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A MOTHER'S PAIN
Posted by Marletta to South Dakota Prisoners Support Group
By Hazel Bonner
Some stories are harder to write than others. I do stories
primarily about issues involving jails and prisons, police abuse,
court and other areas involving social injustice. I continue to be
saddened and frustrated by much of what I write about. Nothing much
surprises me any more. Many of my stories are difficult to write,
because the subjects, and the depth of man's inhumanity to man are
difficult to fathom.
Sometimes, however, stories touch so deeply that they are
much more difficult to write. Those are the stories that I connect
with on a personal level. I connect with them so closely because I
know either, "there but for the grace of God, go I" or I have "been
there, done that."
One such story is one I did last fall. It is one of those
grace of God stories. It is the story about the suicide death of
Billy Turney in the Martin jail. The connection is with the mother¡¦s
pain. I knew neither Turney nor his mother, Twylla, before that
week. I connected with the pain without knowing them. I'm glad I
took the time to get to know them.
You see, I never want to receive the call that Twylla Turney
received that Wednesday night. The call telling her that her son is
dead at his own hands while in the custody of the government.
My son is in federal prison. He is just a few months younger
than William Turney is. He has been in the custody of the state or
federal government for much of the past 12 years. He, like Bill
Turney, is a good, gentle, caring person, who has never killed or
even seriously injured anyone.
She talked to her son the Monday before his death from the
Pennington County Jail. He told her his attorney had told him he was
facing life in prison and that he had attempted suicide here. He
said it took eight people to prevent it. She didn't even know when
he was being brought back to Bennett County. Had she known, she
would have been there when he arrived. Had she known, he might not
have taken that last desperate act to escape imprisonment.
I know the depth of man's inhumanity to man because of the
experiences of my son and many others in our prisons and jails. When
they dehumanize a person the way our cages for humans do, it makes
life seem not worth the living. When they demonize boys and girls,
men and women, the way our system does, and somehow think they and
society are supposed to be better for it, they delude themselves.
The community of Wamblee on the Pine Ridge Reservation
buried William Turney, one of its own, the Saturday following his
death. And what a farewell it was. As I listened to the sobs of
mother and sisters and others close to him, I knew, that that mother
could be me.
As I stood by that grave that friends and family had dug as
they lowered his casket into his final resting-place and covered it
with dirt, I thought how different that funeral procession had been
from those in the white world in which I live.
It had not been the trip on paved roads following a sterile
hearse to a beautifully groomed cemetery, where the funeral home
prepares the site, lowers the casket by machine and covers the
grave.
It had been a trip following a pickup, which bore the casket
with the pallbearers lining each side of the pickup box. It was a
trip across a field to a little cluster of trees on a knoll. There
was no road at all, only a trail embedded by taking of others on
that same journey.
I listened to mother, family and friends tell me about the
Billy they knew. He had been friendly and helpful and a good person.
I thought that white society had lost, because they had not allowed
him to be the person he really was.
Marletta Pacheco and I had driven down to Wamblee Friday
evening, planning on spending a couple of hours sharing the grief of
the family, because a burden shared is lighter for those bearing it.
We stayed with the family for four hours and then were taken to
Vernon Moves Camp's residence in Hisle to rest while they went back
to the all night wake.
For Marletta, that journey was a "been there, done that"
connection. She received that call last spring. A loved one,
Leighton Rich, had died at his own hands at the South Dakota State
Prison.
Marletta and I decided to leave early the next morning to go
back to Wamblee to be with the family. Anyone who knows the trip
from Hisle to Wamblee (12 miles) knows that it is impossible to get
lost. And we didn't get lost, we just turned the wrong direction and
ended up in Martin at about 8:00 a.m. We both thought we had turned
the right direction. Had I been driving I would have turned that
way. I even mused that the trip seemed longer in the daylight. It
was.
