Crow Creek MMIP walk raises awareness of gun violence

FORT THOMPSON, S.D. – It’s been two years since Garrett Hawk was murdered in front of his home on the Crow Creek Reservation in central South Dakota.

Like many other Indigenous families in South Dakota, Hawk’s family has gone years without answers, and violence on the small Crow Creek Reservation has continued, despite a 2023 Emergency Declaration from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe asking for increased police forces.

“My brother Garrett, he was my rock,” said Shaynna Wounded Knee, Hawk’s cousin who he grew up with like a sibling. “When I lost Garrett it really hit me. It’s been hard, but with everyone’s support we’re getting through it.”

Hawk’s family has taken to advocating not just for his justice, but justice for all Missing and Murdered Indigenous People through annual walks on the Crow Creek Reservation.

Led by Hawk’s cousin, Shaynna Wounded Knee, who was like a sister to him, around 50 people joined together to walk on Friday, August 15, from the Missouri River, through the Crow Creek powwow grounds and into the community center.

This year’s walk featured a call to end gun violence, happening just five days after two young men, Teron Sazue, 23, and Tayshawn Battese, 22, were shot and killed on the Lower Brule Reservation just across the river following the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe’s annual powwow.

Two 18-year-old men, Jami Johnson Jr. and Kingston Bagola, have been indicted and charged with second-degree murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and using and carrying a firearm following the August 10 shooting.

“Every young life lost to gun violence is an unspeakable tragedy,” said Frank Star Comes Out, Oglala Sioux Tribe president, in an August 15 press statement. “We cannot allow this to become normal.”

Photos of Sazue and Battese lined tables at the community center following the walk, surrounded by banners calling for an end to gun violence, alongside photos of other Native people lost to domestic and gun violence.

“Gun violence, it’s going on on both sides (of the river),” Wounded Knee said. “It’s a whole other range of violence and it’s killing people.”

In South Dakota, Native people are 12 times more likely to die by gun violence than White people, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

In August 2024, Tom Thunder Hawk was shot and killed at the annual Oglala Nation Wacipi, a powwow on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota.

The Rosebud, Oglala, Standing Rock and Crow Creek Sioux tribes have all issued separate state-of-emergency declarations throughout the past year over violence on their respective reservations. After Sazue’s and Battese’s deaths, Star Comes Out issued a state of emergency for all Oceti Sakowin lands (Lakota, Dakota and Nakota) within South Dakota.

“Our children deserve safe streets, safe schools and a future free from fear,” he said.

Gun violence isn’t the only source of violence for the community. Domestic violence, which can include child abuse, is a big issue. Over 25 percent of women and roughly 25 percent of men in South Dakota experience domestic violence during their lifetimes, and for many it can be deadly.

Lynette Shields and her great-niece Olivia have joined Wounded Knee on the walk since it started in 2024. The family walks in memory of C.J. Shields, Olivia’s grandfather and Lynette’s younger brother.

Olivia never got to meet her grandfather, who was killed nearly 10 years ago on September 4, 2015, by his girlfriend, Whitney Renae Turney, stabbed 25 times in their apartment in Oacoma, South Dakota.

“It’s hard,” Lynette said. “Because you still think about him. You see the bridge where he was dumped when you’re driving out of town. He was so badly decomposed. … They had to send him to Rapid City (for identification).”

In 2016, Turney pled guilty to first-degree murder, sentenced to 25 years in prison. Turney had left C.J. in her apartment for weeks before moving him to the reservation over 25 miles away.

“People saw his body laying there (in the apartment),” Lynette said. “They said they couldn’t handle it (guilt) anymore, so they told us it was him.”

But on Christmas Eve 2022, then-Governor Kristi Noem commuted Turney’s sentence, allowing her to spend the rest of it at home with her family. Lynette said she and the rest of the family were not consulted about the decision, and it felt horrible.

“The judge said, ‘She has a daughter to raise,’ but he had two daughters that won’t ever get to visit with him, will never grow up with him,”Lynette said. “So it was okay for her to go and kill him, and get out of prison as if it was all okay. He has grandbabies (now), seven. The youngest one, she wasn’t even a year old (when he died).”

Several of the MMIP posters at the community center following the walk were of children, one of Mateo Tuberquia, a five-year-old boy beaten to death by his father’s girlfriend. Tuberquia would have been 11 on August 24.

These walks give grieving families space to be seen and heard, Wounded Knee said. She plans to continue these walks and continue to provide a safe space for families.

“It’s basically a support group for each other,” she said.

Wounded Knee said she plans to create a solid support group for families, somewhere to pray and share a meal. Her goal is for next year’s walk to be even better than the last two. Wounded Knee plans to request that tribal employees are given administrative leave so they can participate in the walk as well.

By next year, the family may also have answers about what happened to Hawk. Wounded Knee said recently law enforcement gave the family names of who the shooter may be. For now, everything is at a standstill.

“It’s a lengthy investigation because of the different parties that were involved,” she said. “And the thought that it may be connected to other incidents that have happened.”

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