OLYMPIA, Wash. — Ballots for the election in Washington must be postmarked by Election Day or placed in a drop box by 8 p.m.
With some ballots still in the mail on election night, results in a close race may not be known for days.
The secretary of state’s office said 29 percent of the ballots had been returned as of Monday afternoon. That’s about 1.1 million ballots of the 3.9 ballots that were mailed.
Counties will certify results by Nov. 24. And Secretary of State Kim Wyman and Gov. Jay Inslee will certify the election on Dec. 2.
Growing populations of wild horses in the inland Northwest are creating headaches for federal land managers. Wild and feral horse herds overrun tribal lands in our region too.
A National Academy of Sciences review of federal wild horse management recommended greater use of birth control injections to control overpopulation. Horse lovers want to see that happen on tribal lands too.
University of Missouri biology professor Lori Eggert, who took part in the National Academy report, said “extensive and consistent” contraception can stabilize a horse population on a range.
“It is not over the short term going to take these horses down population wise,” Eggert said. “It will simply slow the growth. There may have to continue to be some gathers and removals from the range until these populations come down.”
Injecting wild mares with birth control on a regular schedule seemed impractical to the tribal range managers I heard from. Jason Smith of Warm Springs said his tribe does have a castration program. He said it castrates 100-150 wild stallions per year to help with population control.
The question of how to proceed in some ways boils down to different world views. People from animal advocacy groups describe wild horses as intelligent, magnificent creatures, symbols of the West and the embodiment of freedom on the open range. On the reservation, rodeo champion Smith said the horse is a “really respected animal,” but fits another category.
“Warm Springs has always considered the horse as their livestock,” he explained. “It is just like cattle is, livestock. We love our horses. They are our tool. They are our work force.”
Smith said he’s looking forward to the next wild horse inventory on the Warm Springs reservation next spring. He’s hoping to see a major decline in numbers from the 5,700 to 6,000 horses counted by an aerial survey in 2011.
Economics of tribal wild horse management
People with an interest in wild horse management also are keeping an eye on Congress. Members of Congress must soon decide whether to keep a de facto ban on domestic horse slaughter for human consumption. The 2014 federal budget signed by President Obama barred the U.S. Agriculture Department from spending money on necessary inspections of commercial horse slaughterhouses.
The last domestic horse processing facilities closed in 2007 after an earlier Congress withheld funding to provide inspections. That is why horses destined for slaughter are exported to Canada or Mexico.
Last year, the Warm Springs tribe and Yakama Nation joined a lawsuit in federal court in defense of the planned opening of a private slaughterhouse in New Mexico. In written testimony, Yakama Nation biologist James Stephenson described how high transportation costs have undermined the economics of tribal wild horse management.
“Before cessation of horse slaughter in the United States, members of the Yakama Nation could sell horses at a price of approximately $150 to $400 per animal. Now, if you can find a buyer, such horses are often sold for prices of $5 to $20 per head,” Stephenson wrote.
Wild horse advocacy groups are marshaling their arguments to prevent any resumption of domestic horse slaughter. In addition, sympathetic senators and representatives have proposed to go further and ban the transport and export of American horses to foreign slaughterhouses.
However, those measures have not advanced in a gridlocked Congress.
Meanwhile, a Prineville, Oregon-based nonprofit proposes to open a completely different type of facility from a slaughterhouse to take horses removed from tribal lands. Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition founder Gayle Hunt envisions a “horse gentling” program where prison inmates could break wild horses and train more of them to be suitable for adoption or sale as riding horses.
“Problem offenders within the community are actually rehabilitated at the same time they are rehabilitating the wild horses of Warm Springs,” Hunt said while describing her vision.
She credits the idea to a Nevada Department of Corrections program that uses inmates to saddle-train wild horses gathered by the Bureau of Land Management from public lands in Nevada and Oregon.
Genna Martin / The Herald Pumpkins with the names of the victims and shooter of the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting carved into them sit along the south fence of the school, which has become a growing memorial. The shooter, Jaylen Freyberg, and victims Zoe Galasso and Gia Soriano have died. Andrew Freyberg and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit are in critical condition and Nate Hatch is in satisfactory condition.
