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The case against prominent Indigenous leader Nick Tilsen ended in a mistrial Wednesday evening, after three days of testimony. The jury was not able to reach a unanimous verdict on the felony counts of aggravated assault and simple assault on a police officer, and misdemeanor charge of obstruction of a police officer. 

South Dakota prosecutors have 45 days to declare their intent to retry Tilsen, who remains under indictment. 

The Pennington County state’s attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I’m grateful for everyone who stood with me through the latest iteration of this lengthy legal battle—the support of my family, lawyers, spiritual leaders, medicine people, and community means everything to me,” Tilsen said in a press release on Wednesday. “The fight is not over.”

Tilsen, the founder and CEO of NDN Collective, the largest Indigenous-led philanthropy and power-building organization in the U.S., told Prism previously that he believed the charges against him are politically motivated. 

“They wanted to discourage me from organizing. They wanted to try to paint me to be a criminal. They wanted to try to paint me to be something that I’m not,” Tilsen, who is Oglala Lakota, born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, said in an interview earlier this month. 

Tilsen told Prism that on June 11, 2022, he had attempted what he called a routine “cop watch”—a kind of informal civilian observation of police officers. He observed Rapid City police officers detaining an unhoused man, whom Tilsen believed to be Indigenous. The officers surrounded Tilsen’s car and ordered him to get out, he said. He refused, saying his actions were legal. Shortly after, Tilsen said that he requested to speak to a police supervisor, who then instructed the officers to allow him to leave. 

More than a year after the encounter, the Pennington County prosecutor brought charges against Tilsen and issued a warrant for his arrest. The warrant was issued days before a July 4 protest led by NDN Collective addressing police killings of Indigenous peoples in South Dakota and speaking directly to the impunity of the Rapid City Police Department and the Pennington County Sheriff’s Department. 

On Jan. 12, two weeks before Tilsen’s trial was set to begin, a grand jury approved a third charge of simple assault of a law enforcement officer.

During the trial this week, prosecutors presented a different sequence of events: that Tilsen had accelerated toward the police officer in an attempt to scare him. Lawyers for Tilsen urged the jury to consider Tilsen’s stated intent of observing police behavior rather than interfering with police. 

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor