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Adoption, From a Native American Perspective

Feb 07, 2014 Adoption.net

Leland Morrill was estranged from his Navajo lineage for twenty years. Today, as an author, advocate, and speaker, Morrill shares the unique perspective of how adoption is viewed by Native American family and culture, through the eyes of an adult adoptee.

Leland Morrill was born in 1966, on sovereign land, in the Navajo Nation, within the state of Arizona. He was not issued a birth certificate, and does not know the exact date of his birth. His young, unwed mother was his sole caretaker for the first few years of his life, and according to Leland, this wasn’t unusual in Native American culture.

“Marriage is a Christian concept, not Native,” said Morrill. “Many people from my parent’s generation weren’t married. It’s a very matriarchal society. When you’re born, you take on your mother’s last name, you go to your mother’s family, and the women decide whether the men stay around after the children are born. That’s the way it was. ”

When Leland was two years old, his mother suffered a fatal head injury after flipping her car on a bridge in Albuquerque New Mexico. It was September 1968; Leland was two years old.

“My brother and I went to St. Anthony’s orphanage, where they figured out that we were Navajo, and took us back to the reservation to stay with my grandmother. In our culture, once your mother dies, your next caretakers are your aunts and grandmothers. They are considered your mothers,” said Morrill.

Less than a year after being placed in the care of his grandmother, Leland was taken to the Indian Health Services Hospital for a minor burn on his foot. After Leland was treated, he was taken to another hospital in Gallup, New Mexico, where the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided to investigate.

“They saw poor people, Indians. My grandmother was a sheepherder, living on an Indian reservation without electricity,” Morrill said. “My relatives couldn’t speak English, so they said— ‘we don’t know if these people are your relatives or not, so we are going to take you.’”

Leland was immediately removed from his home and placed with an adoptive couple looking for Native American children to foster and adopt. The day after he was adopted, the family moved to Ontario, Canada, severing all ties Leland had to his biological, Native American family.

Not uncommon for the times, before 1978, when Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, a very high number of Indian children were removed from their homes by public and private agencies and placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes or institutions. Leland, who was part of the Amicus Group that went to DC to attend the argument on behalf of Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation in the “Baby Veronica” adoption case, explained that there are new laws and bills being passed currently to help further protect biological families. One bill in particular, the Oklahoma Truth In Adoption Act (HB 1118), urges judges to consider the biological family members first before allowing a child to be placed with non-related adoptive parents by an adoption agency.

“From a human trafficking point of view, I was trafficked,” said Morrill. “Every time they adopted a child, they went to another country. They adopted seven more children when we got to Canada, and then we moved right after that. They separated us from our cultures.”

“They trained us within the Mormon ideology; they thought they were saving us. They thought they were doing the right thing, and from that perspective they were good people. But from a Native American perspective—they were not.”

Leland Morrill returned to his mother’s clan, the Many Goats Clan, for the first time in 1989, to be greeted with open arms by his grandmother and his cousins. “I was a little freaked out, like—wow! this is what I would have been raised like.”

“I tell Native American adoptees like myself—yes, this is what happened to you. You were trafficked. But you have to get past that. Consider yourselves different, because you were forced to assimilate into a different culture. But use that assimilation in your favor—whatever education or opportunities were presented to you that others on the reservation didn’t have, you can come back and use them to help your people.”

For more about Leland’s story, read: Two Worlds: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects

‘Snapshots in time’: Yurok Tribe receives grant for sea level rise research

Will Houston/The Times-Standard

Feb 22, 2014

To aid in the Yurok Tribe’s climate change research on Klamath River wetlands, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the tribe part of a $1.5 million grant this week.

Environmental protection specialist Suzanne Marr — who previously ran the agency’s wetlands program — said the Yurok Tribe’s application came complete with successful research.

”It’s a very competitive program, and not easy to get funded,” Marr said. “The Yurok Tribe has a strong program, and has competed very well over the years.”

Wetlands specialist Bill Patterson of the tribe’s environmental program said the $135,000 award is the fourth two-year grant the tribe has received from the EPA program. Each grant, Patterson said, has funded a variety of wetlands research projects spanning nearly eight years and different regions of the Klamath River.

”What we’re trying to do is expand on the previous data that we’ve had that includes an inventory baseline of wetlands species and water quality parameters,” Patterson said. “This cycle we’re looking at specific species that may be threatened in the face of climate change impacts, in particular sea level rise.”