MARYSVILLE — Eventually, there will be some answers.
Hundreds of pages of investigative records will become public. They will reveal what detectives believe happened in the days and weeks leading up to the burst of violence Friday in a high school cafeteria.
Finding answers could take a year. It could take two.
As emotions and judgments pick up speed following Friday’s deadly shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School, the clock slows down for investigators.
Each witness. Each bullet fragment. Each text message.
The Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team, or SMART, the county-wide cadre of homicide investigators, is in charge of finding the truth.
The team was requested because of the scope and complexity of the investigation. Two Marysville detectives are part of that team.
Detectives owe it to the victims and their families to release only accurate information and to do the investigation the right way, Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton said Wednesday. A large volume of information — unverified and frequently coming from anonymous sources — already is in circulation.
“We only want to release facts that have been verified through the investigative process,” Ireton said. “A tweet is not fact.”
Detectives have reasons for not revealing details before the investigation is complete.
“We have to protect the integrity of the case,” sheriff’s detective Brad Walvatne, a member of SMART, said Wednesday. “We don’t want to poison a witness’ memory. We want to know what they specifically know.”
Investigators are responsible for “weeding through the rumors to get to the actual facts,” he said.
That takes time.
Previous SMART investigations have shown a meticulous level of detail, pulling together witness interviews, footprint analysis, medication prescriptions, dental records, three-dimensional digital maps, ballistics, crime-scene log-in sheets and more.
Forensic test results alone can take months to come back from labs. Victims and witnesses may need to be interviewed more than once. The interviews will have to be transcribed and proofed. Detectives will have to detail how they were able to find evidence on a cellphone or computer.
“We’re not going to rush. We want to be thorough. We want to be fair and impartial,” Walvatne said.
That doesn’t change if a suspect is dead, he said.
“We could still find out why this happened if we can’t speak to the person who did it,” Walvatne said.
The homicide detective has been with the sheriff’s office for 15 years. He has been part of SMART since 2009. He’s been involved in complex investigations, such as the murder of a Monroe corrections officer which required interviewing dozens of inmates and corrections officers. The team also investigated the killing of six people in Skagit County, including a sheriff’s deputy.
Walvatne declined to discuss investigative details of the Marysville school shooting. Instead, he explained that in a complex case multiple detectives are put in charge of various aspects, such as crime scene processing and coordinating witness interviews.
The team has detectives who specialize in three-dimensional mapping, trajectory analysis, computer forensics and witness interviews. They share the workload and brief each other on what they uncover.
“There is nothing more important going on. The detectives need to be given the time and space to do it thoroughly and professionally, which is what they are doing now,” Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe said.
Typically, the team is called in to run investigations into officer-involved shootings or in-custody deaths. Roe reviews the team’s cases.
Roe was part of a meeting Tuesday that involved dozens of investigators. They all are working on their own piece of the case.
“This is time-consuming, painstaking, detailed work,” Roe said. “They need to take the time to get the facts.”
Instant access to information and 24-hour news cycles have created an expectation for detectives to finish their case and make everything public right away, and that’s not possible, said John Turner, a retired police chief who served in Marysville in the late 1980s and early 2000s.
“There’s a reason police don’t disseminate all of the information,” said Turner, who also led departments in Snohomish and Mountlake Terrace. “There are valid, justifiable reasons for not doing it. Facts that are known to the police (but) are not known to the public help the police investigate, whether it’s interviewing, interrogation, polygraphs, all of that.”
In addition, this investigation adds a layer of cultural complexity, Turner said. The shooter and some of the victims are Tulalip tribal members.
Turner was a police chief in Snohomish in 2011 when a troubled 15-year-old student stabbed two Snohomish High School classmates. Both victims survived.
That investigation took months, and was complicated in part because police had to gather psychological reports and account for witness stories that changed over time.
In Seattle, police have had to investigate several mass shootings over the years, including one at Seattle Pacific University in June, said Sgt. Sean Whitcomb, department spokesman. The SPU shooting is still an active investigation.
