{"id":39188,"date":"2025-09-04T23:49:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T04:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/crow-creek-mmip-walk-raises-awareness-of-gun-violence\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T23:50:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T04:50:06","slug":"crow-creek-mmip-walk-raises-awareness-of-gun-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/crow-creek-mmip-walk-raises-awareness-of-gun-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Crow Creek MMIP walk raises awareness of gun violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two men hang a sign for Garrett Hawk at the Fort Thompson Community Center following the second annual Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples walk on August 15, 2025. (Credit: Amelia Schafer\/ICT).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

FORT THOMPSON, S.D. \u2013 It\u2019s been two years since Garrett Hawk was murdered in front of his home on the Crow Creek Reservation in central South Dakota.<\/p>\n

Like many other Indigenous families in South Dakota, Hawk\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother Garrett, he was my rock,\u201d said Shaynna Wounded Knee, Hawk\u2019s cousin who he grew up with like a sibling. \u201cWhen I lost Garrett it really hit me. It\u2019s been hard, but with everyone\u2019s support we\u2019re getting through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawk\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Led by Hawk\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s 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\u2019s annual powwow.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery young life lost to gun violence is an unspeakable tragedy,\u201d said Frank Star Comes Out, Oglala Sioux Tribe president, in an August 15 press statement. \u201cWe cannot allow this to become normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cGun violence, it\u2019s going on on both sides (of the river),\u201d Wounded Knee said. \u201cIt\u2019s a whole other range of violence and it\u2019s killing people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s and Battese\u2019s deaths, Star Comes Out issued a state of emergency for all Oceti Sakowin lands (Lakota, Dakota and Nakota) within South Dakota.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur children deserve safe streets, safe schools and a future free from fear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gun violence isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s grandfather and Lynette\u2019s younger brother.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard,\u201d Lynette said. \u201cBecause you still think about him. You see the bridge where he was dumped when you\u2019re driving out of town. He was so badly decomposed. \u2026 They had to send him to Rapid City (for identification).\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople saw his body laying there (in the apartment),\u201d Lynette said. \u201cThey said they couldn\u2019t handle it (guilt) anymore, so they told us it was him.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on Christmas Eve 2022, then-Governor Kristi Noem commuted Turney\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judge said, \u2018She has a daughter to raise,\u2019 but he had two daughters that won\u2019t ever get to visit with him, will never grow up with him,\u201dLynette said. \u201cSo 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\u2019t even a year old (when he died).\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s girlfriend. Tuberquia would have been 11 on August 24.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a support group for each other,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lengthy investigation because of the different parties that were involved,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the thought that it may be connected to other incidents that have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Crow Creek MMIP walk raises awareness of gun violence<\/a> first appeared on Native Sun News Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Two men hang a sign for Garrett Hawk at the Fort Thompson Community Center following the second annual Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples walk on August 15, 2025. (Credit: Amelia Schafer\/ICT). FORT THOMPSON, S.D. \u2013 It\u2019s been two years since Garrett Hawk was murdered in front of his home on <\/p>\n

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