A man wanted in connection with the slaying of his grandparents is an “extreme danger” to police and the public, King County sheriff’s detectives say.
By Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times
A man wanted in connection with the slaying of his elderly grandparents may be seeking to buy firearms, and represents an “extreme danger” to the public and police, the King County Sheriff’s Office said late Sunday.
Less than two days after Michael Chad L. Boysen completed a nine-month prison sentence at Monroe Correctional Complex, his grandparents were found dead in their Renton-area home. A warrant has been issued for his arrest in connection with the killings.
Detectives also said Boysen was conducting online searches of gun shows across the Pacific Northwest and Nevada just before or after his grandparents were slain.
A judge issued the warrant for the 26-year-old Sunday after investigators with the Sheriff’s Office said he was wanted for questioning in connection with the slayings of his 82-year-old grandfather and 80-year-old grandmother.
The couple were slain on Friday night or Saturday morning, detectives said.
A statewide alert for the couple’s missing car, a red 2001 Chrysler 300 with license plate 046-XXU, also has been issued, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Detectives urged anyone who spots the vehicle, or Boysen, to call 911 immediately. He is white, 5 feet 10 and 170 pounds, and has hazel eyes.
Boysen served time for a 2012 conviction for attempted residential burglary, according to the state Department of Corrections (DOC). He was released Friday, said DOC spokesman Chad Lewis, who noted Boysen had reported to his community corrections officer in Kent later that same day.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Cindi West said the victims’ bodies were discovered Saturday.
The couple had not been heard from since Friday, and a concerned relative went to their home in the 16200 block of 145th Avenue Southeast and knocked repeatedly on the door but received no answer, West said.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released the victims’ names, and investigators have not said how or when the couple were killed, other than to say the deaths were being investigated as homicides.
West declined to divulge the contents of the warrant against Boysen.
According to documents filed in King County Superior Court, Boysen has a criminal history that spans a half-decade and includes convictions for first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery and trafficking in stolen property.
His 2012 conviction stemmed from an incident in which he tried to break into an occupied home in Kent, according to court documents.
He also pleaded guilty to a series of robberies in 2006 after his mother called police to report she had found empty prescription bottles and a demand note.
According to court documents, he and a friend ultimately admitted to robbing several pharmacies and a grocery store in Kent to feed their addictions to the narcotic OxyContin.
In 2006, a prosecutor asked that his bail be raised from $5,000 to $50,000, saying Boysen posed a danger to the community and “the danger he presents is escalating,” charging documents show.
Lewis said Boysen had been labeled a high risk to reoffend.
Photo by ERIKA SCHULTZ / The Seattle Times The tsunami flotsam is part of a broader array of marine debris, such as crab floats and plastics that ends up the Northwest coast. John Anderson, who lives near Forks, retrieves a plastic jug that has a label with Chinese writing.
As Japan notes the second anniversary of a powerful earthquake, flotsam that has made a trans-Pacific journey continues to wash up on U.S. and Canadian coasts, and federal officials predict this debris will continue to sporadically pulse on to beaches for years to come.
By Hal Bernton, Seattle Times
FORKS —From a distance, John Anderson thought he had spotted another plastic float, like the hundreds he has gathered since debris from the Japanese tsunami began washing ashore along the Northwest coast.
He got closer, reaching behind a log last spring to discover one of the most memorable finds in three decades of beachcombing: a volleyball covered with inked Japanese inscriptions. Some of the writing, faded by the sun, was illegible. Other characters, once Anderson scraped away barnacles, were surprisingly clear.
“This was a shocker,” said Anderson. “I wondered whose ball it was, and whether they were still alive.”
Two years ago — on March 11, 2011 — a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a powerful tsunami that killed nearly 19,000 people as it transformed large swaths of coastal communities into giant debris fields.
Survivors’ cellphone videos captured the terrifying movements of the ocean as dark raging waters — filled with boats, houses and cars — pushed onshore. Here in the Pacific Northwest, those images also were powerful reminders of the tsunamis that have struck our coasts in centuries past and are predicted to hit again.
