05x06 - A Brutal Outcome

[bunniefuu]

[wind whooshing]

[suspenseful music playing]

[man] They tried to make it look

like I m*rder*d some guy in cold blood.

And that's not what happened.

I'm a victim of a hate crime.

[man] It tore me apart

when I found out he died.

Him being another American Indian

brother, you know what I mean?

I mean, that's like k*lling

my biological brother. That's how I felt.

[music swells]

[music fades]

[theme music plays]

[man 1] I think

we could all be dangerous people.

[man 2] People say you're a monster.

[man 3] I'm not sitting here

saying I'm innocent.

[man 4] I just m*rder*d

some guy in cold blood.

[theme song fades]

[intriguing guitar music playing]

[Makueeyapee] I was born in Montana.

1980. November 13th, 1980.

They brought me back in a cardboard box

to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation

because we didn't have the money to afford

a car seat or anything. Know what I mean?

Everybody thinks

America is a place that is rich.

But what they don't understand

is that American Indian reservations,

we're we're third world countries.

[music continues]

My grandfather was Chief Running Crane,

who was the last chief

of the Blackfeet Indian Nation.

My dad was full-blooded Indian.

That was part of

the heritage that I grew up in.

But on my mom's side, they're all white.

My childhood

was a rollercoaster ride. Yeah.

[unsettling music playing]

[Makueeyapee] My mother had seven kids,

and we're all from different fathers.

She'd move from place to place, all over.

I've been in Montana, I've been in Idaho,

Washington, California, Oregon,

all throughout the Northwest.

The happiest time in my life

was when I was about eight years old,

and we lived in Idaho with my stepdad.

He lived on a ranch.

I'd go out doing fence with him

and everything like that.

We'd chase off coyotes.

But he started beating my mom, and, uh,

that's why my mom eventually left.

So, I hopped off

the rollercoaster ride with my mother

and moved in with my uncles.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Makueeyapee] It was wild.

The east side of Tacoma

was the worst sector in Washington State.

It had the highest m*rder rate.

It was filled with g*ng violence.

I was part of

that criminal lifestyle, I suppose.

My uncles worked full-time,

and they didn't mind me

running around doing what I was doing.

I'd wake up and start

moving around from house to house,

and yeah, it was

nothing but criminal activity all over.

[suspenseful music continues]

[Makueeyapee] I got my 18 money,

bought a car, everything like that.

And I started spending money.

Drinking, getting high, whatever,

you know, just partying around.

And, uh, I ran out of money.

And, uh You know,

I didn't know what else to do.

So, I robbed a hotel.

And, uh, it's kind of funny.

I didn't get nothing

out of that robbery at all.

It was an old woman.

And I decided that,

"I'm not gonna rob this lady."

But I had already went in there and

had the g*n out and everything like that,

and pointed it at her,

and I'm looking at her, and I'm, like,

"I'm not gonna do this."

[intriguing music playing]

[Makueeyapee] I ended up

getting robbery in the first,

as*ault, as*ault, as*ault in the second,

eluding the police,

and a deadly weapon enhancement

because the three assaults

in the second degree was for

supposedly driving the vehicles

off the road.

[dramatic sting]

[Makueeyapee] My dad said, "When you go to

prison, take it as a college experience."

And that's exactly what I did.

I studied my butt off.

I I didn't have

no schooling either at that time

because I basic

I dropped out in about seventh grade.

But I grabbed book after book after book.

And that's how my writing got so good.

[soft guitar music playing]

[Makueeyapee] When I got to the joint,

I was the youngest one on the yard.

The brothers seen it, and they

started training me and everything,

about our traditional way of life.

It was called the Indians of All Tribes.

It was all about Native pride.

One of the first things they did

was give me the drum to hold

as a drum carrier.

Because it's the heartbeat of the people.

And I found myself.

[music fades]

[hopeful music playing]

[Makueeyapee] From that point,

I started doing very well

in my whole life.

[music continues]

Within two months of being out,

I met my baby's mama,

and, uh, we just hit it off.

A month after that,

she's pregnant with my son.

And then I end up having my daughter

within ten months of when my son was born.

I loved it.

My kids were my pride and joy.

I was going to college full-time,

and I started doing good.

I was a 4.0 GPA student.

I was on the dean's list

at the Blackfeet Community College.