In general, violence in public settings generates more fear and concern, he said. People need answers they can rely upon.
“So there’s this added responsibility for us to really make sure that we take our time and ensure every possible lead is followed up, every last scrap of evidence is collected and gathered, and every last witness is tracked down and interviewed,” he said.
Roe on Wednesday said he hopes people use the time waiting for answers to supporting victims of Friday’s violence.
“This is the time to focus on what we should — the kids, the school, the community,” he said.
As of Wednesday, victims Andrew Fryberg, 15, and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, were in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the head. Nate Hatch, 14, who was shot in the jaw, was in satisfactory condition. Both boys are at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Shaylee is at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.
Zoe Raine Galasso and Gia Soriano, both 14, were killed. A family funeral for Zoe is set for this weekend.
She is survived by her parents, Michael and Michelle, and brother, Rayden. Zoe was a loving girl, who “spread her happiness and delight in new experiences everywhere,” her obituary said.
A traditional two-day funeral for shooter Jaylen Fryberg, 15, will conclude with his burial today.
Swinomish stands with Harvard representatives for a group photo after being awarded at the 2014 NCAI Conference in Atlanta, GA. Photo courtesy Brian Cladoosby. #SalishSeaOilFree
CAMBRIDGE, MASS, OCT 29 – From more than 60 applicants, six tribal governance programs have been selected as 2014 Awardees by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development’s Honoring Nations program. The Honoring Nations awards identify, celebrate, and share excellence in American Indian tribal governance. At the heart of Honoring Nations is the principle that tribes themselves hold the key to generating social, political, cultural, and economic prosperity and that self-governance plays a crucial role in building and sustaining strong, healthy Indian nations.
Calling them trailblazers, Chairman of the Honoring Nations Board of Governors Chief Oren Lyons (Onondaga) says, “the 2014 Honoring Nations awardees look down the long road and don’t get lost in the demands of the moment. They are about our future, and the children coming, and the responsibilities of all leaders to their nations.”
Administered by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, Honoring Nations is a member of a worldwide family of “governmental best practices” awards programs that share a commitment to the core idea that government can be improved through the identification and dissemination of examples of effective solutions to common governmental concerns. At each stage of the selection process, applications are evaluated on the criteria of effectiveness, significance to sovereignty, cultural relevance, transferability, and sustainability. Since its inception in 1998, 118 tribal government programs and three All-Stars programs have been recognized from more than 80 tribal nations.
Honoring Nation’s Program Director Megan Minoka Hill (Oneida Nation WI) states, “Honoring Nations shines a light on success in Indian Country to share valuable lessons that all local governments, Native and non-Native, can learn from to better serve their citizens.”
Presentations and dissemination of the work of the 2014 awardees will include exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, a web platform through Google Cultural Institutes, written and video reports and case studies, executive education curriculum, and national presentations.
The 2014 Honoring Nations awardees are:
The Lummi Nation’s Wetland and Habitat Mitigation Bank: A bank of tribal wetlands habitat set aside and preserved to sell as “credits” to offset the impact of on- and off-reservation development projects that impact wetlands habitat.
Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s Child Welfare Program: Tribal child welfare services provider that administers Social Security Act programs to provide culturally reflective programs and services and keeps S’Klallam children in S’Klallam homes.
Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo’s Owe’neh Bupingeh Rehabilitation Project: A complex project to rehabilitate and restore homes in the “Pueblo core” of the community, preserving the core’s 700+ year-old structures while modernizing homes for 29 families.
The Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Potawatomi Leadership Program: A six-week summer internship program for college-student Potawatomi citizens to work in the tribal government offices and gain a more thorough knowledge of tribal organization, thereby increasing their capacity as future tribal leaders.
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s Role in the Scott County Association for Leadership and Efficiency (SCALE): A local collaborative association of tribal and municipal governments to increase efficiency and cooperation among agencies and governments in Scott County, Minnesota.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s Climate Change Initiative: A thorough initiative that incorporates assessment of current and forecast climate change impacts on the tribal community and resources, and a plan with tools for establishing mitigation strategies.
