NewsNight Minnesota; 1022; SD-Base

Yes. Good evening I'm Ron Tandberg up next on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. The fight over adopting three Native American girls and uncle of the girls is fighting a white couple in court. We'll talk live to the lawyers involved. Then we'll take an in-depth look at crack cocaine. A police officer will tell us how easy it is to make and sell crack. And a former addict will tell us how easy it is to get hooked. Those stories plus the closing of St. Pauls fish are not plants. Coming up next on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota Stay with us. Good evening everyone on this near picture perfect Tuesday May 30 first breezy but cool and raw a

far cry from yesterday and just right. Outdoor art is. Like very. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. Next. From Twin Cities public television. This is NEWSNIGHT Minnesota a statewide program of news and commentary. Good evening and thanks for joining us. Good evening everyone tonight on NEWSNIGHT the fight over three Native American girls the girls oncle is fighting a white couple in court. We'll have the lawyers hash out their arguments right here. We'll also take an in-depth look at crack cocaine. You'll hear from a police officer and a former addict. Then we'll see how employees at the fisher not Company in St. Paul are preparing for a shutdown of their plant this Friday. But first we'll take a look at the few of the headlines of the day today in St. Paul. The AFL gubernatorial candidate John Marti announced his pick for running mate. Nancy Larson is his

choice. Larson may not be well known to voters she refers to herself in fact as the best kept secret at the state capitol. But the marquee campaign hopes to change that. Larson is from decile a small town in west central Minnesota and she's executive director of the Association of small cities. Marty is from Roseville and hopes that Larsen's outstayed roots will help balance his ticket long before any other candidates and now its diet may be where I want it. Person from greater Minnesota because I think we are getting divided into two economies States metro area and greater Minnesota. When people in greater Minnesota heard it's eventually going to hurt the metro area and vice versa. I wanted to make sure we have both perspectives that we both care about the entire state but we come at it from a different perspective. I know I'm not a good sacrificial lamb. I don't go into things if I don't think I could make it. And I work hard and have to make sure I am the DFL will hold his convention in St. Paul this weekend where delegates are being asked to endorse candidates for both governor and senator. Also in the headlines tonight four people have died in Minnesota as a result of

traffic accidents over the Memorial Day weekend. Happily that's just half of what the state patrol had been it anticipating for the holiday travel rush. We turn now to the major story of the day the state Supreme Court today heard arguments over the proposed adoption of three Native American girls. A white couple wants to adopt the girls but that is being contested by the Leech Lake band of Chippewa. Oral arguments lasted less than half an hour. The attorney for the couple argued that the children have been put in more than 15 foster homes before living with the couple and that a sense of permanence and security for the children is more important than the state law that gives Native Americans preference when adopting Indian children. Attorneys for the tribe though argue that an uncle has now stepped forward to take the children here to flush out those arguments a little bit on Mark Fiedler from the Indian Child Welfare Law Center. The center has filed a brief in support of the tribe. He joins us from Minneapolis and in our studio are Kim Mason who is representing the Commissioner of

Human Services. She filed a separate petition also in favor of the tribe. And right walling is the attorney representing the Bemidji couple who is seeking custody. Mr. walling We'll start with you. At this point an uncle has come forward a relative. So why are you fighting this. Well I think it's important remember that this case went to trial in March of 1993. The uncle who has now stepped forward as no one knew. He's been around for a long period of time and at the time of the trial even the tribe did not recommend him for adoption. We're talking about really the question of whether or not these girls and their special needs are going to be ignored for another significant period of time. And as was pointed out by the Supreme Court today whatever happens if my clients do not receive custody they will be moved at least once probably several more times. At this point where are the children that children are currently in a foster home a Native American foster home. And have been there since the trial started really at issue cam of course is the many issues but one is that of permanence and how one looks at