I wanted to get my PhD in Native American

studies, in Native American law.

Specifically treaty rights and stuff,

and casino rights.

My way of life

is the Blackfeet Indian way of life.

But I also believe in

the unity of our people.

I know different songs

from different tribes.

I'll sing everybody's songs.

Whereas some people, it's all about

their tribe versus my tribe,

or this tribe versus that tribe.

It should be about the unity

of our people, not the disunity.

And tribalism,

that was kind of one of the things

that happened with this homicide.

[intriguing music playing]

[Makueeyapee]

My friend Adrian After Buffalo,

him and his wife were having issues,

and he wanted to get back with his wife.

She was over in in Polson, Montana.

He started looking for a ride.

I said, "I can take you over to Polson,

and you can find your wife and your kids."

So we headed over there.

[music continues]

[Makueeyapee] We rented a hotel and stuff.

I bought a 30-pack of Budweisers.

I told him, I said,

"You can drive, and I'll just sit back."

That's what we did.

We started cruising around,

going from one spot to the next.

We checked some of the bars.

Right before closing,

we ended up

getting invited to a house party.

[suspenseful music playing]

We get over to the house party,

and I said,

"Well, back up there, and we'll

pop the trunk, and we'll listen to music."

I was feeling good.

But, uh, the party was more inside

than it was outside.

So I decided,

"Well, maybe I'll I'll go inside."

When I went in, I tried to make a joke

to try to f*cking break the ice.

I said, "Hey, man,

where are all the Blackfeet at?"

And I looked like this,

because this obviously

is the Flathead Indian Reservation.

It's not the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

I wanted it to be a funny little joke just

to kind of introduce myself to this group.

Some guy Some kid standing next to me

looks over at me, and he says he says,

"sh*t, m*therf*ckers get f*cking

get their asses f*cking jumped

for talking sh*t like that around here."

These guys had some kind of issue

with Blackfeet, Salish, Kootenai

rivalry that dates back to the 1800s.

But, uh, I didn't know any of that.

I didn't know that Salish and Kootenai,

there was things going on there.

And automatically I'm, like,

[blows] "Whoa."

I'm in a house

standing next to a group of people

and that I don't know,

and you're talking about jumping me?

I didn't even say nothing

that I would consider,

uh, any kind of derogatory statement.

And one thing that I learned in prison

is don't show fear.

Don't show fear,

because the moment that you show fear,

these guys are gonna jump you.

I had a knife because that's the

number one thing we protect ourselves with

on the reservations.

And I I pull out my knife, and I said,

"Look, man, if anybody tries to jump me,

I will defend myself."

[tense music playing]

Another guy turned around, and he says,

"You know, uh, we all got knives in here."

Pulled out his knife.

His knife was like that.

That was just the blade.

And I'm looking at them, and I'm, like

"All right. We all got knives. [chuckles]

You just calm down."

And I turned back around,

and I walked out.

And I took a deep breath 'cause

I was outside. I was like [exhales]

"All right, you're outside."

"You're cool."

This guy, John Pierre, Jr.,

comes out of the shadows,

comes walking right up to me

like he's going to fight me.

[dramatic sting]

He said, "Hey, you know what?"

He said, "You know, Blackfeet

and Salish Kootenai are archenemies."

I said, "Look, man, I ain't even

about that. I'm about Native pride."

"I ain't about all that."

He just kind of looked at me.

And I started walking towards my car.

And then all these people

come walking out

[music swells]

coming surrounding me.

John Pierre, Jr. came at me.

That's when I struck out

and stabbed this guy.

[engine starts]

[tense music continues]

[Makueeyapee]

It was self-defense from a hate crime.

I stabbed this guy one single time.

That was it.

[uneasy music playing]

I knew that those guys had knives.

I felt that they were gonna come jump me.

Why were these guys targeting me?

Because I was Blackfeet.

That's a hate crime.

That's what it comes down to.

[music fades]

[intriguing music playing]

[man] I was working patrol.

Another officer and myself

were, uh, dispatched

to a loud party disturbance.

Just go ask them to quiet it down.

We got two to three blocks away

from that address,

and, uh, we got told

that there had been a stabbing.

[music continues]

This is the place.

And there was young men and young women

running from the scene down the driveway,

running around our vehicles.

As I got closer,

I could see

a group of people around a male

that was sitting on the ground here.

