From the archive: Explaining tribal sovereignty
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Original broadcast date: March 25, 2005
The Red Lake Band of Chippewa restricted access to its reservation in northern Minnesota after 16-year-old Jeff Weiss killed his grandfather and eight others before taking his own life on March 21, 2005.
Tribal leaders allowed journalists to gather in a parking lot on the reservation, but forbade them to travel anywhere else on the reservation. Such restrictions are legal because the reservation is a sovereign nation.
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On March 25, 2005, four days after the shooting, MPR News hosted a discussion of sovereignty issues with Robert Clinton, a professor at at Arizona State University's College of Law.
Red Lake: 10 years later
Ten years ago, on March 21, 2005, 16-year-old Jeff Wiese shot his grandfather, his grandfather's partner and seven of his classmates at Red Lake High School before shooting himself.
For four people who lived through the shootings that day, the trauma has echoed in ways that would have been hard to predict, from where they find comfort to how they sit when they're in public.
• Feeling scars at Red Lake 10 years later
From the MPR News archive
• What happened at Red Lake? A documentary
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