To: FBI - Rapid City, South Dakota Office
Justice for Vern Traversie
Please sign this petition urging the investigation of the assault upon Vern Traversie while he was a heart surgery patient at Rapid City Regional Hospital in summer 2011. The Rapid City Regional Hospital has a contract with the federal government to provide medical services to Native Americans that are more complicated than what a local Indian Health Service clinic can provide. Mr. Traverse is a blind Lakota elder, and after his surgery, a nurse discovered and took pictures of what was drawn on his chest - 3 letters spelling "KKK". Hospital officials and law enforcement have refused to investigate or take any action against hospital personnel who may have been responsible for letting this assault happen when Mr. Traversie was in their care.
Why is this important?
Last year, Cheyenne River Sioux Vern Traversie, a tribal citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, went to the Rapid City Regional Hospital for heart surgery, but a graphic photograph taken by a nurse upon his September return home indicates the procedures went far beyond normal medical care.
The pictures show three distinctive Ks - or KKK - on his abdomen.
Law enforcement and medical personnel have yet to satisfy Traversie and others with any follow up action against the hospital's staff. They maintain no one did anything wrong to Traversie. (Source: Native News Network)