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Rally targets domestic violence, alcohol/drug abuse

By Maggie Plummer

Two Eagle River School student SuSet Rossbach voiced her view on domestic abuse. (Amelia Adams photo)

PABLO - "These hands are not used for hitting." "Domestic violence is NOT our tradition."

Those were two of the slogans painted on student picket signs for last Friday's awareness rally to end domestic violence as well as alcohol and drug abuse.

People gathered on the north end of the old Tribal Complex for the Oct. 6 midday event, and coordinator Louise Stasso thanked the Two Eagle River School and Polson High School students and their chaperones for attending the rally and displaying their anti-abuse signs.

Tribal Chairman James Steele, Jr. spoke on behalf of the Tribal Council, observing that domestic violence plagues the tribal community. (Amelia Adams photo)

Tribal Chairman James Steele, Jr. spoke to the rally on behalf of the Tribal Council, who were in a Tribal Constitution-required quarterly meeting that day.

The chairman said that domestic violence continues to plague the tribal community. "The impact on children is troubling," he said. "It seems like alcoholism and domestic abuse go hand in hand...and the children are the most vulnerable."

Tribal Police Chief Craige Couture took a turn at the microphone, pointing out that during the year 2005, "we had almost 400 domestic violence cases, in combination with the Lake County Sheriff's Office."

That, he noted, was one of the highest number of domestic violence cases the reservation has ever seen. "Yes, we have a problem," Couture said. "But the reason you know that is because we are doing something about it."

Other speakers included: SKC President Joe McDonald; House Representatives Carol Juneau, Joey Jayne, and Jeanne Windham; Tribal Education Director Joyce Silverthorne; Tribal Crime Victim Advocate Evelyn Hernandez, Tribal Health Director Kevin Howlett; and incoming Lake County Sheriff Lucky Larson.

Windham, who serves on boards for a number of domestic violence organizations, commented on "how sad it is that we have to have a month to remind us that women, children, and men are being abused."

One of the worst long-term effects on children, she said, is "the risk of repeating the violence in adulthood."

Larson, due to take office as Lake County's new sheriff on Monday, Oct. 16, pointed out that "in this county the victim doesn't have to file a complaint, the state and the police can file the complaint."

One of the biggest problems in dealing with domestic violence, he said, is that "people are scared." But victims can get restraining orders on these people, Larson emphasized.

"We have 494 people waiting to get into our (county) jail," the new sheriff said. "That's horrible. But, if you commit a domestic violence act, you go in immediately, there's no waiting list."

Hernandez, who described herself as 20 years sober and a survivor of domestic violence, referred to a recent Missoulian article by Jodi Rave about the high rate of domestic abuse among Native American women.

"On average, more than three women in the United States are murdered each day by intimate partners, according to U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics," Rave's article states. "And even though the Bureau of Justice reports a 36 percent decline in domestic violence homicides over the past two decades, the incidence of domestic violence deaths among Native women remains twice that of non-Native women...

"One third of the 53 Montana women killed in domestic violence homicide since 1990 were Native women."

Hernandez and others are determined to bring an end to domestic violence.

"What we need to do," she told the rally gathering, "is take our power back."