FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 17, 2024
Sturgis, SD – Today, community members held a press conference before the arraignment of Wesley Scott Cale Jr., who chased and brutally assaulted Reuben Randle on September 26th of this year. Reuben is a 13 year old Black and Indigenous boy who was walking home with his friends. Cale’s assault resulted in Reuben suffering a sprain in the jaw socket and a concussion.
Reuben was supposed to give testimony on October 21, but his hearing was canceled due to the officer who took the call not being available. This means the victim won’t be heard until four days after the attacker’s hearing.
Community members rallied this morning to demand Cale’s charges be elevated to aggravated assault, and for his wife Alicia – who witnessed the crime, walked Reuben home, yet didn’t call 911 despite being a mandatory reporter as a social worker – to be held accountable as well.
Trivia, Reuben’s mother, said, “As a parent, you are to love, protect, guide, and comfort your children. To see my son beat and go through terror and trauma every day since the assault has happened is devastating. I see this assault as a hate crime against a child.
“Reuben doesn’t even want to go outside anymore. He doesn’t understand why it happened to him, and why the man kept punching him over and over. He is always asking questions of where I’m going, when I stand up just to go to the kitchen, bathroom or even downstairs. He’s in a place of hypervigilance, and I see it wearing him down.
“Reuben was hurt and in tears when he found out he could no longer play football this season. He said he feels like it was taken from him. We need community support, because I feel the justice system was not fair to my son.”
“No child should ever fear being assaulted in their own neighborhood or worry about being too brown to go outside,” said Dr. Valeriah Big Eagle, Director of Strategic Partnerships at NDN Collective. “That is the reality for children of color across the country like Reuben – and we are here to demand accountability for this obscene act of racism. For a grown man to target and assault a 13-year-old Black Lakota boy walking home from football practice is a hate crime. Reuben deserves justice to the fullest extent of the law, and we pray for his healing journey to be able to move forward after this traumatic event.”
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NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.