I mostly love this celebration. I get to dress my kids up in crazy costumes and raid their Halloween candy as part of my ten per cent mommy tax.
I say ‘mostly’ because there is one aspect of Halloween that I do not love. That is passing by the rows of Indian Princess/Stoic Warrior headdress get-ups that pop up every year.
Seriously, why is this still a thing? I mean costumes are something you put on. Culture is not.
And while we are seeing the headdress being banned from music festivals, it still shows up every Halloween through DIY sites and costume shops.
A “Native American Headdress” is still an option at many Halloween costume shops. (CBC)
So why should you not dress your little one up as an “Indian” or yourself for that matter?
Let’s de-feather the issue and take a naked look at the headdress. There are three things to know about the feather headdress.
1. Who wears them?
The headdress was sacred and still is to many indigenous cultures like the Plains Cree and the Lakota people.
2. How do you get one?
They were not just handed out willy nilly, you know.They have to be earned and gifted in ceremony. Only the most fearless leaders and warriors traditionally wore them. It is kind of a big deal.
3. Why is it important to First Nations cultures?
Again, because it is a sacred item. You don’t see people running around with yarmulkes or hijabs in colourful mockery trying to be trendy.
As the image of the stoic warrior and sexy Indian maiden became more prevalent in movies, advertising and pop culture, the more tarnished the headdress became. Until something that once symbolized accomplishment and position was merely a chicken feather hat to be worn as a costume, an accessory, a joke.
While we as a people try to regain the respect for the headdress, we must also still wrestle the image away from hipsters, celebrities, sports team owners and costume shops.
Throw away the war paint, use the feathers to stuff pillows and just say no to culture as a costume this Halloween. Your indigenous friends will thank you.
Walmart got taken to task by the blog Jezebel for hawking a “Fat Girl” category of Halloween costumes. The social media firestorm about adults so childishly ridiculing un-skinny women was heartening for those of us who were wondering what is next—a “Diabetes Department?”
A costume that really says ‘HOW! Can you possibly not see the racism here?’ Source: Walmart.com
Walmart was slow to react, much slower than Twitter, but they finally took the “Fat Girl” section down (technically, it redirects to “plus size”) and came up with an appropriate Twitter auto-reply.
Customer: “Congrats on your ‘Fat Girl Costumes’ section. Always keepin it classy, eh @Walmart?”
New Auto-reply: “This never should have been on our site. It is unacceptable, and we apologize.”
Notice the straightforward nature of the apology. No claim of tradition involving ridicule of fat people, especially girls or women, and no claim that those being ridiculed should understand it as an “honor.” No hedging that they didn’t mean to poke fun at females with medical problems that cause the look being ridiculed.
The betting window is open on what they’ll say about the “Native American” costumes. Making an issue of the body type of girls and women is bad, and those involved ought to be ashamed. Does it ever occur to the same people that Indians are neither Pocahottie nor Tonto, and the endless bombardment with stereotypes might be bad for them as well?
Ridicule of fat people is a socially acceptable prejudice that ought not to be accepted. But from Walmart to the antics of the fans at FedEx Field, Indians have caricature put in their non-warpainted faces every day. Sambo and the Frito Bandido were retired years ago, and the Fat Girls insult disappeared instantly.
Chief Wahoo lives on, and the most popular sport in the U.S. tolerates a team name that is a racial slur. Mockery of fat people is not the last socially acceptable prejudice, and a Twitter storm of righteous indignation just proved that. Mockery of American Indians is.
MARYSVILLE, Wash, – As parents arrived at Marysville-Pilchuck High School Tuesday, they shared hugs and their heartache.
Paula Dalcour was one of the hundreds of parents who attended a Tuesday night meeting.
“This is the third city I have lived in where there was a school shooting,” said Dalcour.
The shooting that happened on campus Friday proved painful for Dalcour’s 10th grader.
“My son went to middle school with some of the kids so it is difficult for him,” she said.
Jaylen Fryberg is accused of shooting five classmates and killing two of them before taking his own life. The 15-year-old was a member of the Tulalip tribe.
