N.J. Indian tribe decries deadly police shooting

The gathering started, as it does each spring, with members of the Ramapough Lenape Indian tribe meeting for a cookout and a day in the woods, celebrating the warm weather and the beauty of the Earth. It ended with one of the tribe members mortally wounded, shot three times by a state park police officer who had told the Indians they were not allowed to ride their all-terrain vehicles in the area. The death 10 days later of Emil Mann, 45, of Monroe, N.Y., has tensions running high, with the tribe decrying years of bias, state officials pleading for calm and a grand jury investigating whether the shooting of the unarmed man was justified. “It's murder,” said Rodney Van Dunk, a cousin of the tribal chief. “Even a bear doesn't get shot three times.” The facts of the April 1 shooting on Stag Hill, 27 miles northwest of Manhattan, are in dispute. Authorities contend that four park police officers were patrolling an area near the Ramapo Mountain State Forest when one of them saw Otis Mann, a cousin of the dead man, riding an ATV and asked him to stop because the vehicles were not permitted on state parkland. Otis Mann rode away from the officer. About 20 minutes later, officials say, Lt. Kelly Gottheiner saw Otis Mann and said she planned to arrest him, but he resisted and tried to grab her baton. A second officer handcuffed him. The Ramapoughs give a starkly different version, saying that police slapped and used chemical spray on Otis Mann's 14-year-old daughter during the dispute about the ATV. They also say that Emil Mann approached the officers as a peacemaker, with his hands in the air, when he was shot. Emil Mann “was just trying to calm things down.” While tribal leaders said they were satisfied with the state's willingness to investigate, they said the killing was the culmination of decades of anti-tribe bias from the government and neighbors alike. [MORE]

New Jersey Governor to Meet with Indian Tribe tp Discuss Police Killing
Gov. Jon S. Corzine, state Attorney General Zulima Farber and other officials were to meet this evening with leaders of a north Jersey Indian tribe to try to ease tensions caused by the fatal shooting of a tribe member by a park police officer. The officials will meet privately with leaders of the Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation to discuss the April 1 shooting. No charges have been filed against Walder, who is claiming self-defense. A grand jury will review the shooting. Mann, 45, died April 10. Anthony Coley, a Corzine spokesman, called the meeting "an important dialogue with leaders of an important community.'' [MORE]