As the second anniversary of the quake arrives, large areas of shoreline in Japan have been largely cleared of rubble, yet flotsam that has made a trans-Pacific journey continues to wash up on U.S. and Canadian coasts, and federal officials predict this debris will continue to sporadically pulse on to beaches for years to come.
So far, only 21 items have been definitively declared tsunami debris by U.S. and Canadian officials who — with the help of the Japanese consulates — have been able to identify owners.
They include a motorcycle, a plastic tote and a 65-foot-long stretch of dock from the city of Misawa that lodged along a remote stretch of Olympic Peninsula shoreline in December. In the coming weeks, that dock will be cut up and hauled away by helicopter in a $628,000 salvage effort largely financed by the Japanese government.
“We don’t like to leave a mess,” said Tomoko Dodo, acting consulate general in Seattle for Japan, which has donated $5 million to debris cleanup in the United States and another $1 million in Canada. “(U.S. officials) say it is not our fault, and we agree with them … I think that it is a goodwill gesture. We want to show the United States our gratitude for the support we received from your country during the tsunami.”
Remnants returned
A handful of items have been returned to Japan in the past year for longshot reunions with owners. A yellow buoy retrieved in Alaska was emblazoned with a large Japanese character, Kei, and traced to Sakiki Miura, a widow who had used the float as part of a sign for a restaurant destroyed in the tsunami.
Last June, Miura was overjoyed to regain the buoy, and decided to reopen the restaurant.
“Kei-Chan has returned,” she tearfully declared, according to a report published in The Asahi Shimbun.
Anderson, of the Forks area, is planning to return to Japan this summer with filmmakers producing a tsunami documentary entitled “Lost & Found,” and hopes to reunite the volleyball with its owner.
So far, a translator’s review of the inscriptions found a few partial names, and well-wishes that make it appear the volleyball was a farewell gift, possibly to a graduating student, from other team members.
“I’m sure you will have a great life,” said one inscription.
“I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your new endeavor,” said another.
But so far, no owner has been identified.
“There have got to be other teams that they played that would recognize those names from somewhere that didn’t get wiped out — you would think so,” Anderson said.
Two Washington kayakers who surveyed the coast last summer found a soccer ball with an inscription that was traced to a team in a town on the northeast coast.
During one of their survey trips, they also came upon an eerie scene: a pile of house timbers that contained a child’s potty, a bottle of cough syrup, a laundry hamper and a piece of a washing machine.
“It was one of those slowly developing things. We realized, we were in someone’s bathroom … in someone else’s house, “ recalls Ken Campbell, a kayaker who has produced a documentary about the their surveys, which is called The Roadless Coast.
Federal and state officials caution that it is difficult — and often impossible — to figure out just what debris came from the tsunami, and what is part of the broader stew of plastics and other items carried by Pacific currents toward the Northwest coast, where some blows ashore and the rest head in gyres that loop south along the West Coast and north up to Alaska.
Impressive display
For Anderson, through decades of beachcombing, the ocean’s marine debris has yielded plenty of treasures, which have been put on impressive display at his homestead just outside Forks.
In his front yard, a towering beachcomber’s monument made up of thousands of floats rises like some kind of maritime totem pole. In an upstairs loft, his museum includes Saki bottles thrown out of ships, Nike shoes and thousands of other items.
All this on the beach has given Anderson a keen sense of the yearly ebbs and flows of marine debris. Within the past 18 months, the pace of his beachcombing finds has picked up dramatically, with many items that appear likely to have come from Japan.
Last week on stroll along Second Beach near La Push, Clallam County, Anderson’s found a chunk of what once appeared to be a dock, house beams with the notches typical of Japanese construction, a black float of the type used by Japanese oyster farms and bottles bearing Japanese markings.