The research project will collect baseline data on the wildlife and conditions of coastal estuaries near the lower Klamath River, which Patterson said can be useful for future research.

”The inventories are very useful in that they’re snapshots in time,” Patterson said. “For something like sea level rise, if the estuary is going to be 6 feet underwater in 25 years, you can look back at how it was impacting them in 2014.”

Patterson said that while past research with the tribe’s fisheries program and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services has focused on mapping, water quality and restoration efforts in both upper and lower regions of the Klamath, efforts to analyze sea level rise are critical due to its substantial effects on coastal estuaries.

”If you want to talk about the future of climate change, what you’re potentially going to see with sea level rise is increased salinity,” Patterson said. “The saltwater levels rise, and that can significantly change the plant community and the species that rely on that community.”

With wetlands disappearing at an alarming rate, Patterson emphasized the importance of assessing the local wildlife that rely heavily upon the fragile ecosystem.

”It’s a really rare habitat, because it’s in a coastal climate, and is significant to a lot of species,” Patterson said. “People often overlook these areas.”

The Environmental Protection Agency’s current wetlands program coordinator Leana Rosetti said it is important to help tribes and local governments protect and improve their wetland programs. The application period for next year’s grants are still open, she said.

”We encourage folks to develop plans to compete for grants to fund their own wetlands program,” Rosetti said. “The more applicants, the better.”

On the Web: For information on the EPA grant, visit water.epa.gov/grants_funding/wetlands/grantguidelines/index.cfm

Will Houston can be reached at 707-441-0504 or whouston@times-standard.com. Follow him on Twitter.com/Will_S_Houston.

Duluth School Board to vote on Ojibwe language immersion

A kindergarten Ojibwe immersion class, where students spend most of their day learning in the language native to the region, could be an option for a Duluth elementary school next year.

By: Jana Hollingsworth, Duluth News Tribune Feb 24, 2014

A kindergarten Ojibwe immersion class, where students spend most of their day learning in the language native to the region, could be an option for a Duluth elementary school next year.

The Duluth School Board will vote on adding such a program Tuesday.

“It’s a big move,” said Edye Howes, coordinator of the American Indian education program for the Duluth school district. “Historically, the Duluth American Indian community hasn’t had much trust in Duluth public schools. This would be a statement: Look what we’re willing to do to start strengthening and building a relationship.”

Shannon O’Nabigon beats a rhythm on the drum as she and other children sing “Weya Heya,” an Ojibwe counting song, in the Ojibwe Language Nest at the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2009. Teacher Gordon Jourdain is at right. From left are George Petersen, Eleanor Ness and Grace Russell. The Duluth school district will vote Tuesday on whether to add a kindergarten Ojibwe immersion class at one of the district’s elementary schools. (File / News Tribune)

Immersion programs, such as those for Spanish, have grown in popularity nationwide for their ability to develop cognitive skills, especially at a young age. Such programs also help to broaden a student’s worldview and the ability to think from another perspective, Howes said.

For a few years, the Duluth district has partnered with the University of Minnesota Duluth and its Enweyang Ojibwe Language Nest for young children, currently teaching those up to pre-K. Gordon Jourdain teaches that class, which also serves as a lab for students at UMD who plan to teach Ojibwe.

Immersion programs do more in helping with the achievement gap than anything else, Jourdain said.

“They are very successful in the Duluth public school system as a result of being exposed to multiple languages,” he said, noting that he hears from former parents on how past students are doing. “It’s the opportune time for brain development and language acquisition.”

At a recent School Board meeting, Superintendent Bill Gronseth said the program would be a good way to begin improving the American Indian graduation rate.

“Knowing that it’s one of the lowest of the subgroups,” he said, “it would go a long way to improving our future.”

Jourdain, from Ontario, spoke Ojibwe before he spoke English. He also has an Ojibwe-fluent classroom assistant so students can hear regular conversation.

He teaches through a different lens, he said, taking the kids outside to demonstrate words.

“It’s a good way for language development,” he said. “If you’re talking about snow and it’s falling on their nose, they will live what it is; they are living the language. I am not teaching about it.”

While Duluth has not yet proposed a school for the class, plans are for between 15 and 20 students. The district would hire either a licensed teacher who speaks Ojibwe fluently or one who speaks it as a first language. The plan would include an assistant who speaks the language and comes in regularly. The proposed program eventually would consist of one class for each grade, adding one grade per year. For the first year, the cost would be roughly $153,000, with most of the money paying for the cost of the teacher — which already is allocated to the school — and the assistant. The rest would come out of state integration funds.

