APRIL 1, 2005
Smoke Signals 5
School Deaths Spotlight Troubled Tribal Conditions
Grand Ronde gift will help Red Lake Chippewa families cope.
By Ron Karten
The Tribal Council of the Confeder
ated Tribes of Grand Ronde has con
tributed $1,000 to the Tribal Council
of The Red Lake Band of Chippewa
Indians in the wake of the school shoot
ing there that ended ten lives and left
the lives of a many more injured in
the shooting hanging in the balance.
"When I saw it on TV," said Tribal
Council member Valorie Sheker
Robertson, "I was so shocked I had
tears in my eyes."
She wanted to help and brought the
idea to Tribal Council, which followed
her lead and unanimously voted to send
the money. "Anything we could do to
help them, I think, would be a good
thing," she said.
Sending it Tribal Council to Tribal
Council was "more personal" than a
gift to the fund opened up for the pur
pose, said Tribal Council member
Buddy West.
The letter accompanying the check
said simply, "to help your People
through the difficult times ahead."
The shooting by a disaffected young
Tribal member, Jeff Weise, 16, first
took the boy's grandfather, Red Lake
Tribal member and Police Sergeant
Daryl Lussier, 58, and Lussier's com
panion, Michelle Sigana, 32. Wiese
had been living at their home.
By one report, Lussier was more than
a decent cop. He was "a super sweet guy,"
said first cousin Leon Cook, Director of
Bemidji State University's American In
dian Resource Center, "not the kind of
cop that roughs you up, just the oppo
site." The spree then moved from their
home to the school.
The boy took his grandfather's guns
and bullets and bullet proof vest. He
took his grandfather's police patrol car.
At school, he is reported to have
smiled and waved as he killed those
around him. He was said to have
asked one boy, reportedly a friend, if
he believed in God, before killing him.
He aimed for the face in many in
stances, and at close range.
The shooting opened another round
of soul searching and hand wringing
across the nation, this time focusing
on the Red Lake community that was
home to the boy and his victims.
The soul searching went all the way
up to the White House, where the
President, after criticism that he had
taken place, a letter of commiseration
arrived. An emissary of the Canadian
government traveled to Red Lake to
show support and offer help to Tribal
members whose ancestral lands cross
the U.SyCanada border.
Analyses of what happened and what
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Need For Healing The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde
Community of Oregon's Tribal Council reached out to the members of the Red
Lake Band of Chippewa Indians last week with a $ 1 ,000 donation from Tribal
Council to Tribal Council. Photo courtesy of the Associated Press
not publicly acknowledged the tragedy,
said a week later in his radio address,
"...we must continue to foster a cul
ture that affirms life and provides love,
and helps our young people build char
acter." None of the President's "No Child
Left Behind" funding was earmarked
for Tribes, according to Patty
Talahongva, host and producer of Na
tive America Calling and former Presi
dent of the Native American Journal
ists Association.
Offers of help after the tragedy came
in the form of money and counselors
for family members and the commu
nity. From the mayor of a German
town where a similar shooting had
should be done to prevent another such
instance came from all over.
"Anthropologists can tell us that at
one time, all races of people were
'huntergatherers,' wrote Liz Gray in
a commentary in Native American
Times. "It has also been proven that
the huntergatherer society only had
to work 20 hours a week to sustain
themselves. The remainder of that
time included socializing. And our
children, usually, were by our side."
"People at large should wake up from
their collective denial and understand
that any one of us under the wrong
conditions can 'lose' it and go beserk,"
wrote Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D., who
sent his analysis for publication on the
website of Red Lake Net News
(www.rlnn.com), an independent news
site funded by the Red Lake
Chippewas. Williams is a practicing
psychotherapist in New York City.
The NRA's first Vice President,
Sandra S. Froman, told the Associated
Press that in order to prevent such
tragedies, teachers should have guns.
According to an Associated Press
report, half of Red Lake Tribal girls
and 20 percent of Tribal boys have at
tempted suicide, nearly triple the rate
for the state as a whole.
The tragedy began to unfold before
the first bullet was fired around 3 p.m.
on March 20, 2005. It began before
the boy's father committed suicide,
four years earlier, reportedly after a '
day-long standoff with Tribal police.
The boy's grandfather and one of his
first victims was even then a long time
member of that police force. It began
to unfold before the boy's mother
landed in a nursing home with brain
damage the result of a drunken driv
ing accident that also killed his cousin.
One relative was reported to say that
even before the shooting, the boy's
mother and stepfather drank too
much and left the boy alone too often.
Well before the event, a member of
the community remembered -Wiese
standing alone by the fence at school
staring into space. Nobody came by
to join him.
While the press and community
members assessed Wiese as a stereo
type loner, the Federal Bureau of In
vestigation at press time had just ar
rested Louis Jourdain, son of the
Tribal Chairman, Floyd Jourdain Jr.,
and hinted that others may have
known about or helped plan the at
tack. Hundreds were on hand for the fu
nerals of the dead: Daryl Lussier, 58,
Michelle Sigana, 31, Security Guard
Derrick Brun, 28, Teacher Neva
Rogers, 62, and students, all 15,
Chanelle Rosebear, Alicia White,
Chase Lussier, Thurlene Stillday and
Dewayne Lewis.
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Visual Christine Walters, of the Institute of American Indian Arts
(IAIA), recently visited Grand Ronde to recruit students to the Institute.
According to Walters, the IAIA is more than just a school. The Institute
offers two and four-year degrees in visual communications, creative
writing, museum studies and studio arts. For more information about the
IAIA, contact the Tribe's Education Program or Walters at 505-424-2329.
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Jumper Tribal member Landon Bobb, 9, right, struts his stuff as part of
the WiUamina Youth Basketball team. In this picture, the team was playing
at Dayton. Tribal member John Mercier coached and his son, Tribal member
Kalim, also played for the Willamina team.