Trapped within the driftwood, Anderson found hunks, pellets and slivers of blue, yellow and white foam insulation, which were among the first objects to arrive more than a year ago and continue to show up on the beaches.
“I’ve seen pockets of Styrofoam packed 2 feet deep,” Anderson said. “Before the tsunami, I never saw anything like that”
“Certainly, the change in foam has been notable in many areas,” said Peter Murphy, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official who is helping monitor marine debris. “And it does pose a cleanup challenge.”
The insulated foam, as it breaks up into small beads, can be ingested by birds and other creatures. Concerns about foam pollution have prompted National Park and Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary officials to opt for the salvage of the Misawa dock that came ashore in December. Buffeted by rocks and surf, it is no longer seaworthy so it can’t be towed off the beach, and that prompted the decision to launch the helicopter airlift.
“Most of the mass is foam, enough to fill about 20 large dump trucks, and it is a significant risk to the intertidal area,” said Rainey McKenna, a spokeswoman for the Olympic National Park.
This Olympic Peninsula dock is one of four identical pieces that the tsunami tore away from Misawa. One went inland, while a second has been seen off Hawaii. A third piece washed ashore in Oregon, where a chunk has been preserved in an interpretive exhibit that will help educate people about what happened in Japan, and what could happen here.
In Washington state, kayaker Campbell and his survey colleague Steve Weileman also are trying to spread the world about the tsunami and other marine debris. They formed an organization called The Ikkatsu Project, which they hope can help fund future survey expeditions.
“Ikkatsu is a Japanese word that means ‘all together as one,’ ” Weileman said. “What happens on that side of the Pacific will one day happen on this side.”
A U.S. Navy Prowler warplane on a training mission crashed near Harrington, Wash., about 9 a.m. today. The plane crashed just off Coffee Pot Road about 10 miles outside of Harrington, said Scott McGowan, fire chief for Lincoln County Fire District No. 6. Stan Dammel, manager of the Odessa Municipal Airport, flew over the crash site and took this photo.
By Greg Rasa, Seattle Times
All three crew members on a Navy jet based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island were killed this morning when their aircraft crashed in Eastern Washington’s Lincoln County, Navy officials have confirmed.
The crew’s names will not be released until 24 hours after their families have been informed, said Lt. Aaron Kakiel in San Diego.
The crew was flying an EA-6B Prowler jet assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron VAQ-129. It crashed about 9 a.m. into a field in an unpopulated area near the town of Harrington, about 50 miles west of Spokane.
A spokesman for the Whidbey base confirmed that the crashed jet was based there. Whidbey is home to EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft. P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft and EP-3E Aries reconnaissance aircraft are also based there.
The Spokane Spokesman-Review reported that a pair of Navy jets were operating in the area, according to Magers. The other plane reported the crash and then returned to base because it was low on fuel, he said.
The Grumman EA-6B Prowler. (Naval Air Systems Command photo)
Stan Dammel, manager of the Odessa Municipal Airport, told the Spokane paper he flew over the crash site and photographed it.
“It looked like an ink spot down there,” Dammel said
The type of electronic-warfare plane that crashed today had been involved in crashes in the past. Among them:
In 2006, after an EA-6B Prowler from the Whidbey Island base crashed near Pendleton, Oregon, the Navy ordered a half-day grounding for all its aircraft for an internal safety review, according to The Associated Press. In 1992 and again in 2001, crews parachuted to safety when their Prowlers crashed on the Olympic Peninsula. In 1998, three crewmen were lost overboard when a Prowler crashed into another jet on the deck of the USS Enterprise. Four died in a 1996 crash near Yuma, Ariz., and three died in 1992 near El Centro, Calif.
In 1993, an A-6E Intruder, the plane the EA-6B is based on, collided with a crop duster over the Palouse near Diamond, Whitman County. The pilot of the crop duster was critically injured, and the Navy crew parachuted to safety.
And in 1998, the Marine pilot of a EA-6B Prowler severed a ski-gondola cable near Cavalese, Italy, sending the 20 people aboard the gondola on 350-foot plunge to their deaths.