Aside from time with specialists such as a physical education teacher, the class would be taught entirely in Ojibwe.

Because the Ojibwe language doesn’t include numerals, numbers would be spelled out with words for the subject of math, for example.

Lydia Shinkle sends her daughter to the UMD language nest. She said she’d drive her wherever they place a class if it’s approved, and she knows of other parents who would.

“She is part Native American, and it is important to me that she has that link to her culture,” Shinkle said of her daughter, Natalia. “It’s something you can’t find anywhere else … We’re losing the language every day, and it’s important to preserve it for the next generation so she can teach others around her.”

Finding one teacher won’t be difficult, said William Howes, coordinator of the Duluth school district’s Office of Education Equity. Between UMD and the College of St. Scholastica, and beyond the Twin Ports, many programs are committed to producing licensed Ojibwe teachers, he said. Finding six might not be as easy, but with a staggered approach there would be time, he said.

“Much has been done and has happened to indigenous languages, but they are still alive and viable,” William Howes said.

Places such as federal boarding schools forced generations of American Indians to assimilate to white culture and prevented them from speaking their native languages.

“Everything within Ojibwe culture and tradition is within our language, just like any culture,” William Howes said. “As we begin immersion, we want to begin with the language spoken here first.”

Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe brings in more efficient incubator system

Feb 21, 2014 NWIFC.com

With the influx of chum salmon last fall, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe was able to take twice as many eggs as usual, up to 1.2 million.

In anticipation of the large run, natural resources director Paul McCollum brought in an idea from his time in fisheries in Alaska – a NOPAD incubator, a tower of six 4′ x 4′ x 15” aluminum trays that can accommodate up to 1.5 million eggs.

Little Boston Hatchery technician Jeff Fulton works with a tray of eggs in the new NOPAD incubator system. More photos can be found by clicking on this photo.

“The small tray incubation system, or Heath tray system, we have been using for decades can only hold up to 600,000 eggs in total,” McCollum said. “The NOPAD has only been around since the 1970s and is commonly used in Alaska. One of the NOPAD trays can hold 45 small Heath trays worth of eggs.”

The tribe is maxed out with the old system, McCollum said, so the NOPAD trays will help increase its chum production while using minimal additional water or floor space.

“Most of our chum will go into our raceways, as we’ve always done, but now we’ll have more to put in the net pens, which, in the end, will result in bigger fish at release.

“The survival rate is a little more beneficial with the NOPAD,” he added. “But our main focus is on increasing production for better returns.”

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For more information, contact Paul McCollum, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe natural resources director, at (360) 297-6237 or paulm@pgst.nsn.us; or Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission public information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org.

Chairman Melvin R. Sheldon: NMAI’s Meet Native America Series

Melvin R. Sheldon, Chairman, Board of Directors of the Tulalip Tribes, during the first White House Tribal Nations Conference, November 2009. Washington, D.C.

Dennis Zotigh, ICTMN, 2/22/14

In the interview series Meet Native America, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian invites tribal leaders, cultural figures, and other interesting and accomplished Native individuals to introduce themselves and say a little about their lives and work. Together, their responses illustrate the diversity of the indigenous communities of the Western Hemisphere, as well as their shared concerns, and offer insights beyond what’s in the news to the ideas and experiences of Native peoples today.

Please introduce yourself with your name and title.

Melvin R. Sheldon, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tulalip Tribes.

Where is your nation located?

Tulalip, Washington, is about 35 minutes north of Seattle, next to Interstate 5. The closest city outside the reservation is Marysville, Washington.

Where are your people originally from?

We are the successor of interest to Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and other allied tribes and bands signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. We lived from the mountains down to the salt waters of the Coast Salish Sea.

What is a significant point in history from the Tulalip Tribes that you would like to share?

Recently Northwest tribes remembered the Judge Boldt decision of 1974. This decision recognizing treaty fishing rights redefined and reconnected a way of life for Tulalip people. Our tribal men and women are proud to be salmon fishing people.

How is your national government set up?

We have a constitution and bylaws adopted in 1936. Our governing body is composed of a seven-member Board of Directors. The board is a legislative body that creates laws that govern our reservation.

Is there a functional, traditional entity of leadership in addition to your modern government system?