We looked for a restaurant where we could have some
breakfast before going back the 36 miles to Wanblee. We ended up at
the Amoco Food Shop. I took my billfold out of my purse to pay for
snacks and when we left there I forgot my purse. I carry a purse
that doubles as a brief case. You know the kind.
I discovered it about 10 miles back toward Hisle. We went
back to Martin with me wondering if they would think that I would
surely be back for it and just set it aside, or if they would try to
identify who I was by looking in it.
I prayed they would make the first choice because if they
looked inside they would have found all my notes and copies of
newspaper articles I had written about civil rights violations in
Martin and Bennett County. They would have found a story with Vernon
Moves Camp's picture telling about him taking the complaints to meet
with the FBI. Now I'm sure I can safely say that Moves Camp is not
one of Bennett County's favorite persons. Had they looked inside
they may have turned it over to Sheriff Waterbury as lost property.
His name is in those stories several times.
I walked back into that store and was greeted with "We knew
you would be back, it's right there." On the trip back I remembered
that not just my notes for a number of stories, but also disk
holders containing four computer disks were in that purse. I had
stuck them in a side pocket of my purse on Friday and taken them to
be copied at Office Max so I could send some copies off. They
contained several years worth of sociological projects I had done in
the college classes I teach. The people in that food shop never
understood how much they could have hurt me by saying they never saw
the purse.
Marletta and I arrived back at the site of the funeral about
15 minutes before the start time. A half hour trip had been turned
into two and a half. We agreed that if she wouldn't tell, I wouldn't
tell. But here I am, telling about getting lost going from Hisle to
Wamblee on the Pine Ridge Reservation to the whole world. Sorry,
Marletta.
Since the time of Bill Turney's death in the Martin Jail, I
have become friends with Twyla Turney. I only know Bill from the
loving memories of his family and friends. She is a beautiful lady,
and knows that her son was a beautiful young man. That memory alone,
not the labels placed on him by white society, is what she clings to.
She has retained an attorney who will likely file suit
against Bennett, Pennington and Jackson Counties, for what happened
to her son. I have attended civil rights hearings in Bennett County
hosted by Vernon Moves Camp and by Oglala Lakota College. I attended
a meeting with the FBI in Rapid City with Moves Camp, during which
he presented complaints from Bennet County including the treatment
of Bill Turney. Vernon moves camp was arrested attempting to enter
the Legion Hall in Martin for one of those hearings, for violation
of a parole which he believes should have expired. I've done the
figures and based on the old good time law, I believe he is correct.
Bill Turney's paperwork turned over to his mother in a large
manila envelope from his court appointed attorney, spoke from the
grave about conditions in the Bennett County Jail. Bill Turney
suffered as others continue to suffer there. He questioned Russ
Waterbury following the suicide attempt of a woman at the jail as to
how much training his staff has and whether they are trained to
monitor persons threatening suicide. Apparently not.
Twylla Turney wants to establish a fund if she gets any cash
from the suit. She wants the money to go to help others, men and
women, who face the pain of our criminal injustice system. She also
wants to force Pennington, Bennett and Jackson Counties to change
policies that led her son to be in jail in the first place, that led
Pennington County to send him back to Martin after a serious suicide
attempt here, and that led to Waterbury leaving the jail that night
with orders to staff not go near Bill Turney. When staff saw him tie
a sheet around his neck and jump off the top bunk, they followed
orders rather than go to his aid. I remember that the staff in Nazi
Prison Camps denied any culpability because they were just following
orders.
More than anything else, Bill Turney did not want to spend the rest
of his life in prison, as his court appointed attorney here had
treatened might be the result of another conviction. His death was a
second escape from the Bennett County Jail and an escape from the
criminal injustice system in this state. Twylla Turney also hopes to
change conditions in our prisons and jails so that other young men
and women won't take the last desperate step to escape incarceration.
Hazel Bonner is a free lance writer who writes from her home.
Comments on this column may be sent electronically to
hbonpidge1@hotmail.com. You may write her with comments at PO Box
3712, Rapid City, SD 57709-3712.
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