That was John Pierre.

I've known him for a long time.

I've known the family a long time.

And when I [sighs]

uh, went up and talked to John,

he he did not respond back to me.

[sighs]

I I would say that he was

already in a state of shock.

The small amount of blood

that, uh, that was coming out of his shirt

made me believe that he had

a substantial bleed internally.

I I talked to him until we finally

He He went unconscious.

And we laid him back, checked for pulse,

and then we started CPR.

[soft music playing]

[music swells]

[Donald Bell] You know, we deal with

a lot of bad things, and

it always, uh, is hard when

somebody from the community,

uh, dies senseless like this. So

[soft music continues]

[exhales]

[dramatic sting]

[unsettling music playing]

[dramatic sting]

We have the motel surrounded.

[suspenseful music playing]

We knock on the door, and the person

that comes to the door is Mr. Whitford.

The room is quite in disarray.

Garbage on the floor.

Blankets on the floor.

He initially denies

even being at the party.

Then he admitted that he had been there,

but denied any, uh, part

of an altercation.

When we have somebody that we're

talking to and they change their story,

what are you trying to cover up?

Why would you do that?

An average person has nothing to hide.

But that's just how some people operate

when they try to get out of trouble.

[dramatic sting]

[Makueeyapee, on recording] The cops came

to my room, and I tried to bullshit them.

I'll be the first one to admit I was

scared as hell to to even say anything.

That's part of my raising.

Don't talk to the cops. Don't say nothing.

You know? We have

a very deep distrust for the cops.

My My uncle David was shot and k*lled

by the Tacoma Police Department.

We don't We don't trust

the cops for nothing.

[uneasy music playing]

[breathes deeply]

Just because somebody in some other place

had been treated poorly

by law enforcement,

um, doesn't justify not trusting us

that we're going to do our job here.

So, I think that was his motivation,

is to lie to try to get out of, uh,

the consequences

for his actions that night.

To me, he's not

showing any remorse for it.

Um, he's not happy that he was caught,

and he did not want to be

held accountable, uh, for what he'd done.

[dramatic sting]

[soft guitar music playing]

[woman] The state,

their version of the events

was to paint Whitford as the only

aggressor of the of the evening.

But the concept just really didn't add up.

Whether it was justified or not,

in any argument or fight, there has to be

two people to engage.

There had to have been some interaction.

So, I personally found Mak's

version of the events to be credible.

[guitar music continues]

My name is Jennifer Streano.

I was Mr. Whitford's trial attorney.

You are parole eligible

at a quarter of your time.

He received a 60-year sentence,

which means he should be

parole eligible in 15 years.

And the judge put

a 25-year parole restriction,

which would equate to him

receiving a sentence of 100 years.

It is a brutal outcome.

Everything that he worked his adult life

to try to regain is now gone.

[dramatic music playing]

You know, all of that because of

a two-to-three-second decision.

You know, that's heartbreaking.

[music continues]

[kettle whistling softly]

[whistling stops]

Legally, Mak committed a homicide.

There's no question about that.

I'm sure he regrets that decision.

A life was lost,

and that's the ultimate tragedy.

But it is legally allowed

to commit a homicide

if you're afraid for your own life.

And so that's really where

the question comes down to.

Did Mak make that split-second decision

because he was afraid for his own life,

or because he was angry or defensive,

or just, um, overreacted?

It's completely understandable

that Mak would react

impulsively in those circumstances.

He had had a pretty rough upbringing.

And his trauma definitely

played into how he responded that night.

[music fades]

[birdsong]

[pensive guitar music playing]

[woman] Sometimes violence is so shocking

that I think it just kind of

overshadows all the good things.

After Mak got out of prison in Washington,

he honestly was on this path

where he was amazing.

[music continues]

He was doing everything he could

to make his life stable

and really push towards

advocacy for the Natives.

And that was really important to him.

That was a huge thing.

It is a tragedy to me

that it didn't work out.

But I think that Mak reacted

in the only way

he knew how at that moment.

My name is Amie,

and I am Makueeyapee's sister.

Mak's dad was a Blackfeet National,

and my dad is Cherokee.

But we share a mother.

She came from a really bad background,

a really hard background.

She had kids very young, at 12 years old.

She was 16 when she had me.

[Amie] At that time, the government

could come in and take children,

and it was perfectly legal.

