The Courthouse Riot

Wesley Bad Heart Bull was stabbed to death outside a bar at Buffalo Gap in late January 1973 by a white man, Darld Schmitz. The state's attorney for Custer County charged Schmitz with manslaughter rather than murder, and the American Indian Movement called a national Indian Civil Rights Day at the courthouse in Custer for 6 February. Officials postponed the preliminary hearing knowing the caravan was coming, put guards on every exterior door of the 1881 courthouse, and admitted people four or five at a time. Sarah Bad Heart Bull, the dead man's mother, drove up from Hot Springs that morning. The AIM caravan, twenty five to thirty cars, arrived at two in the afternoon. While Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Leonard Crow Dog and David Hill were inside conferring with the state's attorney, the crowd pushed up the steps. The South Dakota Supreme Court's own recitation of the facts describes officers beaten with a flagstaff, a chain saw blade and an iron pipe, police cars wrecked and other cars burned, bottles of gasoline thrown into the courthouse, and the Chamber of Commerce building beside it burned to the ground. Sarah Bad Heart Bull was convicted of riot where arson was committed and sentenced to one to five years, fixed at one by the parole board. Robert High Eagle was given five to seven, fixed at five, and commuted by the governor to two. Twenty one days later the occupation of Wounded Knee began, and it lasted seventy one.