Tribal Policeman dies 5 hours after talking to CAICW -

He died in a car wreck on Sept. 22, 2014. Just five hours earlier, he was talking to us on the phone, telling us he had tape recorded his meetings with BIA social services and tribal court because he finally wanted his story to be public.

Lavern “Bundy” Littlewind was a BIA policeman and Spirit Lake tribal member. He wanted people who don’t live on the reservation to understand why child abuse is endemic on so many reservations. Many Tribal social services don’t protect kids. They protect tribal sovereignty.

Jastin "Ian" Blue Coat

The latest: Toddler Jastin Blue Coat was murdered October 18, 2014, in Eagle Butte, SD. Because of his heritage, he wasn’t allowed protection.

After a series of child murders at Spirit Lake, our federal government – in the form of the BIA, FBI and U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon - was called in two years ago to oversee, improve care, and protect the kids. Federally funded programs such as Casey Family Services and ACF were also supposed to be improving care. But that money has been poured down the drain.

There is no serious intention to protect children if the only real solutions are perceived to threaten tribal sovereignty. Protect tribal sovereignty at all costs – even at the expense of children.

Power and money have corrupted nations from time immemorial.

In all our years of going to DC about this, Representative Kevin Cramer has been the only Congressman to take real action. This year, he pushed for an oversight hearing and called the BIA on the carpet. His office asked Bundy to testify at the June hearing as well, but Bundy was nervous, thinking tribal government might use his kids against him if he spoke up. That’s understandable – many have seen that happen.

The U.S. Government has set up a system that allows crime and corruption to occur without repercussion in Indian Country. We are very grateful to Rep. Cramer. It takes real courage to address something other Congressman have been afraid to touch. We need him to remain in office, pursuing protection for kids at Spirit Lake as well as across the country.

Chat with Author of "Dying in Indian Country"

The true story of an American Indian who realized just how much tribal and federal government policies were destroying his extended family.  

Roland grew up watching members of his family die of alcoholism, child abuse, suicide, and violence on the reservation. Like many others, he blamed all the problems on “white people.”  

Beth Ward grew up in a middle class home in the suburbs. Raised in a politically left family, she also believed that all problems on the reservation originated with cruel treatment by settlers and the stealing of land. Meeting her husband, her first close experience with a tribal member, she stepped out of the comfort of suburban life into a whole new, frightening world.  

After almost ten years of living with his alcoholism and the terrible dangers that came with it, they both realized that individual behavior and personal decisions were at the root of a man’s troubles, including their own, and no amount of entitlements would change that.  

What cannot be denied is that a large number of Native Americans are dying from alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and violence. The reservation, a socialistic experiment at best, pushes people to depend on tribal and federal government rather than God, and to blame all of life’s ills on others. The results have been disastrous. Roland realized that corrupt tribal government, dishonest federal Indian policy, and the controlling reservation system had more to do with the current pain and despair in his family and community than what had happened 150 years ago.  

Here is the plain truth in the eyes of one family, in the hope that at least some of the dying in Indian Country — physical, emotional, and spiritual — may be prevented.  

Dr. William B. Allen, Emeritus Professor, Political Science, MSU and former Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1989) has called the book, “…truly gripping, with a good pace.”  

Meet the author at an online book signing, Saturday, October 13th, 3 pm eastern time, 12 noon pacific, at https://dyinginindiancountry.campfirenow.com/room/533942

The book sells for $29.99 and is available online. For more information about the author and to purchase the book, please visit http://dyinginindiancountry.com/

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She Wasn't a Tribal Member, so her Daughter was Taken From Her

I am a non-Tribal mother of a Native American daughter. This has been a battle of 14, nearly 15 years now. I’ve felt so alone over these years, and due to my experiences and feelings have decided it is time to reach out to the other parents like me, to help protect the children like my daughter.

I became pregnant at 16. During my pregnancy her paternal (tribal) grandmother tried to convince me to give her up for adoption to her. I refused. The day she was born, her father would not sign her birth certificate. I stayed together with him until she was nearly 2. He was abusive to me, he was doing drugs and drinking. He had a very short temper. He even attacked me at work. I tried to make it work for her sake, which was a mistake. Thinking maybe if I could force him to go to therapy he would get better. Then one day he turned his anger towards her. That was the last day.

