‘Were you there?’

The meme in this photo was taken from the video produced during an incident last week in which a police officer is seen using violent physical actions to break up a fight. The students were in middle school. ideo Credit: FACEBOOK/Natalie Stites Means

RAPID CITY – Reaction to the videos that surfaced last week in Rapid City regarding two girls and an officer’s physical handling of the situation, has caused a heated response.
The videos were recorded near South Middle School and were of two Native American girls engaged in a physical fight, a Rapid City Police Officer, Richard Holt, was seen straddling one of the girls while reaching up to strike another and pull her down by her hair to restrain her and attempt to stop the fight. Several videos were produced on the day of the incident, each lasting less than 20 seconds.
These types of school yard videos are becoming a common occurrence and popular within the social media and other video streaming outlets. There is no victor in these videos as the parties involved are usually publicly humiliated and can damage a person’s ability to get a job or into college.
Since the videos in Rapid City came to light, members of the Native American community have been divided on their reactions. Many calling this an incident of excessive use of force by an officer, and others saying the officer was justified in his actions he used to stop the fight between the middle schoolers.
Over the weekend, two community forums were held to address the concerns of those who want to support the student whom was struck upside the head by the officer. Chief Jegeris of the Rapid City Police Department has publicly stated this maneuver was necessary, referring to it as a technique used in marital arts. On the streets, this maneuver is commonly called slapping someone upside the head.
Natalie Stites Means, 43, organized a closed meeting on Friday evening, in which forty persons attended to voice their concerns in support of the young girl whom they feel was assaulted by the officer. This meeting was explicitly for those who wanted to show solidarity in support of the two students.
On Friday, Stites Means called for a meeting to address the “excessive force that was levied against two Native girls at South Middle School”. These videos have caused distress and concern amongst adults, former educators, and citizens in Rapid City. “We wanted to have this meeting to have a response to it,” she said.
From this meeting, she was hoping to have an action plan, and not just a discussion. This took place to form some type of united response to the videos and the actions of the officer. The idea was to be able to prevent this type of law enforcement response in the future.
“We had grandmothers there. Six children showed up who attend Rapid City area schools. We had people who were there who are generally concerned about the way these girls were treated by Officer Holt. That meeting was a space for those concerns, and not a space to uphold the cop, uphold the system and defend this dehumanizing treatment,” she said. “It’s something that we need to not make as a normal part of encounters between officers and youth here in Rapid City.”
The meeting was well-attended, visibly absent were persons who are paid advocates for youth. According to Stites Means, these persons are really closely allied, or have contracts and agreements with the City of Rapid City, Rapid City Police Department, or some entity of the County. She said these persons don’t really have a space to advocate for youth outside of those organizations.
“People who are paid to address these issues didn’t show up. There’s been a real silence or quietness from those folks,” she said. “I understand that because people’s jobs are at stake, when you speak out against the police here in Rapid City. There can be a retaliation.”
Stites Means said there can be reputational attacks, defamation behind closed doors and publicly of those who speak out against law enforcement in Rapid City. “They can’t really break out of their roles to advocate for these little girls who were brutalized by Officer Richard Holt.”
“I saw a 12-second video. It shows the cop straddling one girl, and he is trying to pin down the other girl. He strikes the girl. She is momentarily stunned, he grabs her hair and twists her head, pulls her around to force her to submit and pins her head to the ground,” she said. “The way that her head is twisted, it looks really shocking. Her head is actually twisted fully around. I thought is this girl’s neck going to be broken?”
Stites Means said lawyers are going to figure it out, as there is an issue of liability in these actions. “My opinion is that it is an excessive use of force, that’s not a legal opinion, that’s my opinion as a community member,” said the former mayoral candidate. “I believe in the people that are saying excessive force shouldn’t even be used on middle school students. They are physically different than adults. Injury can much more long lasting, impactful and span across their lives.”
The advocate and organizer said she’s been in contact with other resource officers, law enforcement and consultants regarding this matter. “People I spoke to, that are in martial arts, thought that it was ridiculous and that, that man made a fool out of himself.”
Another community meeting was called on Sunday. That went on for four and a half hours, but that community meeting was public, and accessible to anybody and the police actually showed up to the meeting. We had Assistant Chief Don Hedrick there. In response to a young person who asked ‘Why aren’t you going to do something about how that police officer treated those girls that way’, his response was ‘Were you there?’
Stites Means said the irony for her is Hedrick and the supervision team who cleared Officer Holt weren’t there either. “So, all of us who are commenting on the videos, weren’t there. So, is it an issue of, if you defend cops across the board, then we have a fundamental different worldview, in that I believe cops are human beings. Just like civilians are. Just like Natives are. Cops can make mistakes.”
She would like to see further scrutiny of the police officer involved during his 28-year career in Rapid City. According to the advocate, Officer Holt shot and killed a Native American man and was cleared of any wrong doing. “Whether justified or not by the legal authorities, in 2019 he’s jumping on little girls because he can’t handle a fist fight,” she said. “There has to be a way of looking at this to further the inquiry on the police officer’s behavior.”
Stites Means said she reviewed several ways of breaking up fights using restraints, holds, and using of the physical body to stop the incident, which does not “involve straddling somebody’s head or face, or striking their face, or pulling hair. Or expecting submission to commands within seconds.”
“I think that’s a really inappropriate way to view and have these expectations of our young people who are literally in the middle of a crisis, in the middle of a fight. That’s still is a crisis. Rather than prioritizing their safety, he prioritized their submission, and that’s the thing that is so apparent to me when you look at the videos. When you take away that badge, what was it that he was really doing? Was it really for their safety? Or his authority?” she said.