As in many tribes, our elders have a strong voice in tribal affairs. Their history and traditional values keep us grounded as we move forward and face the challenges of a growing tribe with outside competing values.

How are elected leaders chosen?

Each year board members are elected by popular vote. We have three-year terms on a staggered schedule. Each year at General Council, executive offices are chosen by those present; the chairman, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer are elected on that day for the next year.

How often does the Board of Directors meet?

The Tulalip board meets once a month to conduct official business as mandated by our constitution. We have committee meetings throughout the week as we oversee our business and service needs.

What responsibilities do you have as a leader?

As chairman I preside over monthly meetings and the General Council. Further duties include representing our tribe at meetings of all levels and being principal spokesperson.

How did your life experience prepare you to lead your tribe?

Learning to listen became a major foundation as I entered leadership. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!

Who inspired you as a mentor?

Tulalip has been gifted with great leadership through the years. There are many of our past leaders who left behind a legacy, and they have become mentor examples. I thank them and raise my hands to our past leaders.

Approximately how many members are in the Tulalip Tribes?

Today we have just over 4,300 tribal members.

What are the criteria to become a member of Tulalip?

We have a residency requirement for membership.

Is your language still spoken on your homelands? If so, what percentage of your people would you estimate are fluent speakers?

Our language, Lushootseed, was almost lost, but through several key elders and tribal support we were able to revive our language. Today we teach our young ones Lushootseed.

What economic enterprises do the Tulalip Tribes own?

Tulalip Tribes were only the second Indian nation to establish a federally recognized city, Quil Ceda Village. Our business park and municipality form a bustling, growing commercial center. At the center is the Tulalip Resort Casino (TRC), with a hotel and conference center. Further tribal businesses include two gas stations, two liquor/cigarette stores, and Tulalip Data Service/Cablevision operation. Tulalip—which includes the tribal government, Quil Ceda Village, and the TRC—directly employs 4,500 team members.

To read the full interview, visit the NMAI series here.

Cedarville Shooter Was Under FBI Probe Over Missing $50,000 in Federal Tribal Grants

FacebookCherie Lash Rhoades, 44, who allegedly gunned down three relatives and a tribal administrator at Cedarville Rancheria tribal headquarters near Alturas, California, on February 20. — Facebook
Cherie Lash Rhoades, 44, who allegedly gunned down three relatives and a tribal administrator at Cedarville Rancheria tribal headquarters near Alturas, California, on February 20.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Shooter Cherie Lash Rhoades was being investigated by the FBI for over $50,000 in missing grant money meant for the Cedarville Rancheria Tribe when she gunned down her brother, niece, nephew and a tribal administrator, the Associated Press reported on February 21.

The 35-member federally recognized tribe in the northeastern corner of California, right near the Oregon and Nevada borders, has been devastated by the shooting during an eviction hearing in which Rhoades allegedly pulled out a gun and began “systematically shooting individuals,” Alturas police chief Ken Barnes told theNew York Daily News. Five people fell to her bullets, four of them dying. Running out of ammunition, Rhoades grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and began stabbing a sixth person, police and witnesses said. She was apprehended outside the building, clutching the knife, after a blood-covered witness ran down the block and summoned police.

Rhoades had recently been ousted as the tribal council chairwoman, and the hearing was under way to evict her and her 24-year-old son from tribal lands, according to accounts. At the hearing she killed her brother, 50-year-old Rurik Daniel Davis, who the current tribal leader; her niece, 19-year-old Angel Moonstar Penn; and her nephew, 30-year-old Glenn Philip Calonicco, Modoc County police said in a statement on Friday February 21.

Also shot dead was Shelia Lynn Russo, 47, a tribal administrator who oversaw evictions. Her mother, Linda Stubblefield, told the AP that Russo had mentioned being concerned about the potential for violence in her line of work. Russo was the mother of two teenagers.

The two wounded women were sisters and were flown to hospitals in Redding. Police told the AP that one was critically injured and the other was awake and talking to investigators.

The tribe’s leadership has been decimated, the town’s mayor said.

“They pretty much lost their leadership yesterday,” Alturas Mayor John Dederick told theLos Angeles Times.

The shots reverberated all the way to Washington, D.C., where the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) issued a statement of condolence and support.

“A great sorrow stretches across Indian Country for the heartbreaking tragedy in the Cedarville Rancheria community,” said NCAI President Brian Cladoosby. “I know that the country is joining us in prayer for the victims, their families, and the tribe as they gather their strength to walk together during this time.”

