Post by Okwes on Feb 28, 2007 16:14:41 GMT -5
*One Determined Heroine and Her Fall From Grace*
By EVELYN NIEVES
www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/us/28dakota.html
PINE RIDGE, S.D. --- Here in the poorest corner of the poorest Indian
reservation in the country, Geraldine Blue Bird's household was one of
the worst off.
Then President Bill Clinton stopped by her home during his 1999 tour of
the nation's most impoverished places. Ms. Blue Bird, who lived on a
disability check, was squeezing 28 adults and children, most of whom she
had taken in from the streets, into a four-room shack with no plumbing
and a pop-up camper out back. When word got out, donations poured in,
and continued for years. Ms. Blue Bird even received a brand-new
double-wide mobile home with four bedrooms.
But the woman who became a symbol of enduring, desperate poverty in the
United States now bunks in a jail cell in Rapid City, some 90 miles to
the northwest. In October, a federal jury convicted her of running a
multimillion-dollar drug ring out of her double-wide. The ring supplied
cocaine throughout the hills and valleys of the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, which is the size of Connecticut.
Her arrest and conviction followed a two-year investigation by federal
and tribal authorities that netted 16 people, including several of her
relatives and "adopted" children. Ms. Blue Bird, who is 50 and suffers
from congestive heart failure, is to be sentenced on Feb. 20. She faces
up to life in prison.
The case has brought a sense on the Pine Ridge reservation that Ms. Blue
Bird betrayed her people. After Mr. Clinton's visit, her burst of fame
made her a kind of ambassador for the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe. She
gave interviews in which she spoke of a need to rescue Lakota youth from
drugs and gangs. She was recognized by Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of
South Dakota, as one of the nation's Angels in Adoption. Until her
arrest at a Rapid City motel on Dec. 21, 2005, she was raising money to
open an orphanage.
Those in her neighborhood remember her sharing the donations she
received, showering families with bags of children's clothes. Their
lingering question about her fall from grace: Why?
In an interview at the Rapid City jail where she has been held since she
was arrested with several accomplices, a pound and a half of cocaine and
a few guns, a weepy Ms. Blue Bird denied having been the leader of the
drug ring, or even a part of it. She accused her biological son Colin
Spotted Elk, 25, one of four people convicted with her, of running the gang.
"I knew he was doing it," she said, "but he's my son."
Ms. Blue Bird, who plans an appeal, said support for her remained strong
among the Lakota. But interviews in the village of Pine Ridge suggested
otherwise.
On a reservation where some lack plumbing and electricity, the most
generous speculated that Ms. Blue Bird's actions could be traced to her
intense poverty. They thought she had followed her son and others into
the drug gang when the wads of cash they carried became too big a lure.
Others said she had become addicted to the attention she received as a
result of her largess: when donations to her slowed to a trickle, she
needed a way to continue doling out goods.
Still others could find no excuse at all.
Will Peters, who formerly represented Pine Ridge on the Oglala Sioux
Tribal Council, said she was "single-handedly responsible for ruining
the lives of every young person involved" in the drug ring.
In Ms. Blue Bird's forlorn neighborhood (known as the Igloo community
because the 1940s-era cabins there came from an Army base in Igloo,
S.D.), those who were once close to her are still shocked.
"We thought she was doing good," said Marvin Richards, a cousin who
lives down the road from her double-wide, now boarded up. "Around
Christmastime, the family members would get new shoes, sacks of clothes.
We really appreciated it."
Three of Mr. Richards's own nine children were caught up in the drug
ring, he said. Sage, 21, pleaded guilty and has begun serving more than
11 years in prison. The only daughter, Marvella, 27, and another son,
Rusty, 24, were convicted with Ms. Blue Bird, Mr. Spotted Elk and
another man, Flint Thomas Red Feather, 35, whom Ms. Blue Bird raised.
They all await sentencing.
Mr. Richards spoke as he looked into a house across the street from Ms.
Blue Bird's. It had belonged to his parents, and he was fixing it up for
his daughter when she was arrested.
That house and the two next to it are empty now. Those who lived in them
were all swept up in the drug arrests. (The children who lived with Ms.
Blue Bird are with relatives, or in foster homes, "scattered to the four
winds," she said.) The street looks war-torn. The houses' windows are
broken or boarded up, and piles of clothes and debris are visible
inside, through wide-open front doors.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew that the street was prone to trouble.
On Dec. 10, 2005, 11 days before Ms. Blue Bird's arrest, a 16-year-old
was shot to death by a friend who was playing with a gun in Ms. Blue
Bird's mobile home.
Tribal authorities say the breakup of the Igloo ring has put a small
dent in the drug problem on the reservation. Certainly in what is left
of the Igloo community, "things are quiet now," said Mr. Richards, who
still plans to fix up his daughter's house, for someone who might need it.
[foto] Ms. Blue Bird, shown with her granddaughter at her mobile home in
2004, now awaits sentencing and faces up to life in prison.
