It was nearly a decade ago, on a bitterly cold January morning, when Julie Richards helped find the first body. Weaving through the tall grass of prairie and navigating through ravines and snowbanks, she searched alongside other Lakota women for the remains of Emily Blue Bird. Nearby, police and federal agents sat idly. It was freezing, and Richards was mentally, emotionally, and spiritually tired. Blue Bird’s was one of eight search parties that Richards had coordinated without help from police or government officials. The work was exhausting and often yielded no success. 

But on that day, something emerged between the blades of grass: plastic sheeting, a pair of pale feet exposed to the winter air, and finally, a face. Nearby, a young man in the search party cried out.  

“Just as I seen her feet, I started screaming,” Richards recounted nearly a decade later. “I didn’t look anymore, and I started running, and I said, ‘She’s there!’” 

At the time of the discovery, Blue Bird had been missing for nearly 21 days. Local law enforcement and the FBI failed to find her alive. When the civilian search party discovered her remains, the police had all but given up.

“When we found her, her mom came running down there, and she grabbed me and said, ‘You found my baby!’” Richards recalled on a cold day earlier this year, not unlike the one on which she found Blue Bird. “They gave me a star quilt. In our Lakota way, when we lose a child, another comes to us. So she adopted me as her daughter.”

Blue Bird was just 24 years old when she went missing on January 2, 2016. The mother of two had last been seen outside her mother’s home in the East Ridge area of Pine Ridge Village. In 2018, two locals—both in their 20s—were convicted of her murder. Elizabeth Ann LeBeau strangled Blue Bird to death and co-defendant Fred Quiver helped cover up the homicide. Five years after her sentencing, LeBeau died while incarcerated at a federal prison in Alabama. She was 30 years old. 

On the Pine Ridge Reservation, tragedies like this are common. For Richards, the story of Emily Blue Bird was one among many in a patchwork of trauma, courage, and struggle in a place where the dead are many. 

A potent mixture 

Located in a rural corner of South Dakota, the Pine Ridge Reservation is the homeland of the Oglala Lakota, one of seven tribes of the Lakota people. The territory is the eighth-largest reservation in the country and boasts an estimated population of nearly 40,000 residents. 

In the wintertime, the territory is a broad expanse of golden hills that sit beneath a boundless silver sky. Amid the endless reaches of the Great Plains, the small towns and villages of the reservation can feel like bastions of life in a much bigger world that too often seems to pass it by. During the coldest months, daily temperatures regularly dip into the negatives, and blizzards can dump feet of snow without warning. 

Most of the villages in the territory are almost entirely composed of decaying mobile homes that host multiple families in tight living spaces well over their occupancy limit. Reservation communities are incredibly rural. Resources like grocery stores, health care facilities, and schools are scarce, if they exist at all.   

Yet, despite the barriers, Pine Ridge is a place of strong community where many residents live on the last vestiges of ancestral land that their people fought and died for to retain. Established at the end of the 19th century as Native American prisoner of war camp #334, Pine Ridge has served as a focal point in the continued resistance of Native peoples against repeated attempts by the U.S government to eradicate them. The reservation was the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, where U.S. troops gunned down nearly 300 Lakota people, many of them children. Seventy-five years later, in response to the continued oppression of Native communities, the reservation was the scene of the Wounded Knee Occupation, an armed protest by members of the American Indian Movement that ended in a shootout with federal agents. 

In recent years, Oglala Lakota County, which makes up the largest portion of the reservation, has gained notoriety as the poorest county in the U.S. Within its bounds, the life expectancy averages 66 years—about a decade below the national average. Throughout the U.S., the Lakota people have the lowest life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group. The reservation is also stricken by a drug and crime epidemic that has worsened as it has progressed. Bolstered by rampant abuse and exploitation by the federal government, broken treaty obligations, an extended cycle of generational poverty, and a profound housing crisis, a potent mixture of drugs and alcohol has wreaked havoc in the territory and throughout Lakota communities. 

Predatory intoxicant sales are not a new phenomenon on the reservation. The town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, which sits just two miles from the center of Pine Ridge, was established by white settlers solely for the purpose of funneling alcohol into the Native community, where alcohol sales are criminalized. For years, the Whiteclay outpost—with a population of just 10 residents—was selling more than 11,000 beer cans per day to Lakota communities. The effect was catastrophic. By 1999, Oglala Sioux tribal police were handing out more than 1,000 DUIs annually on the two-mile stretch of highway that connects the town of Pine Ridge to Whiteclay. By 2012, the tribe claimed that 90% of cases in the Oglala Sioux justice system were alcohol-related. Following years of campaigning, blockades, and direct action, the liquor stores were shuttered in 2017 by the state of Nebraska.  

