MMIP conference a place for healing and hope

Amelia Schafer
ICT + Rapid City Journal

RAPID CITY, S.D. – Talking about her granddaughter’s death is never easy, but it’s something Carmen White Horse said she needs to do.

“I feel that this way she won’t be forgotten,” White Horse said. “She’s dead and buried now, but she won’t be forgotten.”

So the Sicangu Lakota woman traveled 155 miles from Parmelee, S.D., to Rapid City on April 17 to talk about her late granddaughter, Reganne Chekpa, during the first Wowaglake Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Conference in Rapid City.

Chepka was killed by her boyfriend Tanyan Wakita Iron in 2020 in St. Francis, S.D., on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. After her granddaughter’s death, White Horse said her family had no idea what to do or how to process the events.

“There’s no services; there’s nothing to do with our grief and no way to navigate the legal system,” White Horse said. “It’s like (families) don’t know what to do with this shock. … I took my son, her father, to IHS to get help. They told him he was healed, that he’d get over it, and that was it. I told her son, my great-grandson, his school that he needed help. He was so withdrawn he wasn’t speaking and I don’t know what they even tried, I don’t know if they did anything.”

The conference, hosted by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Rosebud Sioux Tribe, included presentations by victim’s families, advocacy groups and public officials such as Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Morley and Allison Morrisette, the South Dakota MMIP Coordinator.

It also provided a way for victim’s families to talk about their loved ones and feel seen, White Horse said.

“I feel like it’s healing; I’m not in it alone,” White Horse said. “I was sitting with a lady this morning. Her granddaughter was shot just like mine. We kind of bonded, just teasing each other trying to make each other laugh. It’s healing for me, I feel good.”

Discussions focused on search-and-rescue operations, a need for more services for victim's families, legislative issues, general awareness and current MMIP cases.

“This is beyond an epidemic and it’s only growing,” said Darla Black, Oglala Lakota and the OST legislative liaison. “We need to come together and seek ways first of all for prevention and awareness. By hosting this (conference) and bringing everyone together, we want to plant that seed, but we also want to take it a step further and begin to create legislation.”

In her role as legislative liaison, Black said she’s responsible for planning events like this. She reached out to the tribal council and they began to work with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to plan a four-day event with support from the Red Ribbon Skirt Society, the Brave Heart Society, Peaceful Means and more.

Indigenous people in South Dakota account for roughly 60% of the state’s missing person cases, despite only accounting for 10% of the state’s population. Outside of South Dakota, Indigenous people continue to go missing at higher rates than any demographic. Often, the families of missing individuals don’t know what to do. When the missing person is found deceased, the issue only becomes further complicated, Black said.

Per the Major Crimes Act, all violent crimes committed in Indian Country fall under federal jurisdiction. However, Black, who worked in tribal law enforcement for over three decades, said communication issues are common.

“When they find someone deceased, it ends there,” Black said. “We don’t know if they’re investigating. There’s really no follow-up.”

In one woman’s death, 19-year-old Ashton Provost, eight months have passed and no federal charges have been made against her suspected murderer despite the case falling within federal jurisdiction.

In the future, conference organizers said they want to include more law enforcement officials whether it’s state, local or federal to help find solutions for issues like this.

“We need a uniform code that spells out what’s going to happen when someone is reported missing across the Great Sioux Nation,” Black said. “We’re looking at trying to meet with tribal councils to request a task force and following these laws to try and get things done; it needs to happen. The only way change will happen is if we all work together, not just the tribal governments but everyone. We need people like the U.S. Attorney on board.”

Black said OST is planning on hosting another similar conference in September to continue to educate the public and work towards solutions.

“My family wasn’t the only one who went through this,” White Horse said. “These girls, these families, they need help. If you feel like you’re all alone in the whole world, this, what we’re doing here, it makes you know you’re not alone. I want to support others too, especially these (kids) that are growing up.”

This story is co-published by the Rapid City Journal and ICT , a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the South Dakota area.

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