Our adoption mentally broke our mother

in ways that she was

never able to get back from.

It left something,

just a hole there that she couldn't fill.

Nothing was ever stable or normal.

She inevitably made really horrible

choices when it came to men.

A lot of alcohol, drugs,

a lot of physical and verbal abuse.

[wind chime tinkles]

Mak grew up with that.

[soft music playing]

[music fades]

[Makueeyapee, on recording] My first

incident with violence, I was three.

These two children

that lived across the street from us,

we always used to play

in the mud puddles and stuff.

[voice breaking] It's It's hard.

It's hard to talk about.

[Makueeyapee clears throat]

That ended up coming to a close,

uh, with our next-door neighbor,

who I guess had been having an affair

with my mother,

and I didn't know it. Um

We went over there.

She took me and my sister,

and there was an argument in the house.

He ended up sh**ting his, uh, wife

five times in the chest

with a .357 Magnum. And

[inhales deeply]

This lady died in my mom's arms.

I don't remember where that guy went,

but when the cops caught up with him,

he'd ended up sh**ting his kids

once in the stomach, k*lling both of them,

and himself in the head.

Shot himself in the head.

[sighs] And, uh

all I could do was grab my sister

and cover her up and hold her. And

I could tell you

other violence and stuff that happened.

But that was how my life started.

[voice breaking] Just

That's a real powerful memory.

[soft music playing]

I feel for the child that Mak was,

because going through that was,

I'm sure, absolutely hideous.

He's, from his youngest age,

dealt with the reality

that these men can k*ll you.

You know, that was a life lesson

that I don't think he ever lost.

I think that it definitely speaks

why he would react so violently

to being in a situation

where he felt that he was in trouble.

Somebody tries to hurt you,

and you go straight back to childhood

and protecting yourself.

[music swells]

The Pierre family have

every right to be angry at Mak.

John Pierre never should've died.

But I don't think Mak meant to k*ll him.

I think he just wanted to get away

before he got hurt.

[music fades]

[unsettling music playing]

[man] Way in there like that.

- How are we? Yep. Throw him in there.

- There he is!

Good job. Then bury him.

You ready? Go. Go.

- Very classy, buddy. Yeah.

- [child babbles]

[unsettling music playing]

[Magnus Harlow] I got up to that party

about three o'clock in the morning.

Everybody's partying outside.

Everybody's laughing.

As I'm going into the house,

I ran into Whitford.

[unsettling music continues]

Whitford was a little bit tense.

The Blackfoot Reservation

and this reservation

are two completely different uh

pieces of earth, man.

Is there still that mistrust

between our two tribes?

Yeah.

We started talking, and he says,

"Hey, do you know all these people here?"

And I said, yeah.

I said, "Yep. I know 'em all."

Like, out of nowhere, he just stops

in the middle of our conversation,

and he decides to, you know,

share with me, you know, that,

"I'm feeling threatened."

It was, like [fingers snap]

some switch.

He says, well He

He takes a knife out of his pocket,

a paring knife,

and it's got white tape or duct tape

around the around the handle.

And he says,

"This is for anybody who wants to, uh,

you know, try to talk sh*t

or start some sh*t."

And I was, like, "Put that away!"

I was, like, "All these people here

are my family and friends."

I was, like, "Everybody's cool here."

God knows what could be

going through his head, you know.

The guy looks like he's seen some sh*t.

[unsettling music playing]

[Magnus Harlow]

We start having a conversation.

And, uh, Whitford

or Adrian said, " Piikani."

I remember it just, like,

hitting John in the face like a punch.

Piikani is brother in Blackfeet.

And John says, uh,

"So, you're Blackfeet?"

And he says, "Yeah."

And John says, "I'm Kootenai."

And, uh, Kootenai and Blackfeet have been

sworn enemies for hundreds of years.

I think what John was doing was kind of

trying to establish that dominance.

"This is my reservation,

you know, and if, uh

if you got problems or whatever,

we can handle it."

And fights happen, you know.

People get beat up sometimes.

So, my first thought of it of it is,

"Don't let it go any farther than this."

I remember trying to defuse the situation.

"No, that was hundreds of years ago, man.

Times Times have changed."

[unsettling music continues]

I'm in there for maybe

a minute and a half,

two minutes.

My friend runs in the house and says,

"They stabbed John."