Over the last decade, a different drug has taken hold on reservation communities: meth. 

A bleak portrait 

While meth has infiltrated nearly every corner of the United States, it is a problem that has hit Indigenous communities particularly hard. A survey conducted in 2018 found that Native communities have the highest rates of meth addiction of any ethnic group in the country. Coupled with the rise of meth variants cut with even more deadly and addictive substances like fentanyl, deaths from psychostimulants like meth increased by 496% between 2015 and 2022. 

For Lakota communities on Pine Ridge, the consequences of meth’s spread have manifested not just in overdoses, but also in violence that seems to follow the drug. Documents from 2023 obtained by Prism from the tribal government paint a bleak portrait of how violence has come to dominate day-to-day life. 

The rate of aggravated assault was double the national average, according to the documents; burglaries and robberies have risen to three times the national average. Rape occurred at four times the national rate, and murders, particularly those of Indigenous women, continue to be a regular occurrence. Since 1980, there have been 95 cases of missing women on the reservation, according to tribal leadership. Due to a combination of factors that include investigative failures by the federal government, nearly a third of these cases remain unsolved.

By January of this year, it appeared that things on the Pine Ridge Reservation had reached a breaking point. Over the holiday season, two adults and one child were gunned down in rapid succession, the jails were near capacity, and violence occurred regularly. In response, Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out declared a state of emergency and mandatory curfew. 

In a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs obtained by Prism, Star Comes Out wrote that the need for these drastic measures “has been reaffirmed due to homicides, gun violence, drug trafficking, and other violent crimes within our tribal communities.” Previously, federal officials, such as Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary and ex-South Dakota governor, argued that the root cause of violence in Lakota territory was collaboration between Indigenous youth and Mexican drug cartels. However, in a presidential proclamation, Star Comes Out argued that “catastrophic breakdown of law and order on the reservation” was due to the “failure of the U.S. government and its agencies … in fulfilling their treaty, statutory, and trust obligations.” 

The atmosphere on the reservation earlier this year was tense. Youth under the age of 18 outside after curfew could be arrested on site. Police could also go to the homes of their parents and arrest them too, for delinquency of a minor. In the evenings, patrols regularly swept the town of Pine Ridge, the reservation’s largest village. It was also not unusual to see officers from the tribal police and the FBI. During the day, cadres of police and public works officials went to the homes of families who lived in public housing developments, armed with drug-testing kits. Once inside, officials brushed the walls of the homes. If meth appeared present, the families could be evicted and their homes shuttered. Some nights, the rattle of faraway gunfire could be heard echoing over the fields, and the constant blare of police sirens kept families in a constant state of vigilance. 

“I don’t fuck with the cops” 

Enter Julie Richards, lovingly known as “Mama Julz,” who is the founder of the Mothers Against Meth Alliance (MAMA). Since 2014, Richards has battled the spread of drugs and violence in Native territories. As a loose coalition of Native mothers, MAMA ranges in size; sometimes, many women are involved. Sometimes, it’s just Richards. 

“I started doing education and awareness. … I started going into the schools and into the dorms and into the jails and into the elderly programs,” Richards said of the group’s founding. “Anyone that would listen to me, I would talk about the dangers of meth.” 

MAMA’s role on the reservation has expanded as conditions become increasingly dire. Some months, Richards’ home serves as an informal safe house for at-risk Indigenous youth. Other times, she helps distribute food, clothing, and other necessities to tribal members. But as the violence has escalated, so have MAMA’s tactics. Perhaps the most recognizable facet of the group’s current strategy is its “patrols” that seek to push out drug dealers and protect vulnerable community members from violence. 

The patrols are regular drives, surveys, and check-ins on parts of the reservation hit hard by violence; they function by way of a network of interpersonal relationships with a strong basis of community support and trust. While on patrol one morning, Richards saw a young woman she knew who was recently released from rehab. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve come so far,” she told her. “You know I’ll always support you and have got your back.”   

Richards also relies on tips about criminal behavior, which she receives from tribal members who don’t want to involve the police. Instead, they involve MAMA. It was one of these anonymous tips that helped Richards locate the remains of Emily Blue Bird in 2016. 

