Fifty years ago, in April 1974, three Navajo men were murdered by three Farmington teenagers in Chokecherry Canyon area near Farmington. The murders and resulting activism and protest marches gained national attention and federal response.
Local activists have organized a commemorative march and rally in downtown Farmington on Sept. 21, which will culminate with a gathering at the Totah Theater, 315 W. Main St.
Duane “Chili” Yazzie, who was involved in protest marches 50 years ago, along with others, met with Farmington Mayor Nate Duckett on Wednesday, seeking support and cooperation from the city.
In the introduction to his 1992 book, “The Broken Circle: A True Story of Murder and Magic in Indian Country,” Rodney Barker, a Durango resident at the time, describes the riot that resulted when the Sheriff’s Posse Parade was protested by Navajos and a riot ensued. Barker and more than 50 others were arrested.
“For a community that was rocked by racial violence a half-century ago to still be striving – or is the word struggling? – to come to terms with a shameful episode in its past, says something positive about Farmington,” Barker said in an email.
The racial, cultural, socio-economic and legal factors created a fractured community. Some people agreed that Native Americans faced inequitable treatment while others, many of whom had migrated to the region for quick, good money in the oil and gas industry saw things differently.
A thorough investigation of the historic events were detailed in “Broken Circle.”
Barker was in Farmington during the protest parades organized by the Coalition for Navajo Liberation Navajos, who protested the Sheriff’s Posse Parade, who wore traditional U.S. Cavalry uniforms, same as worn by soldiers in the Long Walk when the Diné were relocated from their ancestral lands.
When the Navajos blocked the horseback sheriff’s posse, things turned violent and the disturbance became a riot. Farmington police, wearing gas masks used tear gas and began arresting people.
The Coalition for Navajo Liberation formed by Wilbert Tsosie, was targeted by Farmington Mayor Marlo Webb, who accused them of instigating trouble and not truly representing the Navajo people.
Tsosie felt the marches demonstrated their purpose to show sympathy and respect for the families of the slain and the call for justice, Barker wrote.
“He wanted to rattle the sensibilities of Mr. and Mrs. Farmington. He wanted to shake awake the white community to the news it could no longer count on passive acquiescence from Indian people,” Barker wrote.
The protests gained the support of the American Indian Movement, and local commander Larry Anderson mobilized his members to provide security during six weekends of marches held in Farmington.
Anderson had pledged the support of AIM, stating he had been in touch with its leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks. At the second march, national AIM chairman John Trudell showed up.
Trudell, who had been active in the takeover of Alcatraz, which raised the level of concern from Webb and the business community.
“And those were the ones we were the most fearful of … they had shown a history of violence,” Webb was quoted in Barker’s book.
It took almost a year for the 188-page report prepared by the New Mexico Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to be released. Titled “The Farmington Report: A Conflict of Cultures,” there was no mistaking its conclusion that a verdict of discrimination against Native Americans had been reached.
“Within the year, a number of lawsuits were filed by the Justice Department accusing the county and city of pursuing policies and practices which discriminated against Indians, and ordering them to discontinue these practices and take immediate steps to correct the present effects of past discriminatory policies,” Barker wrote.
The report and its orders were met with disdain and disgust by Webb, as he branded it a “collection of half-truths, innuendoes, statement out of context, falsehoods, and unrealistic and illogical conclusions,” Barker wrote.
Committee chairman Sterling F. Black, said, “There appears to be little awareness on the part of the general population or elected public officials of the complex social and economic problems,” wrote Barker.
The teenagers, Jesse Howard Bender (Vernon Crawford in Barker’s book) and Del Ballinger (Oren Thacker), both 16, and Matthew Clark (Peter Burke), 15, admitted to the gruesome crimes committed on consecutive weekends in Farmington, known as a border town to the Navajo Reservation. All three were Farmington High School students.
The robbing and rolling of intoxicated Navajos was a common pastime among some teenagers in Farmington. They looked at it as kicks and grins – giving intoxicated Natives what they deserved, according to Barker’s book.
The boys shared a common trait as outcasts and loners within the student population.