The EA-6B Prowler was first stationed at Whidbey Island in 1971 and deployed to Vietnam in 1972.
Diane Millich (Southern Ute Indian Tribe) (second to left) and Deborah Parker (Tulalip Tribe) (third to left) joined President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, members of the administration and Congress, women’s rights advocates, and domestic abuse survivors for the signing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization on March 7. Courtesy National Congress of American Indians
By Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network
During the March 7 signing ceremony in the offices of the United States Department of the Interior of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Vice President Joe Biden had a difficult time remembering all of the many advocates and legislators he wanted to highlight and thank for their hard work on making the enhanced law a reality.
Similarly, it is difficult to single out all of the Native American women warriors who worked overtime to make the tribal provisions of the new law come to life.
There were tribal leaders like Terri Henry, Deborah Parker, and Fawn Sharp. There were lobbyists like Holly Cook Macarro, Kim Teehee, and Aurene Martin. National Indian organization leaders like Jackie Johnson Pata, Juana Majel Dixon, and the crew at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) led conference calls, action alerts, and legislative visits. There were advocates on the ground including Pamela Dalton Stearns, Theresa Sheldon, Jax Agtuca, and countless other Indian grassroots activists. And there were the male crusaders, too, like Wilson Pipestem, David Bean, Ernie Stevens, and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.).
“I felt elated,” said Henry, a tribal council member with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, in summing up the day. “I’m incredibly happy and proud of our team of strong hearts—Native women and Native nations. I am humbled and honored that our collective effort to obtain this slice of justice was supported in so many ways by Native people across America.”
“It’s a miracle of such strength,” Dixon, secretary of NCAI and a Pauma tribal citizen, reflected in a YouTube video posted on the day of the signing by the U.S. Department of the Interior. “When we see the first case go through with the protections in order and our Native women protected … that’s going to be a breath of freedom, a breath of certainty that we can protect our people.”
All of them worked together for years for the greater good of Indian country as a whole—trying desperately not to allow tribal divisions on other issues get in the way (although Alaska Native women and families did lose out in the end due to a compromise pushed by their state’s legislators who fear expanding tribal jurisdiction in the “last frontier” state—a front that tribal women, including Johnson Pata, have said they plan to take on in the coming weeks).
Cole and his colleague, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), were told many times throughout the ups and downs of the legislative process in the House that Indian country would not compromise on the inherent tribal court jurisdiction provision, first offered in the Senate version of the bill; nor did tribal leaders want the removal process to federal courts to be overly simple, as that outcome would have treated tribal courts as lesser judicial bodies. In the end, the House on February 28 passed the Senate’s version of the bill that tribal advocates had been pushing all along—inherent tribal authority and a strict removal process intact.
The strong voices of female tribal advocates played a major role in the process, with some of them, like Parker, going so far as to share their own personal tales of familial abuse to help sway legislators’ minds. They were stories that drew national media attention, and they led at least one congressman, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), to change his mind to end up supporting the tribal VAWA.
Indian women also got the attention of the White House early on, and they secured the Obama administration’s unwavering support, with the Justice Department directly rebutting Republican legislators who argued that the tribal provisions were unconstitutional.
At the president’s signing ceremony, Diane Millich, a citizen of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, was invited to introduce Biden, and to share her personal story of marrying a non-Indian man when she was 26 who ended up assaulting her soon after he moved in with her on her reservation.
“After a year of abuse and more than 100 incidents of being slapped, kicked, punched, and living in horrific terror, I left for good,” Millich told the audience. When she asked the tribal police for help, they could do nothing due to legal restrictions that said the tribe could not prosecute her husband because he was non-Indian. “If the bill being signed today were law when I was married, it would have allowed my tribe to arrest and prosecute my abuser,” she said to applause.
