12/18/2022 0 Comments Rise of nations lakota![]() The governor promised to get law enforcement and the Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services involved and proposed the “broken window” practice of policing - focusing on small crimes to head off larger ones. “But I’m a big believer that the people closest to the problem have the best solutions,” he added. Ricketts said he couldn’t shut people down “because we don’t like their business.” The public health situation is untenable, and it wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else.” There is public urination, defecation and any other ‘cation’ you could think of. “We aren’t against the beer stores, but we want enforcement of the existing laws. “Nebraska’s motto is ‘equality under the law,’ but there is no equality under the law in Whiteclay,” BonFleur said. After listening to the governor speak, BonFleur rose to his feet and called Whiteclay a “black eye on the state of Nebraska.” Pete Ricketts in Chadron, 90 minutes south of Whiteclay. ![]() His efforts recently earned him an invitation to a town hall meeting with Republican Gov. Lakota Hope’s leader is even seeking donations of lifeguard chairs to line the street so volunteers can summon help if a street person is injured. He is also quietly collaborating with Legal Aid of Nebraska to protect the folks on Main Street whom many see as victims of the state’s inaction. Whiteclay is his home, and he is out to shame Nebraska into dealing with the squalor, public health risks and rampant drug and alcohol addiction infesting his neighborhood. “It keeps me awake every damn night.”īonFleur is no outside rabble-rouser. “Do you know how many children were born on that reservation with fetal alcohol syndrome since I filed that lawsuit?” asked attorney Thomas White, who represented the Oglala Sioux in the suit. A judge dismissed the case, saying he didn’t have jurisdiction to rule on it. ![]() The suit also alleged store owners traded alcohol for sex and food stamps. In 2012, a $500-million lawsuit was filed against the stores and national breweries saying they knowingly sold beer to people who resold it in Pine Ridge. In 2013, Pine Ridge residents, hoping to break the Whiteclay stranglehold, voted to legalize alcohol sales on the reservation only to see implementation blocked by tribal infighting. So far every attempt to shutter the liquor stores through protest or civil disobedience has failed. “We call these people ‘risen warriors’ because I don’t believe God would call them drunks.” “God told me, ‘Put my light here,’ and that’s what I have tried to do,” BonFleur said. The ministry is a 5-acre oasis that provides work space for the artists among the street people, food for the hungry and a base for visiting missionaries. He’s convinced if Jesus still walked the Earth, he’d be walking here among what he calls a “modern-day leper colony.” Many panhandle, some trade sex for a six-pack.īruce BonFleur, 63, runs Lakota Hope and has been working in Whiteclay for 18 years and living there for two. They sleep in fly-infested trash heaps behind the liquor stores, defecating and urinating wherever they can. Some are badly bloated with swollen limbs. About 60% of the residents are alcoholics, and 1 in 4 babies is born with fetal alcohol syndrome.Īnd then there are the street people, sometimes 100 or more, who get drunk here on Hurricane High Gravity Lager or Camo Black Ice with alcohol levels of 10.5% or higher. Booze has been banned on the reservation for more than a century, yet alcoholism there is rampant. And almost all of it went to the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just over the South Dakota line. With a population of 12, Whiteclay has four liquor stores that sold nearly 4 million cans of beer last year, according to the state’s liquor commission. “It was shocking at first, but I believe God wants me here.” “They really just want someone to hear them,” said the soft-spoken 20-year-old, who does outreach for Lakota Hope, a nondenominational ministry here.
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