permanence can you tell me why you believe these children should stay within the community. The concept is actually broader than permanence it gets to the bigger question of who should have a say in where Native American children should be placed. What is the role that the tribe should play in determining where their children should be placed. That is why my client the Commissioner of Human Services got involved in this case she disagreed with what the Court of Appeals decided and felt that. These Native American children and other Native American children that when the tribe of the Indian community expressed a preference of where these children should be placed they should be listened to and that they should have some say some control over where their children are placed. Mr. Fiddler 15 foster homes for these children were tried before the Campbell couple took them on. How can that be good for the children and now they it seems they would have a chance for. A

more permanent setting. Will you have to ask what is meant by permanence right now of the trial court and found that all the kids needs were being met in their current permanent home with a leech like her home. And I think one of the things that the public has to understand is that when kids are in the foster care system that me as an attorney when we go into court and ask for the the county is to place kids back with the family that you don't just point kids back into the home that it's often on a trial basis. And what that means is that when a child is returned from foster care back into the home you've got one placement there another placement back into the home when the child if things don't work out and the child is back in the foster care you've got three foster care placements there so it's very easy for a number of foster placements to quickly rack up. And what we're concerned about is if this court says that a multiple placement situation will get you into. The children and in children and to non-Indian foster homes and that's going to seriously undermine the

Indian Child Welfare Act. And if this if the children say end up with the cannibals they have been with the cannibals for some time before this whole thing started I knew. What will they lose by being with this couple. They will lose their ties to the Indian community. The children were with the camels for approximately a year year and a half. They've been with the Native American foster mother now since November of 1990 to a longer period of time. During that time they've developed an identity with the Indian culture they've developed a pride in their Indian heritage. If they are now placed with a non Indian couple they risk losing that they risk losing their sense of being an Indian. Mr. Walley What what do the children want. Well the testimony trial was clearly children wanted to move back with my clients and I must take issue I think with a couple of the comments here first of all let's be clear that all of the placements before my clients conform to the NHL Welfare Act. The question really has to be asked where was the tribe if they didn't have a sense of identity before they were

placed with Campbells if they didn't have a sense of belonging to the tribe even though they were relative placements and in American placements The real question is What have they gained by placement now. And these children are not going to stay in their current placement they will be moved. Finally we have to recognize that the psychological evaluation is done by the tribe submitted at trial by the tribe really cemented this by saying these children need permanence right now and there is no other available permanent resource. And that's really the crux of the decision Mr. Libby. I'm sorry Mr. Fiddler. If the Campbells gain custody of these three children will this further open the gates to white adoption of Native children. Well we think it will. At the end Intel offer Law Center and I'm the director of that and we have a number of lawyers in our office that are working on precisely this issue. And what we're concerned about is if there's a ruling that says that a number of placements constitutes good cause to not follow the relative placement preferences then the Indian Child Welfare Act will be

undermined. And the significance of that is that the state has made some significant progress since the early 70s in terms of complying with the Indian Child Welfare Act. If you look at the evidence that was presented before Congress in the early 70s. Ninety seven point five percent of Indian kids were placed in non-Indian homes. And based on recent DHS Department Human Service statistics that's up around 40 percent are placed in. Indian homes so there's been you know slight improvement we would like to see that continue and the problem is that if. Permanence equals good cars and multiple placements or number of placements which is common in the foster care system. If permanence becomes exception then the exceptional swallow the rule and the Indian Child Welfare Act will be undermined and I think that's going to hurt Indian kids and there is a lot of evidence presented to Congress that also indicated that kids have serious identity and psychological problems when they grow up and adolescence so we can't look at it. We have to look at the the evidence of the kids needs right now. We also have to

look at their future now that we're concerned about. I guess Kim I would think a lot of people might be asking the question of Where was the uncle before why is he just emerging is it just specifically to block this adoption by a non-Native American couple. It's my understanding that once the parental rights of the of the parents of the children were terminated back in December 1991 the uncle believed that his rights or any claims he had to the children were also terminated. He thought that the family was cut off when those parental rights were terminated and he didn't understand that he had any ability to adopt these children. That that's what he's saying. I wasn't involved in the trial so I don't know exactly what his reasoning was but that is is what he's saying that he was confused. You also have to understand that adopting three children three children with special needs is a large responsibility it's a large responsibility for anyone. It's a large financial responsibility not to be lightly undertaken by anyone. But he's very serious about his attempt to adopt the children now.

