by Rapid City police officers when intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. Some of these individuals were under the care of a mental facility. Red lives matter also, but there is little public outcry for injustice by the police against American Indians. The frontier mentality still exists in places like South Dakota. I understand the stress that the police force in this town is under, but I believe that the entire department needs to undergo a major change in how they approach a victim with a mental illness. A young Indian man with a history of mental problems was shot to death near the Rapid City Library because he had a knife in his hand. Really? An officer with a gun could not shoot a man in the leg carrying a knife? It happens all over America especially to minorities. We lost our son because of the stupid actions of a Rapid City police officer. I only speak up now because my wife and I firmly believe that there is a breakdown in the system between the Rapid City Police Department and the mental health facilities in town. The shooting death of Earl was not necessary. When my wife went to court to get the gun Earl had bought and paid for the courts said no, the gun had to be destroyed. She sat in court while a reporter from the local daily newspaper sat right in front of her and went back to her paper to write the story about how the gun was to be destroyed without asking her a single question. An autopsy showed that there were no drugs or alcohol in Earl’s system, only traces of the medications he was taking for his mental illness. The shooting death of a black mentally ill man in San Diego last week is just one of many examples of how the police have no knowledge of how to deal with the mentally ill. I hope this column is taken as it was intended by the Rapid City Police Department and that its police officers get much more training in dealing with victims of mental illness. For goodness sake communicate with the mental health facilities in town. When a person is mentally ill get the word to the gun and pawn shops. Until this is done there will be more deaths at the hands of the police of the mentally ill. It takes time to heal, but there will always be an empty place in our hearts for the loss of our son when it was not necessary. Tim Giago, Nawica Kciji (Stands Up for Them) was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He be reached at unitysodak1@vastbb.net
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