Many of the non-Indian advocates who gathered at the Department of the Interior headquarters to witness President Barack Obama sign into law the VAWA probably didn’t really understand how much the law alters the playing field for tribes by recognizing their “inherent” sovereign power to have jurisdiction over their lands—still, they cheered loudly all the same, largely because they got what they wanted in VAWA, and because the overall basic message was simple: All women and families, regardless of skin color, should be able to live without the fear of domestic violence and abuse. If increased tribal court authority over non-Indians could make that happen for Native women, the non-Indian advocates were on board.
Obama seemed to understand, singling out the Native provisions and the people who supported them: “Tribal governments have an inherent right to protect their people, and all women deserve the right to live free from fear,” he said. “And that is what today is all about.”
The president also noted that Indian country has some of the highest rates of domestic abuse in the country. “And one of the reasons is that when Native American women are abused on tribal lands by an attacker who is not Native American, the attacker is immune from prosecution by tribal courts. Well, as soon as I sign this bill that ends,” he said to major applause.
The president’s speech was televised, and if one looked closely, Indian women were well represented in the audience of his speech, and some like Parker and Millich made it onto the stage to shake his hand and to show their pride as he signed the bill into law.
Although the overall signing event was a celebration, it was also difficult because the tribal legislation of the hour wouldn’t be needed if Indian women weren’t getting abused at such alarmingly high rates. Aurene Martin, a citizen of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and founder of Spirit Rock Consulting, touched on that point, saying it was a “bittersweet” victory. “I was sad, because of all the women who had to suffer to make the amendments to VAWA necessary,” Martin said. “I cried during Diane Millich’s speech because of how terrified she must have been in her own home and on her own reservation, among her own people.”
At the same time, Martin was “proud and elated because of the awesome, unified effort made by all of Indian country to support the changes to VAWA.”
Many of these women warriors are now being honored in their communities, as well as via phone calls and social network messages. During the VAWA signing week, some of them were honored at the National Indian Women Honoring Luncheon, organized by Washington, D.C. tribal advocates who wanted to support them and to encourage their future successes.
Cook Macarro, a Red Lake Ojibwe citizen and lobbyist with Ietan Consulting, was one of those honored. In all, the VAWA experience was overwhelming for her—and she’s no novice, having been through her share of legislative battles. “To stand with so many Native women warriors and watch President Obama sign the VAWA into law was one of the proudest moments of my career,” she shared. “As my tears flowed, I thought of the women back home in Red Lake, working and staying at Equay Wiigamig (Women’s Shelter), and of the many other Native women who will now be protected and have access to resources because of this effort. For so many reasons, this was the sweetest of victories.”
Cook Macarro also shared a message for the abusers who made this law necessary: “To every non-Indian perpetrator of domestic violence or sexual assault on an Indian woman on Indian lands who went unprosecuted—take that!” she exclaimed. “You provided us with the story and legislative opportunity to touch the minds and hearts of Democrats and Republicans alike on the Hill and restore partial criminal jurisdiction to tribes for the first time since 1978.”
MARYSVILLE — Unless it’s raining hard, the Highway 529 bridge into Marysville is set to close tonight and is scheduled to remain closed through the weekend.
People who drive the bridge over Ebey Slough will have to choose a different route from 8 tonight through 5 a.m. Monday. The weekend detour uses Fourth Street in Marysville and I-5. Bicyclists and pedestrians can be escorted through the closure if needed.
For the past year, demolition crews have used half of the new bridge as a staging area to rip down the old Ebey Slough bridge.
With the removal of the old bridge, drivers will finally be able to use all of the new, wider bridge after this last bit of work.
State Department of Transportation crews plan to remove the concrete barrier between drivers and the demolition staging area. Once the barrier is gone, the roadway will be striped for traffic in each direction. The bridge will reopen by Monday with four lanes for vehicle traffic and bike lanes on each side.
Transportation engineer Mark Sawyer anticipates that it will be a big change for drivers who use the bridge to commute and ease traffic during the evening commute from Everett.
When the weather improves in May, a final layer of asphalt will be applied.