I left him that day, and would not allow him to be alone with her. Because I did not trust him, I set arrangements for him to see her at his mother’s house on pre-arranged dates. The first few visits he was there when I brought her there. After that he wasn’t. His mother told me “It hurts him too much to see you, so he went for a walk, he’ll be back after you leave” Like an idiot 19 year old girl, I believed the woman. It later came out in the open that he had run off to San Francisco to follow his dream of being a homeless drugged out bike messenger. Which later in life is referred to in all legal proceedings as his “Spiritual Journey”.

When she was 5, the state took him to court to establish paternity. They issued a warrant for his arrest for the genetic testing. They actually had to arrest him and bring him in against his will. Once paternity was established, he was a no show for court to sign the papers. The judge had to sign it for him, which by US Citizen law, negates your parental rights.

He was absent from her life with the exception of an occasional Christmas or Thanksgiving – Which he attended to get free stuff, for 5 years. No phone calls, no visits. Nothing. (No child support, but we managed to live with me working 2 or 3 jobs at a time) He started doing something called “Canoe Journey” which I made sure that my daughter could go to when the grandmother asked if she could go. I even volunteered as class mom for all school Tribal functions, making sure that the Native American students could go to the big meets. If I hadn’t have done that none of those children would have been able to go.

Then, one day I get a knock on the door. my daughter’s Uncles are sitting there with a camera and big grins laughing , they say “You’ve been served” and take my photo as they hand me the papers. This is how I found out that her father was filing for custody.

The first court hearing went in my favor. The judge reviewed the case, recognized it as he was the judge that signed the paternity and threw it out. He told my daughter's dad that he expected him to turn his life around before he would even grant visitation, that he expected child support payments, anger management courses and clean urinalysis.

The Tribe appealed the case, which I state this way as 30 or 40 Tribal members showed up in the court room the next day, they even pushed and shoved at me as I tried to walk through the door into the court room.

We went through 4 extremely painful months of custody battle, during which a Guardian Ad Litem was assigned to research the case. During the case, hundreds of “Declarations” were produced by the tribe, attesting to my inability to parent stating things like that I had “Fecal matter spread on the walls” or that I “Partied and brought different men home every night”. They even had the audacity to claim that I am abusive to my daughter. None of these things are true. The odd thing about it all, as I had never even heard of any of these “People” that wrote the declarations, and they all seemed to be written in a variation of 3 or 4 different styles of handwriting.

The Guardian Ad Litem did a very scrutinizing investigation. She concluded that my daughter was best living with me, that she and I had one of the closest most loving relationships she had seen between a parent and child, that she had a wonderful home and a strong support structure. That her father had anger management problems, that he had failed his Urinalysis both the first and the second time, that his home was unfit structurally and sanitarily for a child, and that my daughter seemed to barely even know him. Her advice was for my daughter to stay living with me, for her father to take anger management courses, attend drug and alcohol therapy, get his life in order, THEN start visitation with our daughter under supervision.

The judge threw out her assessment. Why assign a Guardian Ad Litem to a case if you are going to throw it out if it is in the Non Tribal parent’s favor? Was it just to make me spend another $2,200? Was he hoping she would dig up dirt on me?

Needless to say, my daughter, now 14 has been living on the reservation since then. It’s been 5 years. ICW has taken her from her father’s house 3 times now, that I know of. They refuse to give her back to me. They have no just cause for this. They have stated to me they will never place her back in my home because I am not a Tribal Family Member. When they took her, for ABUSE allegations from her father I tried to work through real CPS that would never let this happen. Real CPS informed me that the only way they can get her back for me is if my daughter calls 911 or is hospitalized from the abuse.

Last night I found out that the reason I have been unable to reach my daughter or any of her paternal family for the past 3 weeks is that ICW took her from her father’s home and placed her with her grandmother. Again. They did not contact me. Again. My daughter had to sneak to the computer and email me, when she had been told not to contact me. Again.

