Salon.com News | "Welcome to Red Lake"

Salon.com News | "Welcome to Red Lake": "

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/03/26/lawrence/print.html




'Welcome to Red Lake'
A muckraking Chippewa journalist says tribal press constraints keep details of the recent school shooting murky -- and hide systemic problems on the reservation where he grew up.
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By Emily Schmall

March 26, 2005 | With many details of the school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation still emerging, journalists from around the country have trekked en masse to the remote tribal region of northern Minnesota. But they've learned that freedom of the press abruptly ends on the edges of Minnesota 1, the highway that cuts through the reservation, where Chippewa tribal customs prevail.
Local police threaten legal consequences if journalists breach the reservation's boundaries and have sent many journalists on their way, with their only recourse being an appeal to the tribal court. Some family members of Red Lake shooting victims have stepped forward and criticized the tribal officials for their stringent restrictions on the press. On Thursday, tribal police pulled over a Knight-Ridder vehicle, confiscated camera equipment, and broke up an interview with the father of one of the victims.
To muckraking Chippewa journalist Bill Lawrence, the press constraints in Red Lake come as no surprise. He lived there as a child and returned after law school. In 1970 and 1978, he ran losi"