MILACA, Minn., May 3 (UPI) -- An Indian tribe in Minnesota wants to know why an 11-year-old crime victim was brought to court in handcuffs and chains after he missed a court date.
Melanie Benjamin, chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe, asked the state to investigate the incident, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Thursday.
"Was there any common sense even considered by anybody making this decision?" she asked in a letter to the state attorney general.
The boy, who had allegedly been assaulted by an older boy, was taken into custody the day before he was scheduled to testify, kept overnight in a juvenile detention center and brought to court in an orange jumpsuit. Jan Kolb, the Mille Lacs County attorney, said he was given the standard treatment for juveniles in custody.
Kolb said the boy seems to need protection because he has been a victim of at least two assaults and his parents were not getting him to court dates. But Rjay Brunkow, the band's lawyer, said that her notion of protection seems more like punishment.