Tulalip tribe Chairman Herman Williams Sr. admitted it has been difficult to talk about what happened.
“I’m really traumatized by this. I backed away and had my Vice Chairman speak for me,” said Williams. “Now I have to get out and really carry out my duties.”
Williams said he plans to reach out to the families with a connection to the tragedy.
Police are pressing on with their investigation.
“I truly never have been more proud or more heartbroken than this past Friday,” said Marysville Police Chief Rick Smith.
Chief Smith said 125 law enforcement professionals arrived at the shooting scene within minutes.
There were two standing ovations during the meeting, one for first responders and one for teachers.
Parents were able to ask questions and were given a list of tips on how to talk with their kids.
Classes are scheduled to resume at Marysville Pilchuck High on Monday. Superintendent, Dr. Becky Berg, said it will not be business as usual. The school is still examining how to approach the difficult day, but a decision was made to close the cafeteria where the shooting happened.
Brandon Bethers, 20, wears his Marysville Pilchuck High School baseball jersey as he views the growing memorial, Monday, Oct. 27, 2014, at the school in Marysville, Wash. On Friday, Oct. 24, 2014, student Jayson Fryberg opened fire in the school cafeteria, killing a fellow student and injuring others before taking his own life. A third student died Sunday night of her injuries.The school will be closed all week. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
By GENE JOHNSON, The Associated Press
MARYSVILLE, Wash. —Among the balloons and flowers tied to the chain-link fence outside Marysville-Pilchuck High School are these: a white wrestling shoe; a youth football team photo, with one player encased in a red-marker heart; and a candle covered with a plastic cup bearing the name “Jaylen.”
They are all tributes to Jaylen Fryberg, the popular 15-year-old freshman who texted five friends to invite them to lunch Friday and then gunned them down at a table in the school’s cafeteria.
Two girls died in the attack, and three other students — including two of Fryberg’s cousins — were gravely wounded. Fryberg died after shooting himself.
While families or friends of shooting victims sometimes express sympathy or forgiveness for the perpetrators, the notion of a mass shooter being memorialized alongside his victims is unusual, experts say. It speaks to the unique grief this community is feeling, even in a nation where such horrors are becoming ever more common.
“Usually there’s so much anger and frustration and bewilderment in the aftermath, and generally the shooter is not someone who was this loved over time,” said Carolyn Reinach Wolf, a mental health attorney who studies mass shootings. “This is a very different response. Some of that is a credit to the community: People are able to get past the grief of the victims and see that the shooter’s family is grieving and horrified just as much.”
Fryberg, a football player who was named a prince on the school’s homecoming court one week before the killings, was a member of a prominent Tulalip Indian Tribes family. He seemed happy, although he was also upset about a girl, friends said. His Twitter feed was recently full of vague, anguished postings, such as “It won’t last … It’ll never last,” and “I should have listened. … You were right … The whole time you were right.”
On Friday, he pulled out a handgun in the cafeteria and started shooting. The victims were Zoe R. Galasso, 14, who died at the scene; Gia Soriano, 14, who died at a hospital Sunday night; Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, who is in critical condition; and his cousins, Nate Hatch, 14, and Andrew Fryberg, 15.
Andrew Fryberg also remained in critical condition. Hatch, who was shot in the jaw, is the only victim who has shown improvement. He was upgraded to satisfactory condition Monday in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he posted a message of forgiveness on Twitter.
“I love you and I forgive you jaylen rest in peace,” he wrote. A friend confirmed the feed’s authenticity to The Associated Press.
Wolf said she urges parents, teachers and others to look for changes in children that could indicate something is wrong — such as Fryberg’s Twitter postings.
“I’m very big on training people to watch for the change, watch for the red flags,” she said. “Yes, he was popular, but there came a time when something changed. If people are educated to look for those, these are things they can do intervene.”
Dan Gross, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the Marysville shooting fit a pattern: In two-thirds of school shootings nationally, the attacker used a gun from their own home or from a relative. Authorities have confirmed the gun was legally owned by one of Fryberg’s relatives; it’s not clear how he got it.
