Winona LaDuke sounds alarm after her family farm was riddled with bullets

Indigenous rights activist Winona LaDuke’s family farm in northern Minnesota was sprayed by a hail of gunfire last month.

“They almost killed my grandchildren,” she told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “They ducked as soon as it started firing.”

The shooting was reported around 6 p.m. Nov. 18, at LaDuke’s farm in rural Becker County along state Hwy. 34 near the town of Osage, about 10 miles west of Park Rapids. She grows industrial hemp there and has a farmers market on the property where her relatives live.

Around a dozen bullets broke two windows and casings were dug out of kitchen cabinets and walls, she said. Her three grandchildren took cover as gunfire came first from a dirt road to the west and shots continued across the highway to the south, she said.

Weeks into the investigation, she said she’s received no communication from law enforcement and has no answers or sense of safety. She said there is a lack of urgency that’s especially unsetting after the assassinations of Melissa and Mark Hortman earlier this year.

In response to requests for comment, Becker County Sheriff Todd Glander said in an email that the investigation continues and authorities are still seeking the public’s help.

“This appears to be an isolated incident and [we] are looking into motives as part of this ongoing investigation. At this point, I will not discuss tips received or suspects,” Glander wrote, adding that drive-by shootings are rare in the county.

The BCA didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“If it had happened to a prominent non-Native person, I think we would have had more answers than what we’re getting now,” said LaDuke, an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe.

“I don’t think it’s a good omen for any of us if this kind of thing happens and then nobody says anything. … These are really politically charged times with a toxic environment towards people who are outspoken,” she said.

LaDuke has been outspoken for decades in globally recognized Indigenous advocacy against oil pipelines and twice ran for U.S. president. But she said she has never experienced violence like this.

“I don’t know if it was a punk or it was white supremacists,” she said, adding that she believes there were at least two shooters given the two different types of bullets found in her home.