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Tag: tribe

  • Alturas Shooting: 4 Dead, 2 In Critical Condition

    Cherie Lash Rhoades was being threatened with eviction at a hearing held at the American Indian headquarters in Alturas, CA, when she began shooting, emptying her gun and then turning to a butcher knife.

    Four people died during that attack, and 2 more were critically wounded, police said.

    Rhoades, 44, of Cedarville, is now in police custody and facing murder charges, as well as attempted murder, and child endangerment charges, Alturas Police Chief Ken Barnes said.

    When officers arrived, Barnes said, the suspect was outside the building, running and clutching a knife in her hands, but a Rancheria employee helped tackle her and she was quickly subdued and brought into custody.

    Rhoades had been under federal investigation over at least $50,000 in missing funds, a person familiar with the tribe’s situation told The Associated Press on Friday.

    Barnes said in a story carried by Redding’s KRCR-TV that the four dead include a 19-year-old woman, a 30-year-old man, a 45-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man. The police chief said one victim is the tribe’s leader.

    All of [the victims], as far as I know, are affiliated with the tribe in some way,” said Modoc County Sheriff Mike Poindexter.

    The people of Modoc County are in shock. Their small community is generally very quiet.

    There were investigations in place looking into whether Rhoades had taken federal grants intended for the Cedarville Rancheria tribe, said a person who wished to remain anonymous.

    A woman who was covered in blood escaped the building, and ran to the Alturas police station to alert the authorities, Barnes reported.

    Baker, was who got the information from the woman at City Hall, said that the woman was screaming that Rhoades was shooting. Baker said the police immediately sprung into action, and were at the scene within seconds.

    “She did an amazing job,” said Baker. “She was rattling off critical information for dispatching police and fire within a matter of seconds.”

    The shooting was on everyone’s mind Thursday night at the Niles Hotel, which is a few blocks from the Rancheria’s headquarters, said Cheyenne Menkee who works at the hotel’s saloon.

    “It’s not something you hear about happening here in Alturas,” she said. “My heart dropped a little bit… some people in here are kind of shaky. People were concerned if someone they knew was shot.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Mashco-Piro Tribe Of Peru Makes Rare Appearance

    In the modern world it is easy to assume that everyone carries a cell phone and has access to things like the internet. After all, you are using it right now to read this story and when you opened your browser it was as uneventful as pouring a glass of water. It is easy to forget that there are still people in the world that leave in a primitive state that is not that far removed from our ancestors. Enter the Mashco-Piro people of Peru.

    The indigenous tribe, who live in voluntary isolation in the Eastern portion of Peru, made a rare appearance in the late June at a small river hamlet. It was only the second time since 2011 that the tribe attempted to make contact with outsiders. They asked for rope, machetes, and bananas, but their full intentions were unclear due to a language barrier that only allowed interpreters to understand portions of what they were saying.

    At times the encounter become hostile, with one tribesman even threatening to shoot his bow. It is unlikely that the tribe was angry at illegal logging and other operations that are taking place on their land.

    The Mashco-Piro are one of 15 “uncontacted” tribes living east of the Andes mountain range. In total those tribes are thought to number between 12,000 and 15,000 people, all of whom live exactly how their tribe did hundreds of years ago.

    The tribe making contact with individuals is just as shocking to the modern world as it is to them, a kind of mutual time travel with one group going forward and the other back. It is also extremely rare since contact with the tribes is forbidden by the Peruvian government for several reasons, one of which is their weaker immune systems that have not been subjected to many modern diseases.