KENT, Conn. - There are more people dead than alive on the Schaghticoke Indian Reservation overlooking the Housatonic River in northwest Connecticut. There are more headstones than houses. There is more silence than sound.
Just one member of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation lives on the 400-acre reservation at the foot of Schaghticoke Mountain in the tidy town of Kent.
His name is Brett Rothe, and he is 4, a child of a divorce between a father who is Indian and has rejected the Tribal Nation government and a mother who is not but has embraced it. But Brett is also caught in a larger divide, between the Tribal Nation and a separate Schaghticoke faction at odds over control of the reservation and who will capitalize on the tribe's newfound leverage in the region's escalating casino wars.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Saturday, February 07, 2004
Ex-Congressman Goes to Jail for Fatal Crash
SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Feb. 7 (AP) — Former Representative Bill Janklow reported to jail on Saturday to start serving his 100-day sentence for a manslaughter conviction from a crash that killed a motorcyclist.
Accompanied by his son, Russ, and a friend, Mr. Janklow walked past reporters and camera crews and into the Minnehaha County Public Safety Building at 9 a.m., and checked in.
Accompanied by his son, Russ, and a friend, Mr. Janklow walked past reporters and camera crews and into the Minnehaha County Public Safety Building at 9 a.m., and checked in.
Friday, February 06, 2004
Jury Convicts Former AIM Member in Murder
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) -- A federal jury Friday convicted a former American Indian Movement member of murdering a woman who had been suspected of being a government informant.
Arlo Looking Cloud, 50, faces a mandatory life sentence for the 1975 shooting death of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a 30-year-old fellow member of the Indian militant group. Her frozen body was found in 1976 on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Jurors deliberated for about seven hours before convicting Looking Cloud of first-degree murder committed in the perpetration of a kidnapping. He had been indicted in March with another former AIM member, John Graham.
Arlo Looking Cloud, 50, faces a mandatory life sentence for the 1975 shooting death of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a 30-year-old fellow member of the Indian militant group. Her frozen body was found in 1976 on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Jurors deliberated for about seven hours before convicting Looking Cloud of first-degree murder committed in the perpetration of a kidnapping. He had been indicted in March with another former AIM member, John Graham.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
In Court, AIM Members Are Depicted as Killers
RAPID CITY, S.D., Feb. 4 — The former companion of a leader in the American Indian Movement clutched a single feather as she took the witness stand in a federal court here on Wednesday and tearfully depicted the movement's leaders as murderous.
In a full but silent courtroom, the witness, Ka-Mook Nichols, said leaders of the militant Indian civil-rights group known as AIM had orchestrated the death of one of its own members, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, nearly three decades ago. And Ms. Nichols implicated Leonard Peltier, AIM's best-known member, in the earlier killing of two federal agents, crimes for which Mr. Peltier has been sent to prison for life.
In a full but silent courtroom, the witness, Ka-Mook Nichols, said leaders of the militant Indian civil-rights group known as AIM had orchestrated the death of one of its own members, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, nearly three decades ago. And Ms. Nichols implicated Leonard Peltier, AIM's best-known member, in the earlier killing of two federal agents, crimes for which Mr. Peltier has been sent to prison for life.
Monday, February 02, 2004
Murder Trial Revives Intrigue of the 70's Indian Movement
RAPID CITY, S.D. — Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a young mother and American Indian activist, was shot in the head and left to die on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the winter of 1975. The trial of one of two men accused of killing her begins here on Tuesday. Between those moments, decades apart, lies a mystery, and a bitter struggle.
Law enforcement authorities and Indians across the country are watching closely, not just for what the trial will reveal about Ms. Pictou Aquash's death, but for what it threatens to expose about suspicion and violence inside the American Indian Movement, or AIM, the militant group whose clashes with federal authorities drew the eyes of the world to the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970's.
Law enforcement authorities and Indians across the country are watching closely, not just for what the trial will reveal about Ms. Pictou Aquash's death, but for what it threatens to expose about suspicion and violence inside the American Indian Movement, or AIM, the militant group whose clashes with federal authorities drew the eyes of the world to the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970's.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Resistance to Indian Casinos Grows Across U.S.
Connecticut's two large Indian casinos pump $400 million into state and local treasuries each year, but so many residents dislike the casinos that the state's legislature repealed the law that allowed them to be built.
In New York, Buffalo has a shot at a new casino to help revive its sagging downtown and bring in new cash. But residents oppose the idea.
And in Pennsylvania, Gov. Edward G. Rendell has promised lower property taxes if slot machines are allowed at racetracks in the state, but the measure to permit the machines is still bottled up in the General Assembly.
In New York, Buffalo has a shot at a new casino to help revive its sagging downtown and bring in new cash. But residents oppose the idea.
And in Pennsylvania, Gov. Edward G. Rendell has promised lower property taxes if slot machines are allowed at racetracks in the state, but the measure to permit the machines is still bottled up in the General Assembly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)