Justice Demanded in Death of Abbey Lynn Steele

Statement on the Death of Abbey Lynn Steele

By Tribal & Community Organizations and Concerned Individuals

On Friday, December 2, 2022, 20-year-old Abbey Lynn Steele of Rapid City, South Dakota died at Monument Hospital after arriving unconscious and not breathing from the Pennington County Jail on November 16th. The Native community of Rapid City is grief-stricken and outraged by Abbey’s untimely death and the circumstances surrounding it. Abbey had given birth via emergency surgery merely 5 days before her violent arrest, detention, and hospitalization. Her death under the watch and authority of major institutions in Rapid City is an affront to common decency and basic human dignity. Abbey Steele should be alive today. Two children are now without their mother and have lost the opportunity to know her. Our community demands justice for Abbey and her family.

Western Shoshone to White House -- Stop Funding Nuclear

November 30, 2022

Comments to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Committee

Provided by:

Principal Man Ian Zabarte of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, Secretary of State of the Western Shoshone National Council, Secretary of the Native Community Action Council, 2017 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Appointee to the Licensing Support System Advisory Review Board.

Our country stretched from the Mojave Desert in the south to the Snake River in the north defined by the Treaty of Ruby Valley (Consolidated Treaty Series Volume 127-1863)

Nuclear issues threaten the Western Shoshone People. Radioactive fallout from indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction, secret shipments of plutonium into our country, low-level nuclear waste facilities exploding from rainwater intrusion at the Beatty dump and licensing of Yucca Mountain for high-level nuclear waste repository inflict conditions intended to bring about the destruction of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians. Much nuclear risk we experience has been done in secret and demonstrates ill intent. The US nuclear weapons industry is lawless and unaccountable. The US must join the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is International Law.