Indians Rampage in Capital Building
Indians Rampage in Capital Building
Rampaging Indians, 400 strong, reduced the Bureau of Indian Affairs building to a shambles and refused again earlier today to abandon the premesis.
Daubed with paint and other colored substances, the Indians were said to have armed themselves with clubs and pieces of pipe and vowde [sic] to meet force with force if authorities tried to evict them.
Newsmen inside said the building was a shambles. Offices had been ransacked and there was a five-foot high pile of electric typewriters blocking an inside stairway.
Outside, the beat of a drum could be heard reverberating inside the building.
A Justice Department spokesman early today made a new proposal to the Indians who have occupied the building since Thursday and have defied orders to leave.
But the Indians shouted down the proposal when it was presented to them by Asst. U.S. Marshal James F. Palmer.
Basically, the proposal was to provide accomodations for the Indians who have gathered in Washington to protest their treatment by the government.
There was no move by authorities to forcibly evict the Indians but Palmer told them that although officials "want to cooperate," the Indians would have to obey a judge's order to evacuate the building sooner or later.
Wayne Colburn, director of the U.S. Marshal Services, told the Indians through a megaphone:
"I have no quarrel with you folks. I would urge you to cooperate with us because as I said before we have no desire for violence or confrontation. Also, we have no choice but to carry out the federal court order because we are servants of the court."
An order to evacuate the building was served on the Indians late Friday.
Colburn told a newsman he did not know when an eviction attempt might be made.
"I will have to have a conference with my people."
The demonstrators were joined inside the building shortly before midnight by LaDonna Harris, wife of Sen. Fred Harris (D-Okla.) and president of the Americans for Indian Opportunity. She is part Indian and has been active in programs to improve conditions for American Indians.
An aide to Louis R. Bruce, BIA commissioner, said Bruce and a handful of other top aides would remain in the building with the demonstrators.
The barricading began shortly before 6 p.m. and there was no reliable estimate then of how many Indians were inside the building. Russell Means, active in the militant American Indian Movement, said there were 1,000 Indians. A reporter inside the building estimated there were 400. The reporter also said some of the Indians had gathered heavy sticks.
U.S. Dist. Judge John Pratt signed an order Friday restraining the Indians from occupying the building.
Inside the building, Bob Burnett, cochairman of the Indians' protest program, told a reporter he was appealing to the Indians' policy council to have the Indians leave the building immediately "because the U.S. marshals are coming."
"I think we won a big battle these last two days and if we lose tonight we will lose all our support," he said.
Bruce's office said telephone lines to the building were being cut except for one to the commissioner's office. As Indians sat in his office, Bruce was in an adjacent conference room with a representative from the community relations office of the Justice Department.
Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton, whose department includes the Indian agency, cut short a campaign trip in Indainapolis to fly back here to meet with an Indian delegation.
The Indians gathered in Washington for the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan to dramatize what they called their fight for survival in white America.
One BIA official estimated that there were about 400 protesters in the BIA building and outside on the lawn at noon Friday.
Bruce told them he was "pulling with you."
"I am still negotiating in every possible way and I will continue to stay with you in this building, helping in every possible way I can," Bruce said.
Vernon Bellecourt, executive director of AIM, said the demonstrators would stay in the building, which they renamed the Native American Sovereign Embassy, until nine demands were met.
These include the dismissal of Asst. Interior Secretary Harrison Leosch, who supervises the BIA; of Dep. BIA Commissioner John Old crow and of Bob Robertson, director of the National Council on Indian Opportunity, which works out of Vice President Agnew's office. The protesters asked that those officials be replaced by Indians.
BIA property manager Carl Broadt estimated the damage at $250,000.
This includes four copying machines that were ripped out of the wall and used as barricades, pipes that were stripped from the wall, broken typewriters and furniture, and smashed doors, an official said.