Sarah Lee Circle Bear, a 24-year-old mother of a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old, had been arrested and detained on a freaking bond violation. Law enforcement officials responsible for her safety allegedly dismissed Circle Bear's multiple pleas for medical attention. She died in their custody later that day. Indian Country describes her case and the alleged neglect:


Witnesses stated that before being transferred to a holding cell, Circle Bear pleaded to jailers that she was in excruciating pain. Jail staff responded by dismissing her cries for help, telling her to “knock it off,” and “quit faking.” Inmates cried out for the jail staff to help Circle Bear, to which they eventually responded by picking her up off of the floor, dragging her out of the cell, and transferring her to a holding cell. Circle Bear was later found unresponsive in the holding cell.

She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

I called the public information officer at Brown County Jail to ask if they had a statement on the final moments of Circle Bear's death and to ask for comment on the reported witness statements. A sheriff returned my call to say, "At this point in time I can't comment because we haven't received all the information back from the forensic pathologist."

I will definitely follow up with him.

If it's true that the official response to her pleas for medical attention were ignored with statements like "Quit faking" and "Knock it off," my question is: What does it take to drill into the skulls of these officials the idea that each incident and each person is differentand so each must be approached each with an open mind? That kind of language is suggestive of a person who takes himself to be the ultimate authority on how the world works. He knows how you feel on the inside, and he'll be the ultimate judge of the validity of your feelings and your medical conditions, thank you.

How do you convince people not to drink from the well of their own power? To constantly check themselves and the ideologies they're using to support their fucked-up assumptions about their view of reality?