Information often comes in at impromptu moments. On one patrol, a young man flagged Richards down. He tentatively leaned into Richards’ car window and whispered a message: the location of a house dealing in drugs and guns. Her response was immediate. “I’ll patrol by there,” she told the man. “Of course you know I’m anonymous.” Later, Richards explained that instances like this are a regular occurrence. “People come up to me like that, and they will give me tips on who’s dealing and who has guns and stuff,” she reflected. “They trust me. … Nobody knows where I get my info, and nobody ever will.”

Richards’ tires have been slashed, her house shot up, and on more than one occasion, she said people have tried to kill her.

Refusing police involvement whenever possible is at the core of MAMA’s organizing ethos, both as a principled stance against carceral systems and as a practical piece of trust-building in a community with a history of skepticism toward law enforcement. “[At] first, folks just thought that I was calling the FBI,” she recalled. “I don’t fuck with the cops, I don’t call the cops. But I’ll come to your fucking door and drag you around for dealing that poison to my people—and I have.” 

MAMA regularly and directly challenges dealers, working to shut down their houses that have been “trapped out” for meth sales. The cost of these direct interventions has been high. Richards’ tires have been slashed, her house shot up, and on more than one occasion, she said people have tried to kill her. Just days before I spoke to Richards in early January, a teenage family member was wounded in a stabbing attack. It was Richards who raced the boy to the hospital as he began to lose consciousness in the back of her car. Following a life flight and several days of intensive medical care, he survived. After the incident, someone riddled her vehicle with bullet holes. At the time of these interviews, the FBI had impounded the car as evidence and refused to release it to Richards’ family.

Sparking hope 

Even with their risky efforts, members of MAMA say that without significant structural changes, the presence of drugs will continue to dominate life on the reservation. In his state of emergency declaration, Star Comes Out asserted that the tribe needs more police officers, additional jail cells, and “more aggressive investigation and enforcement” by federal agencies to curb drug-induced violence. These requests were in part related to a 2022 lawsuit the tribe filed against the federal government for failing to provide adequate resources to maintain law and order on the reservation. But for members of MAMA, establishing order through force is a strategy that fails to generate meaningful results. 

“Even our own family members being on that drug, they’re strong enough to admit that they need help,” said Avril Pulliam, a longtime member of MAMA. “But where is the facilities to help them? Where are the programs to help them? We don’t have them.” 

There are only 10 beds on the entire reservation available for inpatient drug and alcohol treatment. For many tribal members, the only housing option for sobering up while in active recovery is a jail cell—and it can be dangerous. Without medical supervision, severe alcohol withdrawal can be deadly. Alcohol-related jail deaths have skyrocketed in recent years.

“Our relapse rate is so high because we have no aftercare programs,” Richards said. “They’ll get caught, they’ll sit in jail for a while. As soon as they get out, they’ll start dealing again.” 

To address this problem, Richards, Pulliam, and MAMA supporters are working to establish a healing center to provide support and aftercare for tribal members experiencing meth addiction. According to Pulliam, the broader aim of the project is to “start with a treatment home, with helping the people that really want change … instead of locking them up.” 

A grant from the South Dakota nonprofit NDN Collective helped the alliance buy a trailer and a plot of land where the center can be constructed. Long-term financing, however, remains a major hurdle. MAMA largely relies on grassroots donations from supporters around the country. The group is currently fundraising with a GoFundMe campaign to complete the project. While the future of the healing center remains uncertain, efforts to establish such a place have sparked hope in a community where treatment options are nearly nonexistent.

On the outskirts of Pine Ridge, six miles down a pothole-filled highway that weaves into the backcountry of the reservation, there is a memorial to the Lakota who were murdered more than 130 years ago by U.S forces at Wounded Knee. It is a solemn place, where the hills themselves seem to demand respect. In his testimony about the Wounded Knee Massacre, former Oglala Sioux leader, Chief Nicholas Black Elk, famously said, “I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.” 

Richards isn’t entirely on board with Black Elk’s assessment. 

“We are literally the ones that fucking defeated the government, so of course they’re still trying to kill us,” she said. “The dream is still definitely alive. The fight is still definitely alive. Our people are standing up more, instead of being that broken-down Indian. That’s not us anymore—we’re the strong, resilient Lakotas that defeated the United States in battle.” 

And tomorrow, the battle wages on. While the drugs may keep flowing and the guns may keep firing, Richards, Pulliam, and the other women of MAMA will wake up and go to work on Pine Ridge.

Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor