Attack on US Indian Reservation leaves 4 dead

A housing development for members of the Three Affiliated Tribes under construction in New Town on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, November 1, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Andrew Cullen)

The Indigenous community in U.S. state of South Dakota is devastated following violent assault on a residence on Sioux reservation. At least four people were killed Saturday in a Sisseton, South Dakota Indian reservation after a 22-year-old man attacked a residence with a pistol before turning it on himself, authorities said. One woman is currently in the hospital as a result of injuries from the attack.

The assailant was identified by the Division of Criminal Investigation as Colter Richard Arbach. Police are searching for others who may have been involved in the crime.

"We believe there were other people at the scene," Division of Criminal Investigation spokeswoman Sara Rabern said.

Local media reported that at noon, people gathered outside the home where the killings took place. They opened a pipe ceremony to honor the dead, the American News in Aberdeen reported. Participants in the ritual lit sage, chanted and sang songs. The local church rang its bells.

Chanting resumed as the bodies of the victims were being carried out of the house.

The vice chairman of Lake Traverse, Darwin James, expressed shock after the incident occurred, saying he was personal acquaintances with some of the victims of the crime and that the small reservation town was extremely shaken by the event.

"We are in shock right now, disbelief, to see something like this happen here," said James, who lives near the house where the shooting occurred.

Sisseton, a town on the Lake Traverse Reservation in the north-east part of the state bordering North Dakota and Minnesota, harbors a significant Native American population, descents of the Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux Tribes. According to U.S. census figures, in 2010 nearly half of town’s 2,470 inhabitants were Native American.

The Lake Traverse reservation was established by white settlers 133 years ago, where native Americans who did not assimilate were directed to live. According to reports, the community has spent the years since struggling with poverty, high incarceration rates and alcoholism.

In a 2003 report by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on labor statistics for Native American, 82 percent were unemployed. Of those that had jobs, 33 percent lived in below the poverty level.

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