The state built the new bridge to replace the 85-year-old Ebey Slough bridge.
Colville Confederated Tribes Chairman John Sirois, center (holding award plaque), and previous Watershed Hero Award recipient Mary Verner pose with tribal members at Sierra Club award dinner. Colville received the 2013 Watershed Hero Award from the Sierra Club’s Washington chapter. Photo: Jack McNeel.
By Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network
The Colville Confederated Tribes’ successful effort to hold a British Columbia smelter accountable for dumping pollutants into the Columbia River for a century has caught the attention of the Sierra Club Washington State’s Upper Columbia River Group, which bestowed its 2013 Watershed Hero Award on the tribes.
Colville won a major victory in 2012 when the company, known today as Teck Metals Ltd. (formerly Teck/Cominco), admitted in court to depositing millions of tons of toxic substances into the river, which flows into Lake Roose-velt. Pollutants included 250,000 tons of zinc and lead, as well as 132,000 tons of other hazardous substances such as more than 200 tons of mercury, cadmium and arsenic.
The tribes, having pressed their case for two decades, also made legal history when the court struck down the notion that a foreign company could not be held liable under U.S. law. The victory was marked in high style on February 23 when Sierra Club leaders, including John Osburn, co-chair for Sierra Club’s Upper Columbia River group, joined tribal members in Spokane, Washington, for the presentation of its Water-shed Heroes honor at an awards dinner.
“Watershed Heroes are people who act out of love and respect for nature,” said Mary Verner, former director of Upper Columbia United Tribes and the former mayor of Spokane, who won the award last year and presented it this year.
“We’re very grateful for all the sacrifices you have made,” Verner said in introducing Colville Tribes chairman John Sirois and recognizing others from the tribes who had played major roles in the process.
“I’m grateful you relayed the history,” Sirois said. “I’m grateful for you honoring all the work of the past councils that really put in the time and effort. We have such a great legal team. There are countless people who played a role in this. It’s really a validation of who we are as a people. All along the river, those places are named after our people and where we come from: Okanogan, Chelan, Methow, Eniat, San Poil, Lakes, that is who we are. That is where our people are buried. That is where we’re born.”
Between 1896 and 1995, Teck’s smelter dumped 400 tons of waste a day—derived from the smelting process—into the Columbia River. The smelter is about 10 miles north of the U.S. border.
“It comes as no surprise that after being dumped into the Columbia River, all this toxic material flows downstream. The company tried to deny that,” Verner said. “Some of the most ridiculous arguments one has ever heard from a corporate entity have been raised by Teck/Cominco, now known as Teck Metals Ltd. The Colvilles weren’t having it.”
In the 1990s the tribes asked Canada to tell Teck to stop polluting the river, but Teck did not comply. The U.S. made similar attempts to stop the company but met with the same lack of results. In 2003 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified Lake Roosevelt as a Superfund site and entered into an agreement with Teck to study the problem, making it clear that Teck would not be held responsible for the cleanup. But Teck found that unacceptable.
“In 2004 the tribes decided they could not wait any longer, and they filed a suit,” Verner said. Washington State eventually joined the tribes.
“To say the case of Pakootas v. Teck/Cominco is a landmark case would certainly be an understatement,” Verner said. “What a complex case it was! It has required navigating some incredible intricacies of the law, not even counting the science and politics.”
The tribes also got the court to overrule Teck’s argument that a company in another country cannot deliberately pollute U.S. waters and is not covered by U.S. law.
“The question is not where the polluter is located, but where the pollution is located,” Verner said. “It makes absolute sense, but the Colvilles had to fight for that outcome.”
Last April the court ruled that Teck could not escape liability. In September, Teck admitted it had knowingly and deliberately discharged 10 million tons of slag and toxic pollution into the Columbia. And in late 2012 a federal judge ruled that Teck qualifies as a polluter under the Superfund law.
