Northern Arizona lawsuits

Natives sue over White Mountain rapist arrests

WHITERIVER — Two men who were accused of being serial rapists and later cleared by a judge are now suing the tribal police officers who arrested them, claiming they violated their civil rights.

The rapes occured in the summer and fall of 2006 in Whiteriver, the capital of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in northeastern Arizona. Authorities say the rapist disguised himself as a masked police officer, detained teenage girls in the community, then took them to an abandoned house or remote area to sexually assault them. The case garnered national press attention.

But today, two of the suspects who were released are contesting their arrests. In recent court filings, Jeremy Reed and Jesse Dupris are suing the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the White Mountain Apache Tribal Police Department.

Reed, who is married, was arrested Oct. 20, 2006 at his home. Police arrested him without a warrant, the complaint states, based on an interview with one of the rape victims. The 16-year-old allegedly told police her attacker had hairy eyebrows, and she picked Reed out of a photo lineup the officers brought to her school.

Officers also say Reed was a solid suspect because he was working as a security guard for the tribe’s housing authority, which would have given him knowledge of which houses were empty.

But Reed’s lawyers say the investigation was a dud. They say the victim’s “hairy eyebrow” testimony was weak. She also admitted to being drunk on Zima, a malt liquor beverage, at the time of the attack. The photo lineup was shown six months after the incident, lawyers say, and Reed hadn’t started working for the housing authority until at least three weeks after the attack. A judge dismissed the case against Reed on April 27, 2007.

Lawyers are claiming police bungled the investigation of Dupris in the same way. First, a local police officer told investigators she saw Dupris in the area of the attacks wearing his housing authority security outfit. But lawyers say the information was unreliable because Dupris had quit and was not working for the agency at the time of the sighting.

They also say that the victims’ description of the rapist and the actual description of Dupris don’t match. They claimed the rapist was short and stocky, while Dupris is the opposite, standing at 6 feet, 4 inches tall.

Dupris, who is married, did not have access to the keys that opens many of the houses in the area the attacks occured. Only a supervisor did. An authorized search police conducted of Dupris’ house did not turn up any of the gear the rapist allegedly used. A judge dismissed the case on Feb. 20, 2007.

Now Reed and Dupris are suing the police in federal court in Tucson. They are both represented by Phoenix lawyer Joel Robbins.

Lawsuit aims to block uranium mining near Grand Canyon

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK — Three large environmental groups are suing the federal government for allegedly dragging its heels to protect almost 1.1 million acres near the Grand Canyon from uranium mining and other such projects.

The 19-page complaint in federal court in Tucson comes from the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. The nonprofit has more than 40,000 members dedicated to the preservation and restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide.

It is joined by the Sierra Club and the Grand Canyon Trust, a Flagstaff-based nonprofit whose 3,500 members are bent on protecting the Colorado River Plateau.

Together, the three groups are asking U.S. District Court Judge Neil V. Wake — the same judge who upheld Arizona’s controversial employer sanctions law — to force the nation’s Interior department to seal off sensitive lands near Grand Canyon National Park, thwarting mining outfits’ plans in the process.

They claim a recently approved federal law grants these lands the proper protection, but that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has ignored it.

In March, the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2008 was introduced in Congress. It removes more than 1 million acres of public lands adjacent to the park from certain mining activities, the complaint states.

On June 25, the House Committee on Natural Resources issued an emergency resolution to compel Kempthorne to preserve these lands immediately. At the time, word was trickling out through news reports that a uranium-mining project near Grand Canyon National Park had been approved by the U.S. Forest Service.

Demand for uranium was skyrocketing due to an increased interest in nuclear power worldwide – especially in fast-growing developing countries. About 1,100 mining claims were believed to exist within 5 miles of the park, and forest officials had approved drilling for seven sites within three miles of the park boundaries.

“The Committee found that previous uranium mining operations near Grand Canyon National Park have left a legacy of debilitating illness and death among Native Peoples in the area, and resulted in contaminated soil and ground water that remains unremediated,” the complaint claims.

Three weeks after the committee declared the emergency, Kempthorne sent a letter in response indicating he will not protect the lands, according to the complaint. The Center for Biological Diversity waded into the fight, but Kempthorne did not respond to their petition either, the complaint claims.

On June 27, the federal Bureau of Land Management, an agency that oversees public lands, allowed the mining company to start drilling.

The resulting lawsuit asks Judge Wake to force Kempthorne to protect the lands immediately, shut down the remaining uranium-mining projects and prevent other such projects from popping up inside the 1.1 million-acre zone in the future.

The Center for Biological Diversity is being represented by lawyer Marc D. Fink of Duluth, Minn.; the Grand Canyon Trust is being represented by lawyer Neil Levine of Denver; and lawyer Roger Flynn of Lyons, Colo., is working with them on behalf of Western Mining Action Project.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Hualapai man seeks $1.5M in police brutality case

HUALAPAI INDIAN RESERVATION — A Native American man claims officers beat, gagged and put his face close to the muffler of a running police car after arresting him for a potential traffic violation, according to a recent lawsuit.

The suit stems from an incident that occurred on May 21, 2006, in which Gregory Russell was driving on the reservation in northwest Arizona. Hualapai Nation Police Officer Francis Bradley Jr. allegedly pulled him over for driving recklessly about two hours earlier, according to the complaint.

Soon the officer’s father and Hualapai Nation Police Chief, Francis Bradley Sr., arrived in street clothes. Together, the Bradleys arrested Russell and his fiancée, Natalya Marshall, who was a passenger in Russell’s vehicle. They put them in the back of the squad car with a third man, Delvin Jones, who was already cuffed and in the back of the car at the time of the arrests.

When they returned to the police station, the detainees waited 30 minutes before a third officer, Brian Miller, joined the group. Then Chief Bradley allegedly pulled Russell out of the car and took him behind a storage shed. His son turned up the volume on the squad car’s police radio, then joined the other two officers with Russell behind the shed.

That’s when the three men allegedly kicked, punched and slammed a shackled Russell into the storage shed repeatedly. Afterward, Russell was placed back in the car and transported 120 miles to the Coconino County Jail by Officer Miller, the complaint states.

But during the drive, Russell told Miller he was having trouble breathing and possibly suffering an asthma attack. So Miller allegedly drove back to the Hualapai police station and ordered EMTs to check Russell out.

When he was cleared and the group was back on the road, Miller allegedly pulled the squad car over, took Russell out, pulled Russell’s T-shirt over his head and wrapped packaging tape around his head several times, the complaint states. Then he put Russell back in the car.

Jones, another detainee in the squad car, was able to tear off some of the tape and pull the shirt down so that Russell could breathe more easily. Miller allegedly pulled the car over again and left it running. The complaint states he took Russell out of the back seat and pressed his face up close to the car’s exhaust pipe for several minutes.

Eventually, the trio was taken to the Coconino County Jail in Flagstaff, where detention staff noticed Russell’s injuries. His face, head, nose, left hand, eye and an ear were swollen, and he was ordered to shower. Then he was whisked away to a jail in Gallup, N.M., the next day.

Upon his release, the complaint states, Russell was taken to Kingman Regional Medical Center for treatment. As a result of the beatings, he had lost his hearing in both ears and now wears hearing aids.

Russell filed a $3.7 million claim against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Department of the Interior in November 2006. When the department denied the claim without comment last March, Russell filed a lawsuit in federal court in Tucson.

Flagstaff lawyer Lee Phillips is representing Russell and asking a federal judge for a $1.5 million judgment.