Helena, Mont. • A Montana family’s decade-old lawsuit alleging that racial discrimination tainted an FBI investigation into their relative’s shooting death is getting renewed attention amid a swell of activism around unsolved cases involving missing and slain Native Americans across the nation.
Dozens of people from the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Blackfeet reservations filled a Helena courtroom Tuesday to listen as the attorney for Steven Bearcrane’s family said his 2004 death illustrates how the FBI provides fewer law-enforcement services for Native Americans compared to the rest of the population.
It was the first time in the case's long history that so many people have rallied in person behind Bearcrane's family, lawyers for the family said.