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Native groups and their allies are calling on officials to condemn violence against Indigenous people and to keep a suspect charged with attempted murder in jail.
The Red Nation, Three Sisters Collective, Kiva Club, NDN Collective, and their allies say last week’s shooting at a prayerful event in New Mexico, celebrating the halt of the replacement of a Juan de Oñate statue, was a racist attack.
Witnesses say before the shooting the suspect was seen antagonizing the crowd gathered at the Rio Arriba County Annex Building in Española.
Video recorded at the event shows the suspect wearing a hoody and red “Make America Great Again” hat scuffle with people at the rally before pulling out a gun and shooting one person and pointing the gun at another before fleeing.
Police identified the shooter as 23-year-old Ryan Martinez.
He was arrested and charged with attempted murder in the first degree and aggravated assault – use of a deadly weapon.
Martinez is due to appear in court Monday.
Native groups and their allies are calling on officials to not release him and to recognize the shooting as a racially motivated hate crime.
The person shot was identified as 42-year-old Jacob Johns.
An online donation page set up for his medical bills says he’s Hopi and Akimel O’odham and has dedicated his life to Indigenous and climate justice.
The statue was previously removed from a different location in 2020 and was set to be reinstall last week at its new location in front of the county building, but was postponed.
Members of the Native groups against the Oñate statue say he was a brutal Spanish colonizer and the statue represents violence and genocide.
Listen to previous National Native News coverage of this statue
Demonstration celebrates statue of Spanish colonizer taken down
Wab Kinew. (Photo: Cory Aronec Photography via Wiki CC)
Canada’s western province of Manitoba could make history.
As Dan Karpenchuk reports, it could elect its first, First Nations premier to lead the provincial government.
Wab Kinew is the leader of the New Democratic Party.
He was born in Ontario and lived on the Onigaming First Nation. His father was a survivor of the residential school system and Kinew says he passed the Kinew the importance of Anishinabe culture and language. During a recent televised debate Kinew blasted the former premier of Manitoba for closing emergency rooms.
“I don’t think too many of us understood how having to drive further was going to get you seen quicker. We have a plan to fix it. Let me be clear this is going to be hard work. It has to start with staffing up the health care system, and then once the staffing is stabilized two years from now we put shovels into the ground to build a new ER starting in south Winnipeg.’
If elected Kinew would become the first first nations premier, but not the first indigenous premier. John Norquay, who was Metis, was the Manitoba’s fifth premier until 1887.
Kinew says there are still historic barriers to overcome the main reason few indigenous people enter provincial politics.
Soem analysts say if Kinew becomes premier it would be significant because there are still dominant stereo types that see indigenous people in a negative way so, it’s important for other indigenous people to what that it’s possible to succeed at the highest levels.
Manitobans go to the polls on October the third.
The memorial at Wounded Knee, one of the most prominent landmarks on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, was recently vandalized.
C.J. Keene has more.
The memorial was placed in the early 1900’s by Joseph Horn Cloud – a direct descendent of victims of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
The damages were limited to the topmost piece of the monument structure.
The site is under the management of the Oglala Sioux Tribal government, which has indicated plans to increase efforts to protect the memorial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eliot Neal has been picked to represent Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) for the Southwest Region.
The region includes New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.
Neal is one of five MMIP Assistant U.S. Attorneys who will provide support to U.S. Attorneys’ offices to address MMIP issues.
His background and experience includes working with tribes.
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