The issue facing the prosecutors and Judge Frank Zinn was whether to hold over the two 16-year-old boys to adult court. At 15, Clark could not legally be held over to the adult jurisdiction.
The perplexing decision, especially given the common sentiment within the Native American and much of the general community that they should face the stiffest penalties, was dictated by the psychological evaluations done by the court-appointed psychiatrists.
Their psychological evaluation was that Bender and Ballinger were not irreparable criminals, incapable of rehabilitation. Zinn, after reviewing the evaluation of Clark, did not feel that he was capable of feeling remorse. His instincts for justice pushed him toward trying the other two as adults.
However, based on the legal requirement to consider all court-acquired input, Zinn believed he was bound to make a decision that was “right in the light of the law.” He said the sentence had to fit the individual and not the crime.
All three admitted to the crime. Burke stated he participated to a lesser degree.
The youths were sentenced to attend the New Mexico Boys School at Springer for an indefinite period, not to exceed their 21st birthdays.
Bender, considered the ringleader, found incarcerated life unbearable and suffered from extreme nightmares and inability to sleep. He was allowed to stay up and clean floors. Eventually he did well academically, earning his high school equivalency degree and he found religion through Christianity.
After spending a few months living with a family in Raton, New Mexico, he attended Lubbock Christian College in Texas, but continued to show his dark side with sadistic art and talk of death.
Bender died at age 20 after spending two days in a coma on life-support after being hit by the mirror on a recreational vehicle while jogging.
Ballinger, who vowed to never be locked up again, got married and had a family, but was regularly haunted with a fear of reprisal and being hunted down, according to Barker’s interview with him.
Clark led a life of drug use, crime and was consistently in and out of jail. He was constantly tormented by feelings of inadequacy, according to Barker’s book.
Esther Keeswood, a niece of John Earl Harvey, said she was “sad and overwhelmed” when as a teenager she heard about the murders.
Her “auntie,” Jane Becenti, Harvey’s twin sister, informed Keeswood and the immediate families began to organize with the assistance of Larry Anderson, the local American Indian Movement representative.
Keeswood, a tribal court advocate, said there was a mob of people at the sentencing hearing and they were not allowed in the courtroom because the boys were juveniles.
She said the Navajo community was disturbed because nothing like that ever surfaced if it happened it was isolated.
Regarding the current climate and how her people are treated, Keeswood said, “I think to the educated people they're not really experiencing that, but the older ones … they still get ripped off somewhat – especially by the car dealers.”
Keeswood, who will be one of the speakers at the commemorative march and rally in September, said I hope … on both sides Navajo, white people and all colors do not hurt each, get along and not hate other people.”
Lela Holmes, who moved to Farmington from Albuquerque in 1968, said, “Well, of course, we were all pretty much in shock. I thought the Native Americans might rebel against us and became violent toward us.”
She knew the parents of the boys who committed the crimes and her older daughter attended school with them. Her daughter came home from school and said the Sheriff’s deputy checked everyone’s shoes looking the match boots with a bootprint.
“I think this was a thing that just built up … started with young people taking advantage of the Native Americans when they've been drinking … like taking their hat,” Holmes said.
When they got automobiles and started taking them up to the canyon it got out of hand, she said.
“But the silver lining is, I think Farmington began to realize that the Native Americans are very important to us, not just for their culture, but for what they do for our economy. I just really felt that was a change in the attitude toward the Native American people,” said Holmes.
The Diné community did not feel the sentence handed to the guilty was commensurate to their senseless, malicious acts of torture, genital mutilation and murder.
There was talk that a medicine man had done a ceremony to curse the admittedly guilty teenage boys to see that justice was done.
Barker asked Pinto Begay (name changed), a cemetery caretaker, if the fates met by the three boys would have served justice.
Begay said, “That would be justice the Navajo Way. Then the universe could be put back in place, and those who suffered restored in beauty.”
In the afterword, Barker explained it.
“When a circle is closed there is no way for evil spirits to get out, they are trapped within; and the break in the circle serves as an escape route.”
This article was updated on Aug. 28 to correctly identify Larry Anderson as the then-local representative of the American Indian Movement.