JOIN US

SIGN THE PETITION: "She Wanted Us to Save Her..."

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An adoptive mother made her first contact with CAICW on Facebook about 1am Saturday morning, Nov. 20, 2010, only hours after she had lost her little girl:

"They just took my baby after 3 years...her sobbing is forever etched in my soul. She wanted us to save her and we couldn't…devastated."

"..the despair on her face ... She didn't want to go and was looking for us to protect her and we couldn't...I can't remember ever feeling so worthless."

Saturday, Nov. 20th, was National Adoption Day. On this day, a small girl, denied the right to be adopted by the only mother she'd ever known, spent the first day in her memory in foster care, frightened and alone. She was denied the right to be adopted by her “mom” solely because of heritage. In America, having even a small amount of Indian heritage can mean not having the same rights & opportunities for adoption that other children have.

SIGN THE PETITION

- Petition closes Jan. 21, 2011 - to be presented to Congressmen in DC Jan. 24-26.

Advocates of ICWA point to the devastation suffered by children of tribal heritage when, years ago, they were forcefully removed from homes they loved and forced to stay at boarding schools. The trauma those children experienced was, indeed, horrible and devastating.

However, in the implementation of the ICWA, the exact same thing has been happening to children in reverse.

What has to be acknowledged is that we live in a transient, multi-racial society. This means that many children who fall under the jurisdiction of the Indian Child Welfare Act have more than one heritage, and many times are predominantly of another heritage, and/or have family who not only aren’t connected to the Reservation, but have specifically LEFT it—having chosen not to participate in the reservation system. Their reasons include the high alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, child neglect, corruption, and suicide rates.

Though some argue ICWA has safeguards to prevent misuse, scores of multi-racial children are negatively affected by its application. Letters from birth parents, grandparents, foster families, and adoptive families concerning their children hurt by application of ICWA can be read at ~ http://www.caicw.org/familystories.html

YOUR PRAYERS are a Powerful Blessing for these families!

Due to ICWA, dozens of adoptions are held up every year. Even simple adoptions can be expensive and many families aren’t prepared for this additional expense. Time and again families have contacted the CAICW to ask for help because they don’t have the funds needed to hire attorney’s to defend their children.

A Firefighter in Texas, with his wife, stopped an abortion by offering to take the baby. They received the little boy immediately after birth and began adoption proceedings. The baby had been with them for a few weeks when they were informed a tribe was laying claim to the child - who had less than 2% heritage. The family, already loving the baby, fought back. Five years and thousands of dollars later, the little boy has still not been adopted.

Had the birth mother chosen abortion, no one would have stopped her.

Birth families have been hurt as well. After mortgaging homes and having nothing else to use, some have been forced to give up the fight for their children.

One grandfather with nothing left to fight with signed his final letter to us as "former grandfather of..."

A mother, responding to a tribal court summons for what was supposed to be a simple hearing, had her little girl ripped from her arms, not to be returned again.

Latino grandparents were raising their three grandchildren in California until social services decided that the children, 50% Ute, belonged on the reservation. They took the children from their paternal grandparents and placed them with their maternal grandmother on the Ute reservation, where she proceeded to beat the boys for speaking Spanish. Three weeks later, one was near dead. His younger brother presented at the hospital with raccoon eyes.

The maternal grandmother is now in prison and the children are again with their paternal grandparents. The oldest is permanently brain damaged.

A mother, having sent her children to visit their father for two weeks for a county ordered visitation, received a sudden tribal court summons. Believing that she was required to respond, she showed up for the hearing, where she was told the children were now in the custody of the father, and she is not allowed to step foot on the reservation again. When she went back to the county court to fight it, she was told that because she responded to the tribal court summons, she had voluntarily given them jurisdiction.

How was she to know?

A non-Indian father in Oklahoma was told that because he was "white," he had no rights to his child.

Of course that wasn't true. But unless a person has money to fight back with, whether it is true or not makes no difference.

WE NEED YOUR HELP. These families can not fight this alone.

SIGN THE PETITION

- Petition closes Jan. 21, 2011 - to be presented to Congressmen in DC Jan. 24-26.