According to the Sept. 23 online article in Native Sun News: "CRST Lieutenant Chad Olson reports that Phillip was discovered in his jail cell with shallow breathing and was transported to the Indian Health Service hospital in Eagle Butte."
Paula Mae High Bear, mother of Phillip, said she was in Sioux Falls when she received a call from a doctor at I.H.S. that she needed to come and identify her son. Phillip was brought to the hospital unresponsive from the CRST jail and later died, the Native Sun News article reads.
"The doctor tole me when they brought him in he was unresponsive. The doctor said he worked and worked on him but was not able to revive him," Paula Mae High Bear said in the article.
When Paula Mae and other family members went to the funeral home, the funeral director told her to "be prepared when she sees him because he has a lot of bruising," Native Sun News reports. However, CRST Lieutenant Chad Olson reports that Phillip was discovered in his jail cell with shallow breathing and was transported to the Indian Health Service hospital in Eagle Butte.
"He was all beat up," she said tearfully. "They (the CRST police) picked on him all the time. They beat him up twice before. He had long beautiful hair and he said, 'Mom I want to cut my hair so they will stop pulling my hair,'" the article continues.
She said witnesses came forward and have told her that when police officers arrested Phillip he was maced repeatedly and cruelly drug on his stomach. Another witness told her that several people were hollering at police officers to stop.
However, Tribal Police Lt. Olson denies Phillip was beaten by police officers. "That is not true," Olson said. "There is no facts or anything. I know what people are saying and all I can say is, it is not true. It will all come out in the investigation."
Olson said the case is under investigation by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Internal Affairs.
Phillip is survived by one son, Phillip High Bear Jr., of Rapid City; and one daughter: Sonique High Bear of Dupree. His father is Timothy High Elk, of Ft. Yates, N.D., and his mother is Paula Mae High Bear. He was laid to rest at the Episcopal Cemetery in LaPlante on Wed. Sept. 23.
I don't buy Lt. Olsen's story one bit. Phillip High Bear was found unresponsive in a drunk tank, was taken to a nearby hospital and he was pronounced dead. Although there are no camera-phone accounts of what took place, High Bear's fellow drunk-tank inmates speak of the unspeakable torture this poor young man faced at the hands of these killer cops. Be quiet, or the same will be done to you, was the threat made, reportedly.
So what's the FBI going to do? The same as it's always done.
Nothing. Offer some justification, some rationalization of it all. Cops covering for cops. And how's about the BIA investigators, what will they do? History repeats itself and it's always the same song: That drunken kid was a criminal. He was drunk, right? So he was at fault!
The story never changes and it's a sad one indeed. You can't kill a deer or a wolf out of season in South Dakota, but if you wear a badge and you're a tribal cop, you can kill a young Indian guy 365-1/4 days a year. Just spot him staggering a bit, looking a little lost, and then nab him.
Hey, let's have some fun, guys! Donuts and coffee first, though!
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