Mass Incarceration & Police Brutality: The Forgotten Minority

Written by: Samantha McKenzie

Image: Jackson, Reggie. “Reggie Jackson: The Growth of Mass Incarceration in Milwaukee.” The Milwaukee Independent, 19 Apr. 2019, www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/reggie-jacksongrowth-mass-incarceration-milwaukee/.

In a time where mass incarcerations and police brutality are already on the minds of millions of Americans and activist groups across the nation, a minority group, whose lives are taken the most, are often overlooked. For every 1 million Native Americans living within the United States boundaries, 2.9% of them died as a result of police brutality and “legal intervention”, which is nearly .3% greater than those of any other race or ethnicity.i Along with contributing to the largest police inflicted fatality rating, Native Americans are also overrepresented in the criminal justice systems across the nation. For example, Native Americans make up only 9% of the total population in South Dakota but represent over 29% of the total prison population. ii Similarly, in Alaska, Native Americans make up only 15% of the state’s population but represent nearly 29% of the prison population. iii Concerns over mass incarceration and police brutality surrounding the indigenous communities brings this article to its next crucial point, how it is affecting their communities?

On November 8, 2017, Jason Pero, a 14-year-old tribe member of Bad River Band on Lake Superior Chippewa's reservation, was shot and killed by an Ashland County Sheriff Department Deputy in Odanah, Wisconsin.iv Pero earlier that morning had left school, where he attended as an eighth grader, reporting that he will feeling “ill” and showed symptoms similar to the flu. Later Pero was walking outside his grandparent’s house when he evidently proceeded to report himself as being a “300-pound male and armed”.v After the report was given, two deputies of the Ashland County Sheriff department arrived at the scene where they were faced with a “hostile teen” who refused to “drop his weapon and lunged in at the officers several times”.vi Proceeding the actions thought to be “provoking”, one of the Deputies initiated several warnings and after the teen failed to put down his weapon the officer than proceeding by firing two shots directly in the chest and shoulder of the teenage boy.vii Unfortunately, after being rushed to the emergency room at Memorial Medical Center, in Ashland, Pero was pronounced dead. Image: Jackson, Reggie. “Reggie Jackson: The Growth of Mass Incarceration in Milwaukee.” The Milwaukee Independent, 19 Apr. 2019, www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/reggie-jacksongrowth-mass-incarceration-milwaukee/.

The result of this shooting has left the community of the Bad River Band tribe with many questions and even more sorrow. It is still unknown to many why the deputies proceeding to use the assistance of guns and lethal force when dealing with Pero, a fourteen-year-old boy, instead of resulting to milder, yet effective techniques, like Tasers or pepper spray. However, the Bad River Band tribe is not backing down. Leaders of the tribe have demanded that the case, after being “closed and dismissed” by local law enforcement, be reopened as a federal investigation into the officer who shot and killed Pero on their reservation.viii However, even with searching for justice and hope in a federal investigation, the tribe and community has lost one of its adolescence members forever and it can’t be undone now.

Improper treatment of Native Americans in the United States has tracked all the back to the beginning of English settlement in the New World and is still prevalent in modern society today. Although this case was just one of the awful deaths involving law enforcement and Native Americans, it affects thousands of Native American communities across the nation. Due to the growing surge of new cases paired with increased media attention, movements to help bring more awareness to improper treatment of Native Americans inflicted by public and federal law enforcement agencies everywhere, have been established. “Native Lives Matter”, a movement and group created by The Lakota People’s Law Project, has devoted countless efforts and resources to “influence public discourse that routinely ignores the fact that Native Americans suffer the most adverse effects of a structurally unjust criminal justice system”.ix Along with movements created to bring recognition and awareness to police brutality amongst Native American, there are also federal panels fighting the injustice of Native American sentencing and incarceration rates as well. The Tribal Issues Advisory Group, made up of 22 members, are currently working on unraveling and fixing the harsh reality that Native Americans are sentenced to much longer prison sentences in compared to Caucasian Americans facing the same crime convictions with similar criminal backgrounds.x

Unfortunately, there are many hardships and hurdles when it comes to trialing and sentencing Native Americans citizens in comparison to non-native citizen. For example, Native Americans are usually prosecuted under federal law instead of state laws which is typically much more severe, due to agreements between the government and federally recognized tribes and reservations.xi These disparities in reservations sentencing causes the amount of Native Americans in federal prisons to increase to 27% in recent years.xii This is also directly responsible for why Native Americans incarceration rating is nearly 38% higher than the national average for any other race or ethnicity.xiii However, with the work of motivated and urgent movements and the pressure put on the United States Sentencing Commission and federal government by the Tribal Issues Advisory Group, hopefully an end is in sight for deaths associated with police brutality and lower incarcerations amongst Native American communities.


Sources:
i Hansen, Elise. “The Forgotten Minority in Police Shootings.” CNN, Cable News Network, 13 Nov. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/11/10/us/native-lives-matter/index.html. 

ii NoiseCat, Julian Brave. “13 Issues Facing Native People Beyond Mascots And Casinos.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 31 Aug. 2015, www.huffpost.com/entry/13-native-americanissues_n_55b7d801e4b0074ba5a6869c?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29v Z2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHuLWt2DTR2GV8M6ckrlaiI2lBPJPpuPqQNQ_xHKOkCT50lQXUHg3WkcDbR7mg3uiMpCDA5tNFMIdT7PsxwTZaSBDqOe_k Z4snfZRj9FNxqQco4TAl2ITkx38PBWnMzlKi4__005kIyzgHY5qW21WCxPxuDp7Dwe2ZPX7w E8Whq. 

iii See Note ii, Page 4 

iv Kaeding, Danielle. “Tension Builds Between Tribe, Law Enforcement After Bad River Teen's Death.” Wisconsin Public Radio, 21 Jan. 2018, www.wpr.org/tension-builds-between-tribe-lawenforcement-after-bad-river-teens-death. 

v Chia, Jessica. “Teen Reported Himself in 911 Call before He Was Shot Dead by Cop on Wisconsin Reservation.” Nydailynews.com, New York Daily News, 7 Apr. 2018, www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/teen-shot-dead-reported-911-call-article-1.3631035. 

vi McLaughlin, Eliott C., and Tony Marco. “Teen Made 911 Report That Preceded His Death, Investigators Say.” CNN, Cable News Network, 14 Nov. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/11/13/us/wisconsin-police-kill-native-american-teen/index.html. 

vii See Note V, Page 2 

viii Indianz. “Bad River Band Demands Federal Investigation into Fatal Shooting of 14-Year-Old Boy.” Indianz, IndianzWww.indianz.com/Z.png, 17 Nov. 2017, www.indianz.com/News/2017/11/17/bad-river-band-demands-federal-investiga.asp. 

ix “Native Lives Matter • Lakota People's Law Project.” Lakota People's Law Project, 2020, www.lakotalaw.org/resources/native-lives-matter.

x Flanagin, Jake. “Native Americans Are the Unseen Victims of a Broken US Justice System.” Quartz, Quartz, 28 Apr. 2015, qz.com/392342/native-americans-are-the-unseen-victims-of-a-broken-usjustice-system/. 

xi See Note X, Page 1 

xii See Note X, Page 2 

xiii See Note X, Page 2