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Date Posted: 09:33:22 03/12/01 Mon
Author: Anonymous
Subject: News and Issues

Advocate Reporter (no email / no homepage) wrote:


Ex-boss details abuse of BIA
whistle-blower

By Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau
Chief

Feb. 15, 2001 - WASHINGTON - A
former Bureau of Indian Affairs
supervisor was directed to
retaliate against a so-called
whistle-blower who was casting
doubt on the government's efforts
to revamp its long-troubled Indian
trust program, according to an
affidavit.

The statement by Donald E.
Whitener, a 35-year BIA employee and
former deputy director of the
agency's Southwest office in
Albuquerque, could spell trouble
for former Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt and other senior Interior
officials.

Lawyers pressing a
multimillion-dollar lawsuit over the BIA's
admittedly mangled trust accounts
said they will use Whitener's
statement to seek criminal
contempt proceedings against Babbitt
and others for violating court
orders calling for cooperation with
their suit.

In papers filed in U.S. District
Court here, lawyers for a group of
Indians alleged that actions
against Mona Infield, a BIA branch
chief, were part of a "pattern and
practice of intimidation and
witness tampering" by Interior
Department officials.

Infield was removed from work on
the trust accounts and allowed
to remain at home on full pay
after she filed an affidavit in the
lawsuit, both sides in the dispute
agree.

Interior lawyers have denied
Infield's allegations. They have said
that no effort was made to
retaliate against her. Babbitt and other
senior Interior officials took
actions to ensure that all BIA
employees were allowed to talk to
lawyers in the trust case, the
lawyers have said.

As for Infield's claim she was not
given suitable work, an Interior
spokeswoman said that the
department had made numerous efforts
to find Infield, who worked in
Albuquerque, a job in New Mexico.

Whitener said in an affidavit,
however, that shortly after Infield
filed her statement, he received a
call from Debra Maddox, the
BIA's acting director of
management and administration. Maddox
told him to remove Infield from
the trust program and give her
"diminished responsibilities," he
said,

"I understood Ms. Maddox's
instructions to mean that the deputy
(BIA) commissioner Hilda Manual
and senior management had
decided to block Ms. Infield from
gaining access to any more
information that could be
presented to the court," he said.

The charges are among the most
serious leveled at top Interior
officials in the 4-year-old
lawsuit that challenges the government
handling of about 300,000
individual trust accounts established for
Indians by the BIA. The government
has conceded that the
accounts are a mess, but it has
contended that it has programs in
place that may reconcile the
accounts.

Infield questioned those efforts
in her statement, and Whitener's
four-page affidavit dated Feb. 6
and filed in the court this week
reinforces her claim of
harassment.

Whitener, a member of the Squaxin
Island Tribe who retired from
the BIA on June 30, said he
believed the order to keep Infield off
the case came from Manual. She was
the BIA's No. 2 official and
one "who managed the BIA with an
iron fist," he said.

Officials said Manual is no longer
with the agency.

Copyright 2001 The Denver Post.


47 Date: 2001-02-15 12:40:22
Advocate Reporter (no email / no homepage) wrote:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_43702,00.html


Hate crime feared in boy's beating

Family suspects gang at Rifle High School may be
responsible for youth's injuries

By Ellen Miller, News Staff Writer

RIFLE -- On a quiet Valentine's Day afternoon, Tony
Manuppella and his friends sat at the Elks Club bar
sipping coffee and after-work beers and talking about
what happened to 16-year-old Kyle Skyock.

"We're afraid it was a hate crime," said Manuppella, a
longtime Elks officer. "Kyle is a great kid. He's
dainty and petite, so of course he heard horrible
insults. But whoever did this better watch out,
because
they'll be doing some serious time."

A jogger found Skyock lying on the side of U.S. 6 east
of Rifle early Sunday. His skull was cracked, he had
three broken ribs and he had burn marks on one hand
and a shoulder.

Kyle was improving Wednesday, according to his
parents, Mike and Sharlene Skyock. He remained at St.
Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, where he was up and
walking but still groggy.

The talk of Rifle was about the Skyocks' suspicions
that a Rifle High School gang called the '02 Crew
might
be responsible for Kyle's injuries.

Rifle High principal John Burwell said there had been
discipline problems with a group of students from
the Class of 2002, but he said that the community,
students and parents had confronted the issue and
"put it to rest."

"I can tell you categorically there is not a gang at
Rifle High School," he said. "The kids we dealt with
have shown growth and maturity. Unfortunately, they
were brought in and it's as inaccurate and as far
from the truth as you can get."

Rifle Police Chief Daryl Meisner said there hasn't
been a gang problem in Rifle for at least a year.

Students at the high school were divided as well.

"The '02 gang hates him (Kyle) and they paint everyone
who's not like themselves or who are different,"
said a freshman girl, who said she was too scared to
give her name.

Matt Canard, a sophomore, said he believes that the
'02 Crew is a thing of the past.

Kyle's parents pulled him out of Rifle High School
last October because, they said, of problems he was
having with the '02 Crew. Some of the group had
bullied him the previous fall by trying to stuff him
into a
locker. He was rescued by his brother, Jesse, who was
a year older and much taller.

But Jesse drowned last June at Harvey Gap Reservoir,
and Kyle was in distress and vulnerable when he
returned to school, his parents said. He attends the
private Garden School in New Castle.

Burwell said students at Rifle High were upset with
the severity of Skyock's injuries.

"They can't believe something like this could be done
to another human being," he said.

At Audrey's Cafe in downtown Rifle, a popular place
for morning coffee and lunch, Kathy Squires said the
talk all morning was about "the '02 Crew as a bunch of
bored boys trying to be bullies."

"Unfortunately around here, if you're not in the
clique, whether it's the jocks or the cowboys or
whoever,
you'll have trouble," said Manuppella.

Meisner said he realizes the small town is upset, not
only with Kyle's injuries but with the unrelated
death last weekend of another 16-year-old, Daniel
Sullins.

According to Garfield County authorities, Daniel
apparently had been drinking red wine and inhaling
propane.

"Things like this don't happen very often in Rifle and
there is some hysteria," he said.

Meanwhile, the Skyocks said police still had not
interviewed them or Kyle.

Meisner said he had asked Dr. Rob Kurtzman to examine
Kyle. Kyle's father, Mike, said a doctor had been
in to see his son, but he didn't know if it was
Kurtzman. Kurtzman couldn't be reached for comment.

Meisner said his department is looking at "all
possibilities, including the possibility it might have
been a
hit-and-run accident. It's primarily being
investigated as an assault."

He said investigators had been in touch with the
Skyock family, which the parents deny. He said a
time-line was being developed on Kyle's whereabouts
from when he left the Elks Club about midnight
Saturday and when the jogger found him two miles away.


"The police are ridiculous," said Kim Herwick, manager
of the Elks Club. "The police concentrate on
domestic violence, drugs and DUIs. They haven't even
talked to any of us here, and we were the last
ones to see Kyle that night."

February 15, 2001

Copyright 2001, Denver Rocky Mountain News. All Rights
Reserved.

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