{"id":6950,"date":"2015-06-09T07:11:34","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T13:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=6950"},"modified":"2015-06-10T06:38:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T12:38:36","slug":"the-death-of-hanna-harris-hope-through-heartbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/06\/the-death-of-hanna-harris-hope-through-heartbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"The death of Hanna Harris: Hope through heartbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cheyenne\"<\/a>

Adrian Jawort<\/p>

The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation looms in the distance, as seen from the Little Bighorn Battlefield.<\/p><\/div>\n

In a novella I wrote, \u201cWhere Custer Last Slept\u201d\u2014the title referring to the town of Busby on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation where Custer camped before his last infamous day on the Little Bighorn\u2014I detailed the gruesome murders of a couple of teens whose killer is not brought to justice, prompting a group of friends to take matters into their own hands.<\/p>\n

That story is part of \u201cOff the Path<\/a>,\u201d a Montana-based anthology of American Indian writers.<\/p>\n

\"Jawort\"<\/a>

Adrian Jawort<\/p><\/div>\n

At the beginning of the story, a 16-year-old is stabbed dozens of times at the conclusion of a graduation party. The female narrator and her friends agree there is nothing they can realistically do about it, despite how bad they feel for the kid. Her reason for not reporting the crime to authorities is that any potential murder case would probably get botched by the FBI\u2014which handles major crimes on Indian reservations but seems so indifferent to reservation murders\u2014and the killer would be free to retaliate against them.<\/p>\n

When a second murder inevitably happens, the narrator notes: \u201cat the time it seemed there was no law but what we made it in the Wild West. The police stationed in Lame Deer hardly ever drove through Busby. The FBI took over hardcore cases, but what did some FBI agent who hated being marooned on a rez in the first place care about the local populace?\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview about the \u201cOff the Path\u201d anthology last fall with Ch\u00e9rie Newman, host of Montana Public Radio\u2019s \u201cThe Write Question<\/a>,\u201d I was asked about where the violence and darkness surrounding that particular storyline stemmed from. I said reservation murders and the lack of convictions had long plagued my conscience. On my Northern Cheyenne Reservation alone, it was reported locally that there have been some 42 unsolved murders and suspicious deaths since the late 1970s.<\/p>\n

(What I didn\u2019t mention in that interview is that when I was a teen in the late \u201990s, I remember reading a short newspaper blurb about another teen from my reservation who had been stabbed something like 50 times. Not long after that, there was a similar crime that also merited only a blurb. I was always aghast that no one had been arrested for those heinous crimes and that the murderer was still theoretically about.)<\/p>\n

Although I\u2019m known as journalist who often writes on Native-related issues, it was that fictional story that struck a nerve with so many people, because it illustrated how often reservation violence carries no consequences.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had Natives not just from the Northern Plains and Canada, but places like the Navajo Reservation, relate to that story fully, telling me it haunted them long after reading it because they knew of people who were murdered in almost the same manner. Suspects were never charged, or they only served very short sentences because they could simply claim they were drunk and escape responsibility.<\/p>\n

I said to Newman, \u201cSomeone told me, \u2018You captured the hopelessness of the situation, in that they wanted to do something but can\u2019t.\u2019 And that\u2019s why they just had to take matters into their own hands even though they\u2019re just normal kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>To further make my point, I mentioned the death of a young Northern Cheyenne woman, Hanna Harris, a 2010 graduate of Billings West High who was brutally beaten and murdered after being sexually assaulted. Although her killers were eventually caught, hundreds of people in Lame Deer marched for her and other overlooked victims in a \u201cJustice for Hanna\u201d rally that highlighted the lack of FBI resolve and commitment regarding serious reservation crimes.<\/p>\n

Despite its being a clear-cut case of murder, Garret Wadda was sentenced to just 10 years last week<\/a> for his role in the killing of Harris. Wadda\u2019s common-law wife, Eugenia Ann Rowland, was sentenced in February to 22 years for her role in the murder.<\/p>\n

Rowland told her former sister-in-law in 2014 that she awoke to screams from Harris, whom Wadda was trying to rape. She said she went to help Harris, but when Harris struck at her, Rowland and Wadda both beat her to death.<\/p>\n

