Column: Police brutality against Indians common

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2003

"White men in blue uniforms have long been the bane of Native America.

In the 19th century, U.S. cavalry soldiers descended on American Indian villages and perpetrated unimaginable depredations: massacres, rapes, mutilations and a plethora of other atrocities.

In the 20th century, another breed of blue-uniformed domestic soldiers replaced the cavalry. The American police are invested with the same presumptions of superiority as their 19th-century counterparts, and are equally obsessed with oppressing and brutalizing Indians.

Indeed, at the inception of the 21st century, the systemic brutality and racism of the police are raging unabated.

Recent allegations that the Minneapolis police assaulted, urinated on and left two homeless Indians outside at zero degrees are appalling. But instances of police brutality against American Indians in Minneapolis and other Midwestern and Western cities are commonplace."

Get the Story:
Dave Stephenson: Indians are facing brutality from new 'soldiers in blue' (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 2/11)