Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Yesterday, Thursday, the Minnehaha Spiritual Camp was visited by Captain Kitridge of the Minnesota State Highway Patrol and Lieutenant Bud Emerson of the Third Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department. Lieutenant Emerson commanded the raid last December 20th in which 802 troopers and police tear gassed and tortured non-violent people and desecrated sacred items including eagle feathers and a ceremonial drum.

Kitridge and Emerson had a ceremony within the Four Sacred Oaks with Jim Anderson and members of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community and the American Indian Movement in which they were offered to smoke the pipe. After they were told that this was not a peace pipe, but a truth pipe, Kitridge smoked and Emerson declined. They both agreed that while they might be enforcing the law, that it was morally and ethically reprehensible to destroy a site sacred to Native Americans.

They assured Jim Anderson that the raid would be soon, sometime in the next 2 to 3 weeks, that it would be in the morning and that there would be no tear gas or pain compliance holds used. They gave their word that people would be offered the chance to leave before being arrested for trespassing. They said that the machines of destruction would follow immediately after the arrests, and that the University of Minnesota has requested a oak slab from each tree. They said that they would try and respect the sacred items and make certain that eagle feathers and other items would be returned. Emerson made the same promise of allowing people to leave before the last raid in December of 1998.

We need you now. We need you to come and camp with us for some or all of the next three weeks. If this were your church you would stand here too. Please don't let them desecrate and bulldoze another Native American Sacred site.

We are asking all people to stand with us in prayer around the Four Sacred Oaks, and Sacred Fire, to stand in prayer and to be arrested in prayer.

When they come we will circle the Oaks with our bodies, we want them to see how many people will not let the freedom of religion of Native American Indians be violated for the convenience of commuters. Now is the time to decide and stand with us.

Our camp is DRUG FREE, ALCOHOL FREE, WEAPONS FREE. We are NON-VIOLENT, AND EXPECT THAT from anyone who comes to stand here with us.

The day after the raid is announced in the papers, we are asking people to gather at the Hennepin County Government Center by the fountain at 4:00pm, in downtown Minneapolis.

Please contact Wellstone's office, and the Justice Department to demand that the Federal Government intervene to stop the desecration of a Native American Sacred Site.