Harris was murdered on the morning of July 4, 2013, and her body was found four hot summer days later, badly decomposed. The defendants pretended to help look for Harris in a search operation.<\/p>\n

Wadda pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact for dumping Harris\u2019 partially clothed body at the Lame Deer rodeo grounds after the murder, and the story of his role in the beating was not mentioned at his sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n

Rowland\u2019s attorney, Robert Kelleher Jr., argued in court that Rowland shouldn\u2019t have a sentence longer than the 10- to 15-year sentence being proposed for Wadda as part of a plea bargain. \u201cNot to be glib about it,\u201d Kelleher said of Wadda, \u201cbut he\u2019s getting away with murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

At his sentencing, Harris\u2019 mother, Melinda Harris, told Wadda: \u201cI don\u2019t know how you were raised, but you don\u2019t rape women, you don\u2019t kill them, you don\u2019t hide them, you don\u2019t bury them. People say if you want to get away with murder, go to the reservation. I think it\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same hearing, Harris\u2019 father said that unless a sufficient sentence was given, family members would probably \u201ctake care\u201d of Wadda themselves. The family clearly was unhappy with Wadda\u2019s 10-year sentence.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I personally know where the Harris family\u2019s anger stems from. I\u2019ve been there, too, and I know the frustrations of reservation injustice. In fact, in another \u201cOff the Path\u201d story I wrote:<\/p>\n

\"Hanna\"<\/a>

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Hanna Harris was photographed with her son, Nelleek, before her death near Lame Deer in 2013.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat made me always mad enough to commit vigilante justice was imagining what really happened: my baby brother being blasted at close range by a high-powered rifle, unable to walk with a shattered pelvis as he begged some unsympathetic loser on a lonely, cold, Indian Reservation prairie to please take him to the IHS hospital before fading away.\u201d<\/p>\n

That prose is the short version of the actual details of my brother\u2019s death on the border of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations several years ago. Even though the FBI agents investigating the case knew he was shot intentionally, and told me as much personally, federal prosecutors were reluctant to charge the killer with murder. They let his B.S. story slide and gave him two years.<\/p>\n

The defendant claimed my brother was accidentally shot inside a truck as he removed his rifle for target practice. But the angle he was shot from\u2014and especially the blood trail 20 yards from the truck\u2014didn\u2019t match the story at all.<\/p>\n

There was also a terrified female witness to my brother\u2019s death who would have been key for prosecutors. They found her in the middle of nowhere miles from the crime scene on that cold December night without adequate clothing after she had apparently run in fear for her own life. However, she did not want to want to go to court or even give a statement. I can\u2019t fault her for that.<\/p>\n

Luella Brien<\/a>\u2014a Crow tribal member, fellow \u201cOff the Path\u201d author and former Billings Gazette reporter\u2014said in that same interview with Ch\u00e9rie Newman: \u201cPeople don\u2019t like to testify; people don\u2019t like to give their deposition because oftentimes the feds will just plea it out. And why put (oneself) at risk for retaliation when the person isn\u2019t going to get first-degree murder, but second-degree manslaughter?\u201d<\/p>\n

Without the witness testimony, as I noted in a previous Last Best News column<\/a>, most reservation deaths \u201care simply pleaded down to manslaughter charges so the FBI \u2026 can keep its nearly immaculate conviction rate intact, with minimal time committed to an investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As in any profession, there are genuinely good FBI agents who do their job and do it well\u2014including the main agent who investigated my brother\u2019s death\u2014but the general Native population\u2019s perception, based on their experiences, is that the feds are always dismissive of them. They know that even if someone is arrested, the punishment rarely fits the crime and only people involved in drugs are ever given lengthy prison sentences.<\/p>\n

Since 2009, the family of Steven Bearcrane-Cole has been looking for justice. Bearcrane-Cole, a Crow tribal member, was shot between the eyes in 2005, and the coroner ruled that his death was a homicide. His family has fought the FBI with a lawsuit, claiming that an FBI agent assigned to the case failed to properly investigate the death. A non-tribal member and co-worker shot Bearcrane-Cole on the Leachman Ranch, which is within reservation boundaries.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims the supervising agent in charge refused to do anything but the \u201cmost cursory investigation despite compelling facts<\/a>,\u201d resulting in a ruling by the feds that Bearcrane-Cole was killed in self-defense.<\/p>\n

