JUSTICE FOR JAMI

             As some of you may know, I have been fighting a lonely, unsuccessful battle for justice for Native Americans for 7 years now.  In that time, I have discovered how the reservation system really works.  I have been beaten, falsely arrested and jailed, my 2 story house that I built seized and destroyed, and I was illegally excluded from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 2004-05, and I found absolutely no recourse to justice through law enforcement or the justice system.  In short, I was treated just like an Indian.  And out of this hellish experience, I learned a lot about the true meaning of the U.S. bringing democracy to tribal people.

            I escaped to North Dakota, to Spirit Lake Reservation only to discover the same system of racism and injustice is as deeply entrenched.  I reported a rape to the school administrators as told to me in class by a Native American girl.  The problem is that the administrators got by with  not  reporting the rape as mandated by NDCC 50-25.1-03 by saying that the rape happened on an Indian reservation and the tribal police and tribal court was handling it. (Ex A and C), thus blurring the real issue that the refusal to report happened in a state run school.  Superintendent Charles Guthrie deliberately chose not to report the rape of a student when it became known to him.  When he discovered that I knew about it, he expelled the rape victim and set up a newly enrolled girl to replace the real rape victim by questioning Jami about a rape in violation of child abuse laws which prohibits any unauthorized questioning of students,  making the girl, Jami Jetty and her parents, believe that I had told school administrators that Jami had been raped,  which caused everyone to regard Jami as the rape victim which then made life intolerable for Jami, and was the reason why she killed herself, as told to me by her father, James Jetty in a conversation I had with him in February of 2011.  It all started from the fact that Social Services refused to investigate my 29 page Report of institutional abuse, as advised by states attorney James Wang.  (Exhibit A, Report to School Board Members, December 29, 2006) 

          Officials and Warwick administrators conspired unlawfully to circumvent the child abuse laws that led to the untimely death of Jami Rose Jetty.   Had my original 960 Report which I submitted to Social Services in January of 2007 as Report to School Board Members (Exhibit A) been correctly assessed, with an investigation ordered, Jami Rose Jetty would be alive today.  This is the consequence when Social Services 960 Reports are not given due credence and North Dakota Century Code is ignored by the very agency who is mandated to protect children.

          As you may know, I filed a lawsuit, I contend that Jami’s death was caused by the Warwick administrators who set up Jami to replace the real rape victim and refused to report this rape when it became known to them, and their attorneys and minions, along with Social Services who refused to investigate, and Job Service, who, with the help of Gary Thune, obfuscated the facts and tampered with evidence.   The facts in my lawsuit were based upon my Report to School Board Members in which I claimed that I had been fired before the end of term without notice or hearing after I had reported to Social Services, Standards and Practices Board, and Sheriff Royher that Warwick School administrators were abusing Native American students by refusing to report a rape when it became known to them, expelling the rape victim, and setting up Jami Jetty to make it seem like she was the rape victim.  I should have never lost my lawsuits because the law and the facts were on my side;  I lost because law enforcement refused to investigate crimes and clever lawyers, Gary Thune and states attorney James Wang, tampered with evidence and witnesses to get my lawsuit dismissed, and most of all, lawyers deliberately and criminally withheld information from me.

          Jami, the girl set up to replace M H, the real rape victim, was very interested in Leonard Peltier, and had many questions about AIM and Wounded Knee, and wanted to be like Anna Mae, and bring some justice and rights to her people, the Dakota. Jami was related to Leonard Peltier, as were some of the other students.   She was just 12 years old when she told me that.  She was very bright and interested in learning.  She idolized me and loved being in my classes, until Supt. Guthrie had to ruin everything for both of us by questioning her about a rape;  then telling her that I had told him that she had been raped.  The poor girl, 12 years old, hated me and spread the false story all over the school and community.  Guthrie and Riedinger were estatic because Jami was carrying out their agenda by spreading the story claimin I had said she had been raped.   Slick.  And they thought no harm done;  they could now say that Ms. Schmidt was falsely reporting rapes and they had every right to fire her.  However, the stigma of rape never left Jami, and her life was cruelly altered.  Even though she changed schools twice, she could not escape kids taunting her, saying that she had been raped at Warwick School, the story that Guthrie had instigated to avoid detection that he had not reported a rape or other abuse, in fact, had become the abuser.  Jami, not being able to escape, and not getting anyone to believe her once she discovered the truth, she called a classmate, crying on the phone, and said,  “What’s the use?  No one will believe what Mr. Guthrie did to me.”  Two weeks later she was dead;  hung herself.  That’s what happens when administrators do not follow the child abuse laws;  laws that were intended for Native Americans as well as white students.  But not in North Dakota.  And God help the poor teacher who attempts to make officials follow the law when it comes to Native American issues. 

          I took my case all the way to the US Supreme Court, Janis Schmidt v. Warwick Public School District #29, et al.  The Supreme Court accepted my petition and assigned my case a case number, #10-10070.  My Petition can be read at www.lakotaperspectives.com.  The Court considered the case for several months, then declined to hear it.