“There’s a fine line between suicide and school shooting,” Gross said. “We’ve talked to many parents whose kids took their own lives who say to us there were no warning signs. But there’s a risk just by being an adolescent and going through a breakup or other kind of crisis — you have what’s often a fleeting thought of suicide, and access to a weapon that’s at your disposal to make it happen.”
The Snohomish County medical examiner on Monday ruled Fryberg’s death a suicide. There had been some question over whether he might have shot himself accidentally as a teacher tried to intervene, but Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said there was no physical contact between the teacher and the gunman.
At the memorial outside the school Monday, a group of mourners hugged each other tightly at 10:39 a.m. — the minute the shooting was reported Friday. Flowers and signs were zip-tied to a chain-link fence lined with red and white balloons, reflecting the school’s colors. Many referenced the victims and said they would be missed.
“Jaylen where do I begin, you were my brother my best friend love you bro,” read one message scrawled on a balloon.
“Jaylen, I will never forget you and your beautiful smile,” read another.
Rows of plastic cups covered candles for each of the students — Fryberg included.
Washington, DC – On behalf of all Native education stakeholders and Native students, the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) offers its sympathies and is deeply saddened by the tragedy that struck the Marysville-Pilchuck High School and the Tulalip tribes. As the largest Native education organization in the country, please know that thousands of parents, students, and education stakeholders are keeping the Native and non-Native children, parents, and community members in their thoughts and prayers.
The NIEA Board shared its sympathies, by stating:
Our most sincere prayers and condolences are extended to the Marysville-Pilchuck High School and Tulalip tribal community during the recent tragedy that struck countless students and families. As our communities grieve and work to heal, stories of compassion and friendship are already illustrating that out of tragedy, community ties create strength and resolve.
NIEA admires the local bonds between classmates, schools, and tribes. As tragedy struck, we appreciate that local school districts, like the Oak Harbor High School, joined church services and supported the ability of Marysville-Pilchuck High School to become league champions in football. Simple acts of kindness like these, as well as support from local tribal communities, create a solid foundation for unity and healing. NIEA will strengthen our partnerships with local tribes and school districts in the coming weeks to analyze how support services can be enhanced as we all work together to move forward from this pain.
NIEA is firm in our resolve to support parents, teachers, and educators who are steadfast in their service to our diverse students, tribes, and communities. In the spirit of our Ancestors, we are grateful for the many blessings being shared among the families and communities as we stand together to heal those affected. As such, know that NIEA remains steadfast to creating equal access to comprehensive educational opportunities for our Native students, especially after tragedies such as these.
Students support each during MSD community meeting, Sunday, October 26,2014, at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
In the aftermath of the tragic event on October 24, students of Marysville Pilchuck High School gather with friends and family
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
MARYSVILLE – Pictures taken from yesterday’s Marysville School District’s community meeting at Marysville Pilchuck High School show Marysville/Tulalip community’s grief.
Both communities joined together to discuss Friday’s tragic event and begin the healing process.
Speakers included Marysville School District Superintendent Dr. Becky Berg, Dr. Tom Albright, Tulalip Councilwoman Deborah Parker, Tulalip tribal member and MPHS wrestling coach Tony Hatch, Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring, Marysville Chief of Police Rick Smith, Pastor Andrew Munoz of Marysville Grove Church and Shari Lovre.
Following opening remarks from guest speakers students were able to meet separately with their peers and counselors. Mental health counselors and other specialists were on hand during the meeting to offer support to anyone who needed it. Parents were also meet separately to discuss concerns and ask questions.
During the event Tulalip tribal member Tony Hatch addressed the community asking for continued prayers for the families grieving, “We are really damaged right now. We’ve got families all over Tulalip and families all over Marysville who are grieving really hard right now. We can never understand why this may have happened, and we can’t understand that.”
Marysville Police Chief Rick Smith address Marysville-Pilchuck students, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014, during MSD community meeting.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Students support each during MSD community meeting, Sunday, October 26,2014, at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
A “Native American Headdress” is still an option at many Halloween costume shops. (CBC)