"They stabbed John!

Get out here right now!"

So, I take off running outside.

John was laying down on the ground.

He wasn't responding to anything.

He's still breathing. And, uh

[inhales]

[clears throat]

[sighs] There was nothing

we could do about it.

[exhales]

[soft music playing]

John believed in throwing hands.

Maybe a little fight, you know, that's

probably what he wanted or whatever.

But he did not deserve to die.

John was a family man.

Took care of his two sons.

They were the center of his universe.

He should still be here. And he should

be with his family and his loved ones.

And he can't.

I think Whitford was paranoid.

I met him for 15 minutes,

and he took away a lot of people's friend,

brother, father, and uncle.

So, I couldn't care less about Whitford.

[music fades]

[unsettling music playing]

[man] I believe that Mr. Whitford

believes in his own mind

that he does nothing wrong,

and everybody else

is out to get him or hurt him.

And he's had that hardwired

into him since he was young.

My name is John Todd.

I'm one of the jail commanders

for the Lake County Sheriff's Office

in Polson, Montana.

I was one of the senior guys in the jail

at the time Mr. Whitford was here.

Mr. Whitford could be violent,

and often was.

If he didn't get his way,

then he immediately went to the violence.

We never knew

from one minute to the other,

are we gonna be fighting with this guy,

rolling around on the floor,

or is he gonna cooperate with us?

He was, I'd have to say, kind of a bully.

He would poke at the smaller, weaker guys

and just poke and poke and poke

until they exploded.

And then he would hurt them,

or attempt to hurt them.

And then it was never his fault.

He was, "They did it.

They started it. It was their fault."

Even though he was the one doing

the poking and the and the prodding.

[suspenseful music playing]

He'd always say, "Well, I'm Blackfeet."

"And this is the Salish and Kootenai

reservation that we're on."

And he was instantly

on the, uh, defensive with whoever it was.

He just chose to believe that he was

being oppressed and and picked on,

and so his his reaction was to fight.

That was just Mr. Whitford.

[suspenseful music continues]

[music fades]

[soft music playing]

[man] Whitford's position was

that he was the victim of a hate crime.

But there wasn't anything much

to support his version of the events.

All of the other witnesses,

all of the other evidence and so forth

seemed to be contrary

to what his self-defense claim was.

[music fades]

[pensive music playing]

The Blackfeet and the Salish

were historically at w*r.

But that was 170 years ago.

While there may still be sometimes

some, uh, competition or tension,

in the meantime,

they've intermarried and interacted.

And a lot of Blackfeet come over here

and attend the college here

or get jobs here.

So, Whitford's position

that he was surrounded by Salish,

and therefore it was a hate crime

and he had to defend himself,

wasn't a very persuasive argument.

There was no reason for any of this.

I sentenced Whitford to 60 years in prison

with a minimum of 25 years before he would

be considered or eligible for parole.

I thought that that was a fair sentence.

The consequences to John Pierre

were pretty darn serious too.

[music fades]

[Makueeyapee, on recording] I should've

never even got a sentence.

I should have been I should have

walked out of that courtroom.

You know, this was self-defense.

They didn't like the fact that I had

mentioned anything about being Blackfeet.

It's a hate crime

because of my nationality.

Their nationality as a Kootenai nation

and my nationality as a Blackfeet tribal.

That's what it comes down to.

[pensive music playing]

Well, it's troubling

to hear him, uh, speak like that,

because in his mind, he did nothing wrong.

Most people, even honest people,

recreate an event in their mind,

often subconsciously,

so that it's consistent

with their psychological needs.

I suspect that some of that was in play.

Mr. Whitford

and the fellow he was riding with,

they'd had something like 30 beers

before they ever got to this party.

Whether he could remember accurately his

emotions or motives or why he did things,

I find that questionable.

From what I understand about

Mr. Whitford's behavior

in prison since then, he hasn't changed.

For his sake,

I hope he will at some point.

Because otherwise he'll probably

spend the rest of his life in jail.

If I were to ask him one thing,

it would be,

"After all this,

have you learned nothing?"

"Have you learned

no lesson from this tragedy?"

He k*lled another human being,

and that doesn't seem to bother him.

He's only feeling sorry for himself.

[pensive music continues]

[clears throat]

[music fades]

[end theme music playing]

[music fades]