Driver Charged for Death of Paiute Shoshone Journalist Myron Dewey

Paiute Shoshone Journalist Myron Dewey at Standing Rock

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Driver Charged with DUI in Death of Paiute Shoshone Journalist Myron Dewey

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

July 18, 2022

Update July 19, 2022

The driver who hit Paiute Shoshone Journalist Myron Dewey head-on has been charged with DUI resulting in death. John David Walsh of Reno was charged with a second charge of reckless driving resulting in death.

Walsh is scheduled to be arraigned on September 7, nearly one year after the fatal accident that claimed the life of Dewey near his family's home in Yomba, Nevada, on September 26, 2021. Walsh was charged in Tonopah Criminal Court on July 11.

Myron's daughter Taylor Dewey told News 4 that the case was reopened after the blood test was re-examined.

"I reached out to the sheriffs department and they told me they misread one of the guy who killed my dad, his blood tests that he had done at the hospital," Taylor said. 

"So they actually closed the whole entire case out but for some reason they went back and looked at it and the case was reopened. "

Nye County investigators said Walsh had "levels of cannabinoids" in his system. It's a chemical typically found in marijuana or produced synthetically.

The case was sent to the Nye County District Attorney's Office on April 26. The D.A. did not return emails or a call to News 4, but a staff member at Justice Court in Tonopah confirmed the charges, News 4 reports. 

Nye County told Censored News that because it is a rural county, and it has to rely on Metro's lab processing for controlled substances, that it can take up to six months for the results of the blood test.

However, sources tell Censored News that the results of Walsh's blood tests were available since last year.

Dewey was well known for his drone coverage at Standing Rock, North Dakota, documenting Dakota Access Pipeline, TigerSwan mercenaries and law enforcement as Water Protectors defended the Missouri River.

On the day before his death, Myron live streamed from Fallon, Nevada, bombing range, and spoke out against the planned expansion of the Navy Seals bombing range.

Myron also spoke out against the lithium mining now targeting Thacker Pass, the place of a Paiute Massacre. In the videos before his death, Myron warned of the gold, silver and platinum mining in Nevada.

Myron, Walker River Paiute and founder of Digital Smoke Signals, provided drone surveillance and media coverage during the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline by Water Protectors in Standing Rock, North Dakota in 2016 and 2017. Myron is co-director of the film 'Awake.'

Broadcasting live the day before he was killed in a car collision in rural Nye County, Myron described the military industrial complex that he grew up with in the Nevada desert.

With a message to his future grandchildren, he said, "I am a witness, this is what we survived."

Myron was broadcasting live video from the desert around the Fallon Range Training Complex, the Navy's bombing range, in Yomba, east of Reno.

The bombing range is used by the Navy Seals for bombing, ground maneuvers and electronic warfare, according to the U.S. Navy.

Although expansion is now being pushed, Native people are opposed to the massive bombing range expansion. Mryon and Native leaders in the region have been speaking out and battling the expansion.

Returning to his childhood homeland at Yomba on Saturday, the day before his death, Myron said live on social media during the video, "This is what we grew up around, the military industrial complex."

Myron said the military was flying over sacred places. Describing the destruction of the sacred here, he said both mining and the bombing ranges have caused desecration of sacred places.

Myron said when he hears, "Thank you for your service," another image comes to mind: "Killing, rape, genocide."

"I am a survivor of a mass genocide across the United States."

Pointing out that genocide is being carried out around the world, he said, "In Nevada it is still fresh."

At Standing Rock, Myron and the Water Protectors also witnessed an Avenger missile launcher. On Saturday, now five years after Standing Rock, in the Nevada desert at the bombing range, Dewey filmed an Avenger.

Myron said this video is to warn his grandchildren of this corporate greed, and the greed that demands power and military force.

Speaking on climate change, he said there were not enough pine nuts to feed the people during ceremony this year.

Myron also speaks in the video of the green-washing and the lithium mining now targeting sacred ancestral land at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada. He speaks of the need to protect and defend the land and water.

"Take a breath," he said, "Take a moment and appreciate what you have."

Read the full article, and view Myron's final video, at Censored News.
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2021/09/paiute-shoshone-filmmaker-myron-dewey.html

Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News