McCollum Asks Justice Department to Investigate Detention and Shackling of 11-Year-Old Native American Crime Victim

Press Release

McCollum Asks Justice Department to Investigate Detention and Shackling of 11-Year-Old Native American Crime Victim

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) has called on the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to investigate whether the detention of an 11-year-old Native American crime victim violated civil rights laws when authorities shackled and jailed him overnight simply for failing to appear in court.

The boy, a member Minnesota's Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, is the alleged victim of an assault by an older child. After failing to appear in Mille Lacs County Court to testify against the accused, he was arrested on April 10, held overnight in a juvenile detention facility, then forced to wear handcuffs, leg restraints, and an orange prison jumpsuit and wait in a jail cell for two hours the next morning before finally being escorted to the courthouse.

"The disturbing conduct of Mille Lacs County with regard to this child's basic human and civil rights merits a complete investigation by your office," McCollum wrote in a May 22, 2007 letter to Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has also expressed concern about the incident, and the State Attorney General's office is investigating.

"In light of the fact that an 11-year-old Native American crime victim has now been victimized again, this time by the criminal justice system charged with defending his rights, I strongly encourage your office to conduct a full investigation of the circumstances surrounding this case," McCollum concluded in her letter to the Department of Justice.

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