Native Reservation's Policemen Honored for Handling Domestic Violence Story-Date: 05:50 p.m. PST Sunday , August 10, 1997 Native Reservation's Policemen Honored for Handling Domestic Violence BY K. MARIE PORTERFIELD, INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY, RAPID CITY, S.D. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News RAPID CITY, S.D.--Aug. 11--Many of Pine Ridge's police officers perform above and beyond the line of duty when responding to domestic violence calls. Last month 12 of the most outstanding received awards by Cangleska, a domestic violence program on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota. ``From answering calls, to report writing and follow up, they've been excellent in their consistency of response and in their commitment to keeping women safe,'' said Karen Artichoker, the director of administration and the domestic violence shelter. The officers had their work cut out for them. Last year 550 men were arrested for domestic violence on Pine Ridge. In 1995 and 1996, 627 men from the Oglala Sioux Tribe received probation for battering wives or girlfriends. The problem of domestic violence is a relatively new one for American Indian people, Ms. Artichoker said. ``It isn't natural to our people,'' she said. ``Battering is a European tradition that was brought here by the missionaries.'' She said that spouse abuse was intensified by the introduction of alcohol into American Indian culture. ``Although there was domestic violence prior to colonization, it was rare,'' she said. ``When it happened, it was dealt with swiftly.'' Batterers were banished or faced retaliation from the woman's family. ``One winter count even shows a father and brother killing a man who beat a woman,'' she said. According to Ms. Artichoker, because a Lakota man usually came to live with the woman he married and her family, she had built-in protection from abuse. ``Our culture holds women as sacred since it was a woman who brought the Pipe,'' she said. ``It is almost impossible to hit someone you consider sacred,'' she said. Traditionally, Lakota women kept their own names, unlike Europeans who insisted that the woman take her husband's name to signify ownership ``You don't hear about Mrs. Sitting Bull,'' Ms. Artichoker said. ``Domestic violence is an attitude about women that sees women as property.'' ``A man who owns a car can either shine it every day or can take a sledge hammer to it,'' she said. ``If you tell him to stop,'' she said, ``he'll say that he can do whatever he wants because it's his.'' The officers who were honored at a ceremony in Rapid City on July 12, were: Lyle Brings Him Back, Samuel O'Rouke, Wendell Yellow Bull, Eugenio White Hawk, Richard Mousseau Jr., Tim McGrady, James Chief, Loren Weston, Curtis White Crane, Nellie Mousseau, Veronica Kills Right and Glen Gibbons. ----- ON THE INTERNET: Visit Indian Country Today on the World Wide Web at http://www.indiancountry.com/ ----- (c) 1997, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News. ------------------------------------------------------------