9/5/14

Giago: little difference between Rapid City and Ferguson

Here are a few more reasons American Indians and Democrats should be outraged over South Dakota's culture of corruption:
Most, and we do mean most, Native Americans believe that the Rapid City Police and Pennington County Sheriffs still profile Indians in traffic stops and in other arrests. Profiling means looking at people of a different race much more closely than at people of the white race. This means stopping them more frequently for traffic violations real or imagined or just for being an Indian walking down Main Street and looking suspicious.
Every time we see that the police department has hired a bunch of new officers and their pictures are published in the local daily, all the Indian community sees are a bunch of new, white faces. And we wonder why there are no Indians represented in the new hires. Whose fault is that? Who does the hiring?
It’s like the situation in Ferguson, Missouri where the community is almost 60 percent black and yet of the 53 police officers on the force only 3 are African American. So look at the mess that city is in now and it is not beyond imagination that the same thing could happen in Rapid City given the right or wrong set of circumstances. The writing is on the wall and it is high time that the Rapid City Police Department wake up and smell the coffee. Forewarned is forearmed and we don’t want to be the ones to say “I told you so” should violence erupt between the Indian community and the Rapid City Police Department. [excerpt, Tim Giago, posted at Indianz]
Here is another look at Rapid City's failure to serve and protect: Racist City, SD, (Rapid City), Where Life is Violent, and Often Deadly.




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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2014 at 1:11 PM

    Question I have about the police department in RC, how many North American Indians applied for the position, and of those who applied, how many had the qualifications.

    It is somewhat like the fact that there are more male firefighters than female fighters because more men apply for and qualify for the position. At the same time, there are more office assistants who are female than office assistants who are male because more females apply for that position. Men tend not to apply for the position of office assistant (although there are men who do.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. larry kurtzSeptember 5, 2014 at 1:44 PM

    Only a tiny fraction of Indians in South Dakota believe that the law enforcement industry is anything other than a tool of the occupying force. Veterans apply and often tribal members see them as sell-outs or worse: it creates a culture of mistrust that is stoked by class and gang warfare.

    Thanks for the comment.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TimSeptember 6, 2014 at 6:01 PM

    Larry, I tried several times to get this very subject posted in the RCJ, they want no part of it. I stated the only difference between RC and Ferguson were the lack of riots, everything else pretty much the same.

    ReplyDelete
  4. larry kurtzSeptember 6, 2014 at 6:12 PM

    Demonstrations better describe unrest in Ferguson, Tim. It's unsurprising that the RCJ censors inconvenient truths, Tim: it has happened before and will keep happening until people boycott the paper.

    Good to read you, sir.

    ReplyDelete
  5. TimSeptember 6, 2014 at 7:17 PM

    Riot was a poor choice of words, sorry. I am giving up on RCJ, I think I'll give that 10 bucks a month to a good cause.

    ReplyDelete

Republican is simply another word for Earth hater but comments intended to troll the author or other readers will not be published so use a handle or even your real name and don’t be an asshole.