“Heroes are tenacious,” Verner said of the tribes. “But it’s not over. Teck has appealed the ruling. They are trying to take this to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
As long as the bulk of the pollutants remain in the river or wash up on black beaches, the Colville Tribes will continue the battle. “Our future is about the water, all of us,” said Sirois. “We’re all in this fight together, to protect our environment, to protect our resources.”
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/03/06/watershed-heroes-colville-confederated-tribes-win-sierra-club-award-battling-british
President Barack Obama this morning signed into law the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act that includes tribal provisions.
“Previously, tribes had no jurisdiction over non-tribal members, even if they are married to Native women or reside on native lands. But as soon as I sign this bill, that ends,” Obama said before the signing.
“This is a landmark bill not only for all women and our future generations but also for Indian tribes. This law, for the first time since 1978, restores the sovereign power of Indian tribes to criminally prosecute non-Indians for sexual assault and domestic violence crimes on Indian reservations,” a statement released by The Seattle Human Rights Commission said.
The signing took place at a ceremony at the Interior Department and included longtime VAWA advocate and vice-chair of the Tulalip Tribes Deborah Parker along with Senators and House members.
Diane Millich, an American Indian domestic abuse survivor introduced Vice President Joe Biden following her personal story about abuse and what the passing of VAWA means to her.
U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom announced March 6 in a U.S. Department of Justice news release that Ruben Dean Littlehead, 38, Lawrence, Kansas, and Brian K. Stoner, 32, Ponca City, Oklahoma, are charged with unlawfully selling feathers from eagles and hawks covered by a federal law protecting migratory birds. The crimes are alleged to have occurred in Douglas County, Kansas.
Federal law (Title 16, United States Code, Section 703) prohibits taking, killing or possessing migratory birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a National Eagle Repository in Colorado for the purpose of providing eagle feathers to Native Americans for use in Indian religious and cultural ceremonies. (For more information, see: Fws.gov/le/national-eagle-repository.html.)
The indictment alleges:
On September 15, 2008, Littlehead sold a bustle made with 68 feathers from a Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos).
On November 22, 2008, Littlehead sold 11 tail feathers and a wing from a Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos).
On February 26, 2009, Littlehead and Stoner offered for sale parts of a Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), a Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), and a Crested Caracara (Mexican Eagle, Caracara cheriway). They sold a tail feather fan made from feathers of a Bald eagle.
On February 26, 2009, they sold a bustle made of feathers of a rough-legged hawk and ferruginous hawk (Bueto lagopus and Buteo regalis).
If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 on each count. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Hendershot is prosecuting.
Court documents were not immediately available for review. Ruben Littlehead, Northern Cheyenne, is a top pow wow dancer and MC, who has emceed at major events such as the Gathering of Nations.
(CBS) – On Thursday afternoon, President Obama signed into law the re-authorized Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The act, originally passed in 1994, provides federal funding for programs and research aimed at preventing and prosecuting domestic and sexual violence.
The new version of the law includes several new measures, including granting Native American tribes jurisdiction to prosecute non-native perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence against native women. Previously, tribes had no jurisdiction over non-tribal members, even if they are married to native women or reside on native lands.
But, said Obama Thursday, “as soon as I sign this bill, that ends.”
According to Tina Olson, co-director of Mending the Sacred Hoop, an advocacy group dedicated to fighting violence against native women, as many as 50 percent of native women marry non-native men. This means that if they become victims of domestic violence, they have little recourse through the tribal justice system.
“It’s not as if native women want something unique,” says Olson. “They just want the justice other women get.”
Olson says she has “high hopes” about how the new law will help tribal women, but is taking a “wait and see” attitude until funds for enforcement – and consequences for failing to enforce – arrive.
In addition to the new provisions aiming to protect Native American women, the re-authorized VAWA allows groups representing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered men and women to apply for grants to prevent sexual violence and care for victims. The new law also includes the SAFER Act, which aims to whittle down the backlog of DNA tests – often known as “rape kits” – in police storage around the country; and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act which provides services to victims of human trafficking.