The NCAI also noted the frequency of gun rampages of late.

“Tragedies like this know no boundaries of ethnicity, government, or religion and they are happening far too frequently,” the NCAI said. “Our hearts are heavy as we lift up the families affected by this senseless act of violence.”

Alturas Police Chief Ken Barnes told the Associated Press that young children had been inside the building and on the property, which is in a residential area, during the shooting.

Rhoades was charged on suspicion of homicide, attempted murder, child endangerment and brandishing a weapon, the AP said. She was moved to “an undisclosed location” because Russo’s husband works at the county jail.

“This is like nothing I have had to deal with in my 25 years of being with the city of Alturas,” Barnes told theDaily News. “It’s just tragic.”

Steve Madison, Pacific Northwest Native Design at Hibulb, Feb 22

Steve Madison will be at the Hibulb Cultural Center on Saturday, February 22, at 1 p.m. for our Culture Series event. He will demonstrate Pacific Northwest Native Design.

Cedarville Rancheria Shooter Killed Brother, Niece, Nephew: Police

Cedarville Rancheria/FacebookCedarville Rancheria Tribal Office building before former chairwoman Sherie Lash, also known as Sherie Rhoades, opened fire and killed three relatives plus another woman on February 20. — Cedarville Rancheria/Facebook
Cedarville Rancheria Tribal Office building before former chairwoman Sherie Lash, also known as Sherie Rhoades, opened fire and killed three relatives plus another woman on February 20.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network, 2/21/14

Police are still processing what they called a horrific crime scene at Cedarville Rancheria tribal headquarters near Altura, California, after 44-year-old Sherie Rhoades gunned down her brother, niece and nephew at an eviction hearing.

Four people in all were killed, including the tribal leader, Rhoades’s brother, the Associated Press Reported. Two were critically wounded.

Altura police identified the deceased as Angel Moonstar Penn, 19; Glenn Phillip Calonico, 30; Shelia Lynn Russo, 47, and Rurik Daniel Davis, 50. Russo was not related to Rhoades, AP said.

The two wounded survivors were sisters, the Los Angeles Times reported, and they were flown to hospitals in Redding, about 130 miles away. Altura police said in an e-mailed statement that “as of this morning, one victim was still listed in critical condition and the second was alert and talking.”

Rhoades was taken into custody.

“There are no public safety concerns and we have no information indicating there was any other suspects involved at this time,” the police statement said. “Rhoades was being held at the Modoc County Jail on charges of homicide, attempted murder, child endangerment and brandishing a weapon. She has been moved to an undisclosed facility, for her safety.”

Nearby Alturas Indian Rancheria closed their tribal headquarters on Friday out of respect after the Thursday February 20 shooting.

The carnage began at about 3:30 p.m., according to police and witness accounts, when former tribal chairwoman Sherie Lash, also known as Sherie Rhoades, pulled out a 9-millimeter shotgun during a hearing about the potential eviction of her and her son from tribal lands.

A judge who had been remotely attending the hearing via phone could only listen, KTXL-TV reported.

A witness escaped from the offices and ran down the street, covered in blood, to summon police, KRCR-TV reported. When officers arrived they found the 44-year-old Rhoades outside the building, clutching the butcher knife she had grabbed from the kitchen when she ran out of ammunition.

Police said the investigation is ongoing and that the investigators from the California Department of Justice and the California Highway Patrol Multi-Disciplinary Accident Investigation Team are helping local police process the crime scene. The victims were scheduled to be autopsied on Friday, according to News-10.

“We’re trying to get this thing resolved as quick as possible,” Alturas Police Chief Ken Barnes told News10-TV. “So it’s, it’s a huge impact on our community.”

For Abused Native American Women, New Law Provides A ‘Ray Of Hope’

Deborah Parker, vice chair of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington state, reacts to President Barack Obama signing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013 in Washington.Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP — Deborah Parker, vice chair of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington state, reacts to President Barack Obama signing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013 in Washington.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

By Hansi Lo Wang, from NPR All Things Considered show

This Thursday, three Native American tribes are changing how they administer justice.

For almost four decades, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling has barred tribes from prosecuting non-American Indian defendants. But as part of last year’s re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a new program now allows tribes to try some non-Indian defendants in domestic abuse cases.