[foto] The drug ring supplied cocaine throughout the vast reservation
By EVELYN NIEVES
www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/us/28dakota.html
PINE RIDGE, S.D. --- Here in the poorest corner of the poorest Indian
reservation in the country, Geraldine Blue Bird's household was one of
the worst off.
Then President Bill Clinton stopped by her home during his 1999 tour of
the nation's most impoverished places. Ms. Blue Bird, who lived on a
disability check, was squeezing 28 adults and children, most of whom she
had taken in from the streets, into a four-room shack with no plumbing
and a pop-up camper out back. When word got out, donations poured in,
and continued for years. Ms. Blue Bird even received a brand-new
double-wide mobile home with four bedrooms.
But the woman who became a symbol of enduring, desperate poverty in the
United States now bunks in a jail cell in Rapid City, some 90 miles to
the northwest. In October, a federal jury convicted her of running a
multimillion-dollar drug ring out of her double-wide. The ring supplied
cocaine throughout the hills and valleys of the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, which is the size of Connecticut.
Her arrest and conviction followed a two-year investigation by federal
and tribal authorities that netted 16 people, including several of her
relatives and "adopted" children. Ms. Blue Bird, who is 50 and suffers
from congestive heart failure, is to be sentenced on Feb. 20. She faces
up to life in prison.
The case has brought a sense on the Pine Ridge reservation that Ms. Blue
Bird betrayed her people. After Mr. Clinton's visit, her burst of fame
made her a kind of ambassador for the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe. She
gave interviews in which she spoke of a need to rescue Lakota youth from
drugs and gangs. She was recognized by Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of
South Dakota, as one of the nation's Angels in Adoption. Until her
arrest at a Rapid City motel on Dec. 21, 2005, she was raising money to
open an orphanage.
Those in her neighborhood remember her sharing the donations she
received, showering families with bags of children's clothes. Their
lingering question about her fall from grace: Why?
In an interview at the Rapid City jail where she has been held since she
was arrested with several accomplices, a pound and a half of cocaine and
a few guns, a weepy Ms. Blue Bird denied having been the leader of the
drug ring, or even a part of it. She accused her biological son Colin
Spotted Elk, 25, one of four people convicted with her, of running the gang.
"I knew he was doing it," she said, "but he's my son."
Ms. Blue Bird, who plans an appeal, said support for her remained strong
among the Lakota. But interviews in the village of Pine Ridge suggested
otherwise.
On a reservation where some lack plumbing and electricity, the most
generous speculated that Ms. Blue Bird's actions could be traced to her
intense poverty. They thought she had followed her son and others into
the drug gang when the wads of cash they carried became too big a lure.
Others said she had become addicted to the attention she received as a
result of her largess: when donations to her slowed to a trickle, she
needed a way to continue doling out goods.
Still others could find no excuse at all.
Will Peters, who formerly represented Pine Ridge on the Oglala Sioux
Tribal Council, said she was "single-handedly responsible for ruining
the lives of every young person involved" in the drug ring.
In Ms. Blue Bird's forlorn neighborhood (known as the Igloo community
because the 1940s-era cabins there came from an Army base in Igloo,
S.D.), those who were once close to her are still shocked.
"We thought she was doing good," said Marvin Richards, a cousin who
lives down the road from her double-wide, now boarded up. "Around
Christmastime, the family members would get new shoes, sacks of clothes.
We really appreciated it."
Three of Mr. Richards's own nine children were caught up in the drug
ring, he said. Sage, 21, pleaded guilty and has begun serving more than
11 years in prison. The only daughter, Marvella, 27, and another son,
Rusty, 24, were convicted with Ms. Blue Bird, Mr. Spotted Elk and
another man, Flint Thomas Red Feather, 35, whom Ms. Blue Bird raised.
They all await sentencing.
Mr. Richards spoke as he looked into a house across the street from Ms.
Blue Bird's. It had belonged to his parents, and he was fixing it up for
his daughter when she was arrested.
That house and the two next to it are empty now. Those who lived in them
were all swept up in the drug arrests. (The children who lived with Ms.
Blue Bird are with relatives, or in foster homes, "scattered to the four
winds," she said.) The street looks war-torn. The houses' windows are
broken or boarded up, and piles of clothes and debris are visible
inside, through wide-open front doors.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew that the street was prone to trouble.
On Dec. 10, 2005, 11 days before Ms. Blue Bird's arrest, a 16-year-old
was shot to death by a friend who was playing with a gun in Ms. Blue
Bird's mobile home.
Tribal authorities say the breakup of the Igloo ring has put a small
dent in the drug problem on the reservation. Certainly in what is left
of the Igloo community, "things are quiet now," said Mr. Richards, who
still plans to fix up his daughter's house, for someone who might need it.
[foto] Ms. Blue Bird, shown with her granddaughter at her mobile home in
2004, now awaits sentencing and faces up to life in prison.
[foto] The drug ring supplied cocaine throughout the vast reservation