A Native American says she shot her alleged rapist in self-defense. Federal prosecutors charged her

[TexasTowelie]

A Native American says she shot her alleged rapist in self-defense. Federal prosecutors charged her with murder


She shot him with his own gun. It was the same gun, Maddesyn George tells police, that Kristopher Graber kept next to the bed where he raped her the night before. The same gun, she says, that he pulled on her when she tried to escape.

She shot him in self-defense, she says. She wasn't going to let him hurt her again, she tells police. So once he fell asleep, she took the gun, along with his drugs and money. Graber came looking and found her a day later in the passenger seat of a car northeast of Omak, just inside the Confederated Tribes of the Colville reservation border. He reached through the window, shouting at her, threatening her and grabbing her. Then, she says, he saw the gun and tried to wrestle it away from her. She pulled the trigger.

Graber — known to friends as Buddy — clutched his chest and fell to the ground. He died at 43 years old.

Maddesyn, 27 and a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville reservation, told all of this to tribal police investigating the killing in July, according to tribal court documents sent to the Inlander by her attorney. At least one witness backed up key aspects of her account, repeating several times that it appeared her life was in danger in the moment before she pulled the trigger, records show.

Read more: https://www.inlander.com/spokane/a-native-american-says-she-shot-her-alleged-rapist-in-self-defense-federal-prosecutors-charged-her-with-murder/Content?oid=21192760
(Spokane Inlander)

[captain queeg]

1. If it happened on the reservation why are the feds getting involved?

[madaboutharry]

2. The man she shot and killed is a non-native white man.

There is no tribal jurisdiction over crimes involving non-native people and it is always referred to the Dept. of Justice for federal prosecution. It does seem like a strange quirk in the law, but tribal jurisdiction is very complicated.

[2naSalit]

3. And crimes that take place on a rez are handled by the FBI.

[captain queeg]

4. Yeah I think I'd heard that. Ex FBI guy told me about doing some work at a rez

[2naSalit]

5. Yeah...

It's one of those "happened on federally administered land" even though it's a sovereign nation. I used to know some FBI guys when I lived next to a good sized rez. Indian issues often fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI, even off the rez.