VAWA expired in September 2011 and stalled in Congress after the House of Representatives balked at some of the new provisions in the version passed by the Senate. House Republicans drafted an alternative bill, but it failed when brought for a vote on Feb. 28. Later that day, the House voted 286 -138 to pass the Senate version.
Ariel Zwang, the CEO of SafeHorizon, a group that provides shelter and services to victims of domestic violence, says that as important as the new protections the reauthorized VAWA provides is the message the passage of the law sends to victims and perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence.
“Before VAWA, society’s response to domestic violence was basically to tell the guy to go walk around the block,” says Zwang. The law, she says, makes a national statement that “this is wrong, it’s a crime, and we’re going to talk about it and prosecute it.”
President Obama agreed, saying Thursday afternoon that the original law “made it possible for us to talk about domestic abuse.” The new law, he said, assists immigrant women whose status may be tied to an abusive spouse and “expanded housing assistance so that no woman has to choose between a violent home and no home at all.”
The signing coincides with a new report by the Department of Justice that shows that after declining between 1995-2005, the rate of sexual assault in the U.S. leveled off between 2005-2010. The new report also shows that fewer women are reporting sexual assault to police: in 2003, 56 percent of sexual assault victims reported to authorities, compared to just 35 percent in 2010.
Everett Mall seems to be back on steadier financial footing after receiving an investment from a California firm with ties to former NBA great Magic Johnson.
Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds has agreed to help recapitalize Everett Mall and The Commons shopping center in Federal Way, the company said Wednesday. The amount of money being invested was not disclosed. Both malls are owned in part by Steadfast Companies, which defaulted on a $98 million Everett Mall loan last March. Irvine, Calif.-based Steadfast owns two-thirds of Everett Mall.
“We are confident that the infusion of capital at this critical time for both regional malls will help them achieve their potential,” Bobby Turner, Canyon-Johnson CEO, said in a statement. “These are exceptional retail assets.”
Canyon-Johnson is a joint venture between Canyon Capital Realty Advisors and Earvin “Magic” Johnson, former Los Angeles Lakers basketball star. The private equity firm has invested $4 billion in urban revitalization projects over the past decade.
In 2004, Steadfast paid $50 million to buy Everett Mall after the mall’s previous owner, Titanic Associates, defaulted on a loan in 2000. Steadfast quickly pumped more than $30 million into renovation and expansion, overseeing the addition of Regal Cinemas Stadium 16 theaters and attracting Best Buy and TJ Maxx to the outer mall’s buildings.
Last summer, Lisa Whitney, Steadfast vice president, acknowledged the mall had not been “immune to the proliferation of retailer downsizing, bankruptcies and the subsequent vacancies that have occurred industry wide” since the 2008 economic downturn.
Everett Mall has struggled to keep one of its large anchor storefronts filled. Late last year, the mall began construction to accommodate Burlington Coat Factory in the spot previously occupied by Steve & Barry’s and, before that, by Mervyn’s. Both retailers closed due to bankruptcy. Burlington Coat Factory will open this fall.
The renovation for Burlington Coat Factory was made possible by the investment from Canyon-Johnson, a spokeswoman for the investment firm wrote in an email Wednesday. However, the agreement between the two was not finalized until recently. Party City and ULTA Cosmetics also are opening retail stores in Everett Mall as part of the Canyon-Johnson project.
“Canyon-Johnson has a great track record of investing in urban retail centers, and we look forward to delivering results that will achieve a complete repositioning of these two properties that have enormous upside potential,” Steadfast Chairman and CEO Rod Emery said in a statement.
This is the second time Canyon-Johnson has worked with Steadfast. The two firms first teamed in 2010 to remodel and reposition the Brea Plaza Shopping Center in southern California.
“With Canyon-Johnson’s involvement, we have the resources to bring new shopping, dining and entertainment options to both properties” Steadfast’s Emery said in a statement.
Steadfast had not returned requests for additional information.