Mr. Wylie I think we'll give you the last word. I'm going to comment I would make is let's be clear that the reasons for the Indian Child Welfare Act are valid there's they're streaming important however the questions have to be asked Why were these children placed in a non-Indian foster home in the first place. And I we're going to penalize them and ignore them or we're going to abandon them to a principle where the testimony is clear it isn't about just the foster home placement but what that created in terms of their special needs that caused the good cause to be effective. OK thank you all for joining us with this discussion. We turn now to our second major story of the day. We'd like to take an in-depth look at crack cocaine certainly crack has been making headlines since it arrived in the Twin Cities sometimes around 1986. But it seems to us that most people know very little about the drug except that it's destroying lives and city neighborhoods and also filling our state prisons. So we thought it would be interesting to find out more about the drug. It was nice Laurie Stern recently spent time with two experts one helps run the narcotics unit for the Minneapolis police. The other is an ex-addict. First Sergeant Jim Murphy will show us how easy it is to make crack

without revealing the precise recipe and how it's sold on the streets. And you put in. Might be a little too much water. You try to put in about equal amounts of baking soda. And cocaine. This will just become a real. Ball of goop in here after the water gets done and when that dries. You're going to have almost pure cocaine. Which when separated is what. We refer to as crack cocaine. These little bills are normally what one will encounter on the street when you're dealing with the street dealers or. Crack houses. That's one tenth of a gram. That's the minimum on that that you can buy. This is called a 50. Normally it will cost $50 and it's about point five grams which means there's about 50 of these to announce some crack

houses will not sell rocks they sell. They only want to sell 50s. This is called The Teen teenybopper little girl 16 it's one sixteenth of an ounce. So it's about one point seventy five grams and it sells for about 100 hundred twenty five dollars as just another way a person that is addicted to crack. To support their habit they may buy one of these breaks some of them off to sell and then smoke some of that. And this is an eight ball which is three point five grams which is one eighth of one outs and this is going for about 250 on the street. This is one ounce of powdered cocaine. This is how your mid-level dealers will purchase the drugs they may buy 1 8 16 if any of their money supply. This is normally what your dealers will use and this is what they'll cook in the crack. This is a key low. It's two point three pounds or. One thousand thirty eight grams of powder cocaine. This is normally how it shipped into the country and people

that are buying kilos are pretty substantial dealers. This is worth anywhere from 12000 to 20000 dollars depending on the quantity you buy the Minneapolis Police Narcotics Division that works downtown. We're going after the kilos in the Alice dealers the crack teams of workers in each precinct. They're working on this amount and they're working on that. The complaints from the citizens of Minneapolis Normally when you see the police say they confiscated five kilos and it's worth a quarter of a million dollars that's that's how they're quantity that is if it was rocked up and sold on the street. As we said before the story although Sergeant Murphy showed showed us how easy it is to make crack. He left out a few steps so that anyone who was watching with the inclination wouldn't have the full recipe. Well doing much of the time that Sergeant Murphy was arresting drug dealers Al Houston was dreaming up ways to corner the market. Houston is now a drug and alcohol counselor but only a few years ago he was a crack dealer and addict. He provided some

snapshots if you will of the downward spiral of an addict and a long hard road to recovery. And I got hung up out there and the survival in the drug scene and and I didn't go to school and I think at the time I left home I was on the seventh grade I used to run drugs all over New York and used to deliver drugs and I made a lot of money as a youngster as a kid and I was excited for me. And that age I knew was drugs cell the cell the bass was drugs that would make me the most money. I'm talking about the packaging. When we packaged it in New York was we had someone that. Either own deed died testing it. And I knew right then and there. That there was going to be the best seller. And that's the one that I pushed. But I was always afraid of a needle and I never would never use heroin.

