Deaths in Rapid City unsolved after a decade
Monday, June 22, 2009
Filed Under:
Law
The deaths of eight homeless men -- six of them Native -- remain unsolved after a decade in Rapid City, South Dakota.
All of the men died along Rapid Creek. The first two bodies were discovered in May 1998 and six more were discovered over a year-long period.
"Most still feel that there was definitely foul play and it wasn't investigated to the extent it should have been. So that remains kind of a wound to the Native people," Laurette Pourier, the executive director of
SANI-T, the Society for the Advancement of Native Interests Today, told The Rapid City Journal.
Former police chief Craig Tieszen investigated the deaths but he believes all were accidental. Tieszen now serves as a state senator and has been named in a racial discrimination by an Indian police officer who used to work in Rapid City.
The deaths of the men became an issue again when Indian pedestrians were the victims of attacks in Rapid City.
Get the Story:
Officials look for answers in Rapid Creek mystery deaths
(AP 6/22)
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