It will be another year before the program expands to other eligible federally-recognized tribes around the country in March 2015. But the Department of Justice has selected three tribes to exercise this authority first, including the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, and the Tulalip Tribes, located north of Seattle.

‘Going To War’

Deborah Parker serves as the Tulalip Tribes’ vice chair. For three years, she flew back and forth between Washington state and Washington, D.C., giving speeches and knocking on doors — an experience that she says felt like “going to war.”

“You got to go to battle,” Parker says, “and you have to convince a lot of people that native women are worth protecting,”

And that protection, Parker was convinced, had to come from Congress. So she pushed for legislation allowing American Indian tribes to prosecute non-Indian defendants in domestic violence cases.

About four out of every ten women of American Indian or Alaskan Native descent have “experienced rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s an alarming statistic that Parker knows all too well from growing up on the reservation.

“We didn’t have a strong police presence when I was younger. Even [if you called] the police, often they didn’t respond,” she says. “When they did, they would say, ‘Oh, it’s not our jurisdiction, sorry.’ [And] prosecutors wouldn’t show up.”

A Question Of Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is the key word in this discussion.

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that tribal governments have no jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Native Americans on tribal land.

Instead, tribes have to rely on federal prosecutors to take on such cases, and prosecutors have not always been able or willing to consistently pursue reports of domestic violence.

Deborah Parker and other advocates pushed to address this issue — and some lawmakers in Congress pushed back.

One of the most vocal opponents of the new program was Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa. He voiced his concerns about the constitutionality of the program during a Senate debate last February, weeks before the Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized.

“The key stumbling block to enacting a bill at this time is the provision concerning Indian tribal courts,” Grassley said, referring to a provision that allows American Indian tribal courts to have jurisdiction over non-Indians accused of domestic violence.

Stepping Towards A Solution

But Fred Urbina, chief prosecutor for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, says the provision that passed is fairly complicated and narrow. “This basically helped it pass through Congress and get approval, so everybody’s describing this as a first step,” he says.

The “special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction” program is limited to certain domestic violence cases involving non-Native American defendants who are in existing relationships with Native Americans and living or working on the reservation. In Alaska, it only applies to the Metlakatla Indian Community of Annette Islands Reserve.

Still, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe’s Attorney General Amanda Sampson Lomayesva says the program will offer a new route for justice.

“It is a ray of hope,” she says “Maybe we can start protecting people and having the tribal members who live here on the reservation feel like something will be done.”

Brent Leonhard, an attorney for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, also sees the program as a partial solution to “a mess created both by a Supreme Court decision and by federal law and policy.”

“This is a step towards trying to improve that,” he says.

Parker acknowledges that the program “doesn’t answer all the questions” about how tribal governments can play a more direct role in addressing crime by non-Native Americans.

“But it allows us to exert jurisdiction and arrest those who violate protection orders [and commit] dating violence [or] domestic violence,” says Parker, who adds that she hopes the program will give a stronger voice to more Native American women

Shooting at Cedarville Rancheria Tribal Office Leaves 4 Dead, 2 Critically Injured

KRCR-TVScene of the fatal shooting of four people at the Cedarville Rancheria Tribal Office and Community Center outside Altura, California on February 20.Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/21/shooting-cedarville-rancheria-tribal-office-leaves-4-dead-2-critically-injured-153670 — KRCR-TV
Scene of the fatal shooting of four people at the Cedarville Rancheria Tribal Office and Community Center outside Altura, California on February 20.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/21/shooting-cedarville-rancheria-tribal-office-leaves-4-dead-2-critically-injured-153670

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network, 2/21/14

Four people are dead, two are critically injured and a woman is in custody after a shooting at the Cedarville Rancheria Tribal Office and Community Center in Alturas, California.

Police say the 44-year-old woman, known as Sherie Lash, or as Sherie Rhoades, opened fire during an eviction hearing at about 3:30 p.m. Pacific time on February 20, Reuters reported. Two women, aged 19 and 45, and two men, 30 and 50, died, and two others were airlifted to hospitals in critical condition. Police told ABC affiliate KRCR-TV that one of the deceased was the current tribal leader.

Rhoades, a former chairwoman of the 35-member federally recognized tribe, was attending a hearing about her potential eviction from tribal lands, the Redding, California, Record Searchlight reported. After shooting the five people, Rhoades allegedly went after a sixth with a butcher knife, police said.

Cedarville is about 15 miles east of Alturas, in northeastern California near the Oregon border.

Check back for updates from ICTMN.