And my my my drug was cocaine started off sniff and they kept me up all night chasing and running which I would have done. I used to use a tray heroin for cocaine. Well I never really I never really worried about getting caught in New York because I always had someone to protect me. Someone that always would let me know if there was a drug was going down on who they look you know who they are. They're zeroed in. There was some fall guy. There was some drug abuse that was set up for other drug dealers to take. Take falls. And. The ones I was really paying the most money was I want to stay on the street. 1978 is the first time that I came involved with how to cook up quick OK.

I started and in L.A. some old pimps came to town with the idea. Of shaking it up with ether. That's the true freebase is when. You said you haven't either. Wash it and they're smoking. Bacon So there was a lot safer. Than shaking the freebase and with the high final chemicals I see in a lot of people get burned out. And start feeling good about this feeling I was getting from this just this crime and I looked out started to fall in love with desire. I became a different person. I became a raving lunatic as I cook it up. I mean making these rocks and all of a sudden I'm making powers and powers of OK I'm going into the staffs and all of a sudden my my and my credibility when I was using powder is being come damage because I'm using everybody's cocaine that he was giving me his cell.

So I started living in one part of New York for three months. Another part of New York for three months I had crack houses for this and cry cause I just lose everything I came from for my loss. Why health style looking like a poll I want I lost about 60 pounds and I was totally possessed by. This crack cocaine the crack cocaine become my God. I was sad I couldn't get along with people. I start taking folks. I started taking from taking merchandise I start taking risks with my life. I started to get real violent. I come real violent toward women when I know women have money and I go and I watch him and I see him come in a crack house or some town with money and they have drugs and you should take it. Fight. I just totally didn't care. I can live I can I will. I became a monster the drug the crack

cocaine it turned me into a monster. I went downtown Minneapolis. I was around Portland have a new Thirty first Street and then that's when I became the hookup man. That's when I got involved with the Bloods and the Crips 1987. I started when they started to come into this area this new frontier. I would go to welfare women that had apartments. And I would introduce the guys to the women that was on welfare. That had established apartments. And. I never forget the first one was on Columbus Avenue when that area 36 and Columbus was a concentration of what was going on in Minneapolis. So what I did I introduce one of the guys from L.A. to the person

that that had this apartment and they would go in and tell us and look at it. You can still get your welfare check. But we would give you such a mite of money per day to let us work out a year apart. So what happened there is a come in with their with their with the drugs. Set the woman up. First a thing they do is give her drugs and all of a sudden she heard addiction become Blome full bloom crack at it. Then they take over the apartment I have to give her any money. I just feel like a rat like one of these white rouse and then just take it over until the police get wire of this activity raid that apartment I set up another one. I did this all around. The City. And year and I have that I stayed a neat house I became a responsible a law abiding citizen since 1989. I haven't been

in anybody's court. I haven't been and anybody's crack house. I have been using the mill dog chemical because I've learned to be a responsible person. Can you believe a person with my bag to be where I'm at today and working on my masters degree. Say I am a living example that there is no excuse that you can Jane. Well tomorrow we'll take you on a crack raid and then talk to some experts advice about why the police and the courts treat crack addicts differently than cocaine addicts. Some people think it has to do with race. Others disagree. That's tomorrow on NEWSNIGHT. We move now from the drug business to a business in St. Paul that shutting down sadly since 1920 Fisher knot has been making all kinds of snack foods at its plant on why Cliff Avenue. But that stops this Friday and that means job hunting for almost

300 employees. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota's Betsy Weinberger has our story. We came back to me. Special. Not. Many official we take very seriously. Sure the fission plant has been synonymous with same call for 74 years. This Friday the plant will cease operation Proctor and Gamble the parent company announced last November it was closing the plant due to a corporate wide restructuring. Nearly 300 local jobs were at stake. Manager Roger free and clear tried to buy the plant in 1988 in a management led buyout but PND outbid him. Now he's helping oversee this month's shutdown. I was like telling a very large family that you're going to be breaking them off and their family life is going to come to an end. She's a boy is I've been here an average of 21 year.

