6B
Thursday, December 9,1993
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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--perception of non-communication between American Indians and the city.
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Bridging the barrier of distrust
Continued from Page 1B.
Nalbandian's voice raises when he talks about the rumors that many of the more than 900 students at Haskell hear before they set foot in Lawrence.
Virginia Smith
Lawrence Retail Manager
School Specialty Supply
"A lot of that relationship was affected by the deaths of the Native Americans here and the feeling that not as much was done as could have been done," Nalbandian says. "I don't agree with that at all, but I think that's the perception."
They know the story about John Sandoval and Cecil Dawes. Sandoval, a 19-year-old American Indian, was found dead in the Kansas River in April 1989. Dawes, a 21-year-old KU student and an American Indian, was found dead in the river seven months later.
But he says he can understand why some in the American Indian community do not trust the Lawrence police department.
Haskell students and other American Indians in Lawrence do not always know the names, but they know the stories.
Sincerely,
Virginia J. Smith
They know the story about Christopher Bread, an American Indian whose body was found one mile east of Lawrence, near East 15th Street, in 1990. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office says Bread was hit and killed
"We like to think that when parents send their children here that Lawrence takes some responsibility for the well-being of their people," he says.
What kind of message do you send when you have a shoot-to-kill policy?
by a car while walking home from the Outhouse, a music club that features punk and heavy metal rock bands. More than two years later, Marvin Schaal of Lawrence was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident in the Bread case and served nine and a half months in prison. Leaders of the American Indian community say the sentence was too weak.
And they know the story of Gregg Sevier, an American Indian who was killed by two Lawrence police officers April 1991.
"They've said police officers will kill you, and it won't get investigated, and nobody will care." Brown says.
The other cases involved the sheriff's office, not the police department. But the Sevier case is the best-remembered, and it has cemented the fears many American Indians have toward the police.
"The circumstances were just so tragic, it culminated in the most organized expression of concern in the city," says Dan Wildcat, chair of department of natural and social sciences at Haskell.
Lance Burr The Sevierfamilyattorney
The police involved and the family of Gregg Sevier agree on many points. Both say Orene Sevier, Sevier's mother, called 911 and told the operator that her son was upset and holding a knife. Both say Sevier was drunk. Both say Willie Sevier, Sevier's father, helped officer Ted Bordman pick the lock to Sevier's door when Bordman arrived to answer the call.
Lance Burr
And both say minutes later, Sevier was dead on the floor with six bullet wounds in his body.
From there, the two groups disagree. Officer James Phillips, who arrived moments after the door was unlocked, testified with Bordman at the coroner's inquest one week later that Sevier stood up and leaned against the doorway holding the knife. The two officers said that Sevier then lunged at Bordman. Each officer fired three shots — all at the chest and abdomen as Lawrence police officers are trained to do — and each shot hit.
The Seviers said their son never lunged at Bordman. They said that the officers never asked them about the situation and that they had called 911 for somebody who could calm Sevier down. They said he did not
The coroner's jury at the inquest found the two officers had acted appropriately. But in November 1992 the Seviers filed suit against the city, Police Chief Ron Olin, the two officers and Sergeant George Wheeler, who was the sergeant on-duty that night. The suit is now pending in U.S. District Court in Toneka.
Lawrence officials cannot comment directly about the Sevier case because of the lawsuit.
pose a threat to anybody or himself.
In the meantime, many American Indians still recall the shooting.
"That's a kind of ex post tacto demonstration that people in this community judge you by the color of your skin and the length of your hair," he says.
The message, Wildcat says, is one of unmean treatment.
"What kind of message do you send when you have ashoot-to-kill policy?" says Lance Burr, the Seviers' attorney. "What is being sent?"
Ed Brunt, a lieutenant in the Lawrence police department, does not deny that there may be racist officers in the force. But is the entire force racist? He says no.
Actions might also unfairly reinforce perceptions. Brunt says an American Indian driver who is pulled over by an officer might remember stories of Bread or Savier and come to the conclusion that the stopping was the result of racism.
"We've responded well to the scrutiny that Haskell and the community has given us," he says.
Brunt says that the department cannot be responsible for the personal views of its officers but that it can ensure that all members of the Lawrence community are treated equally.
"When people say you have racist police officers, is that because an action happened to you and you disagree with it?" he says. "Or is it against your race, sex or religion?"
Racism in Lawrence
During a talk in ninth grade about police, Jose Larios met a Lawrence police officer for the first time.
"When he came to speak, I felt extremely uncomfortable around
Lawrence is like the wife who cannot leave the man who beats her
Member of the Lawrence chapter of the American Indian Movement
Such perceptions keep many American Indians from trusting local law enforcement and city government.
him," says Larios, now a senior at Lawrence High School. "He constantly stared at me, and it looked like he was glaring."
Pixie Larios
Such perceptions also have fueled the creation of Lawrence's first chapter of the American Indian Movement, an activist pro-American Indian group.
"Where there are unexplained, unnecessary, unattended deaths, there's a need," says Pixie Larios, Jose Larios' mother and a member of ALM. "When someone is asked to serve nine months and a few days for the murder of a young Native American, there's a need."
Larios says the entire city sometimes contains a hidden racism. She compares racial incidents in Lawrence to a husband who flies into occasional rates and beats his wife.
"He's tight on his anger," Larios says. "It comes out in circumventive ways. Then there's an explosion."
In 1992, Jerry Thomas, Pahoa, Hawaii, resident, wrote a book on the Sevier shooting after hearing about the case from a friend in Lawrence The book, "Hitchita!: The Documented Story of the Gregg Sewic Homicide," does not restrain itself to just the shooting. "Hitchita!" — which means "behold" in the Creek Indian language — also alleges that many residents and city officials are racist.
'The primary purpose in producing 'Hitchita!' was to increase their
Story continues, Page 7B
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