Among the dubious facts of the case was that the shooter claimed Bearcrane-Cole came at him with a knife. But the ranch foreman said the knife found on him wasn\u2019t even there when the body was discovered. About a month earlier, several witnesses heard the shooter claiming he was a sniper and could kill someone and make it look like an accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were told to gather more information and we did,\u201d family member and attorney Jean Bearcrane told Indian Country Today Media Network in 2011. \u201cThey still did nothing. How many non-Indian families have to do their own investigations and plead with the FBI to do its job?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit\u2014which the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013<\/a> said could proceed after the FBI tried to get it dismissed\u2014Bearcrane-Cole\u2019s family said the FBI not only neglected their case, but \u201cconsistently closed cases involving Indian victims without adequate investigation, especially sexual and other assaults involving Indian children and women.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February 2012, in a New York Times story headlined \u201cHigher Crime, Fewer Charges on Indian Land<\/a>,\u201d Timothy Williams reported that according to federal data, the FBI declined to file rape charges on reservations 65 percent of the time and 52 percent of the time for other serious crimes. So, there\u2019s a two-thirds chance that even if someone presses sexual assault charges, they\u2019ll be left at the attacker\u2019s mercy after nothing is done.<\/p>\n

The compounding threat of retaliation on behalf of a perpetrator looms large and very real among victims who actually file charges. Women without a strong local support system often say it\u2019s why they\u2019re afraid to press charges when they\u2019re sexually assaulted. What if the family or friends of the assailant come after them for \u201csnitching\u201d if the attacker is actually sent to jail? That\u2019s a scenario the witness of my brother\u2019s death would have faced.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people believe that justice is never served on the reservation, so why try to help it?\u201d Brien said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge issue and there\u2019s so many layers and it\u2019s difficult to explain quickly, but that\u2019s how it kind of boils down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just about every family that\u2019s lived on a reservation for a long time could tell of a crime involving a family member or friend in which justice was never served. But the despite the grim statistics; despite the seeming desolation of the situation, despite the growing anger and despite the frustration and lack of answers, out of the darkness of Hanna Harris\u2019 death, I believe, arose light.<\/p>\n

Although I don\u2019t pretend to have known Hanna personally, after reading the news of her murder my tears fell for her because I knew she was someone\u2019s sister, someone\u2019s daughter, someone\u2019s granddaughter, someone\u2019s best friend, someone\u2019s niece, and a child\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

She was one of my fellow beautiful Morning Star People who shined on even in her tragic passing as we united to protest an unjust justice system not only for her family and our tribe, but for all Indian reservations with similar stories. Because of Hanna, young and old Cheyennes of all ages proudly marched through Lame Deer, defiant against the bad spirits that tried to drag our people down. They prayed together with a cause, they prayed for those overlooked victims who had walked on in the past, and they prayed together for our future.<\/p>\n

\u201cA nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done\u2014no matter how brave its warriors or how strong its weapons,\u201d a Cheyenne saying goes.<\/p>\n

In passing from her time on Earth, Harris will be remembered for giving a voice to the voiceless and turning people who were once considered faceless statistics into people who laughed, cried, breathed, loved and were loved. She died a fighting Cheyenne who continues to live with us in spirit while helping to keep the hearts of our people high above the ground.<\/p>\n

Nea\u2019ese (thank you) to Hanna for not only humbly representing us in our continued struggles for justice, but for being the beautiful personified face of our hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a novella I wrote, \u201cWhere Custer Last Slept\u201d\u2014the title referring to the town of Busby on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation where Custer camped before his last infamous day on the Little Bighorn\u2014I detailed the gruesome murders of a couple of teens whose killer is not brought to justice, prompting a group of friends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":6951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1034,137,1909,2612,2614,139,2613],"class_list":["post-6950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","tag-off-the-path","tag-adrian-jawort","tag-fbi","tag-hanna-harris","tag-little-bighorn-battlefield","tag-luella-brien","tag-northern-cheyenne-reservation","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}