And they're very close now. There's a lot of family members husbands wives sons daughter son in laws and so on. In Wall Street Journal reporter Lisa Swayze books soap opera PND paid one hundred forty five million fifty five million more than the management's offer for a business with antiquated production plants. Five years later the Sultan of business remains flat. According to company sources Fisher not lost 20 million last year plant manager Keith Miller explains the reason for the shutdown. It's strictly a matter of economics. The cost structure in St. Paul just doesn't allow us to be competitive in another business. It's a combination of many things. An old building. Antiquated processes the inability to put modern processing equipment in modern machinery into the building the location you know the nuts are

here in Minnesota and we're trying to sell to the market. The plant has provided good paying manufacturing jobs for many employees allowing them to live a comfortable middle class life. Now some of those employees many of whom are unskilled are non-educated by Job hunting for the first time in 20 or 30 years. My friends have said you know here you get to go to school you get to start a new career. It's scary you don't have forty nine years old I will be 50 and I'm thinking here I'm going to go to school for two years and I get a get out job hunting at you know 52 years old I was a master. COOPER No I'm kind. Of had a lot of rejections but I know that thought is expected I guess. I would like to get something probably in the city government or state government or county government. Someplace where I don't get awful oil anymore. PNC is spending millions of dollars on this one shut down. Employees not only receive handsome severance and medical benefit packages but also six months worth of WI

location services everything from math to computer classes. The company has always believed that it's important to treat people properly. That's not only a good thing to do because it's right but it's good business and sometimes it's expensive. If people feel the decision was made fairly that it was made with the consideration of the employee and the community and the supplier in mind that goes an awful long way. It's how you treat people in the midst of bad news that is probably worth as much as exactly what you do. Now all of the things that they're doing about training dollars and vacation dollars and and their severance and things like that that really helps. But I am talking to an awful lot of people. It's how you're treated that makes the difference. Tomorrow night we'll meet some of the workers being laid off and find out what the company has done to find them jobs. We're happy to close tonight with another gorgeous weather forecast for

tomorrow be sunny over most of the state with highs ranging from the mid 60s in the northeast to the mid 70s in the west and south so please get out and enjoy it. Thanks for being with us tonight. Good night. Join us again tomorrow night. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota made possible by contributors to the power of two campaigns program done with major grants from the Blanton Foundation and the McKnight foundation. What is it.

Good evening everybody I'm Ron Tandberg tonight at 10:00 on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. The fight over adopting three

Native American girls and uncle of the girls is fighting a white couple in court. We'll talk to the lawyers involved. Then we'll take an in-depth look at crack cocaine from people who see this stuff every day. That's tonight at 10:00 on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. Good evening I'm Ron Tandberg tonight at 10:00 on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. The fight over adopting three Native

American girls and uncle of the girls is fighting a white couple in court. We will talk to the lawyers involved. Then we'll take an in-depth look at crack cocaine from people who see this stuff every day. That's tonight at 10:00 on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. Good evening I'm Ron Hamburg tonight at 10:00 on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. The fight over adopting three Native

American girls and uncle of the girls is fighting a white couple uncorked. We'll talk to the lawyers involved. Then we'll take an in-depth look at crack cocaine from people who see this stuff every day. That's tonight at 10:00 on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. Hello I'm Ron Tandberg. Tonight on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota we'll continue our in-depth look at crack

cocaine. The police make lots of bust but are they making progress. We'll hear from the police.