A new police force chased a 17-year-old boy to his death. Then it vanished.

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Support our nonprofit journalism]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     April 18, 2024 Hi there. My name is Samantha Michaels, a senior reporter here at Mother Jones. The first time I called Blossom Old Bull, a Lakota mother who lives on the Crow reservation in Montana, she told me a [story about policing unlike anything]( I’d ever heard in my nine years as a criminal justice reporter. In 2020, Blossom suffered an unimaginable loss. She learned that her 17-year-old son, Braven—a cautious kid, a good student, an athlete—had died in a police chase. But when Blossom went to the police department for information about what had happened to him, nobody was there; the entire department had closed shop without any explanation. This is the kind of story you might never hear twice. But Blossom’s saga is not entirely unique: She is one of countless Native mothers around the country who have faced a startling lack of information from law enforcement after mysterious deaths on reservations. In my [latest investigation](, I spent about two years working with Blossom to figure out what happened to Braven, what happened to this police department, and how Braven's death underscored the many ways the federal government fails tribal nations. I interviewed former officers, scoured court records, and got access to investigative reports and dash-cam footage. And, nearly three years after the crash, I brokered a meeting between Blossom and the former police chief, the [first opportunity she’d had to talk]( with someone in a position of authority about her son’s death. After all these years fighting for justice, Blossom told me last week that she was crying tears of joy as she processed that her son’s story would finally reach a bigger audience. She wants her experience to inspire change—especially more transparency from law enforcement for Native families, so that no other mother has to endure what she did. You can learn more about Blossom’s search for answers in the cover story of our March/April issue, or in a video [I helped produce with filmmaker Mark Helenowski](. Look out for an hour-long Reveal episode that hits airwaves this Saturday that will include extra interviews and details that didn’t make it into print. Thanks for reading, and for all your support. —Samantha Michaels Advertisement [Exit Wounds]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [SCOTUS Justices: Why Isn’t DOJ Treating Dobbs Protesters Like January 6 Attackers?]( “Why has no one been charged for disrupting the Supreme Court?” BY DAN FRIEDMAN FROM MOTHER JONES   Mother Jones and Grist team up for an Earth Week event! Join Mother Jones, Grist, and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School on April 23 at 7:30 p.m. ET as leaders in the environmental justice space discuss equity, infrastructure, jobs, and the urban energy transition. Featuring the “father of environmental justice,” Dr. Robert Bullard (Texas Southern University, Bullard Center for Environmental & Climate Justice), Jade Begay (Indigenous rights advocate and climate researcher), and Leah Thomas (intersectional environmentalist), we’ll dig into the issues, opportunities, and solutions driving an equitable transformation for America. For tickets, click this [link](. [Trending] [Sen. Rick Scott says he's a China hawk. But he's made lots of money with China-related investments.]( BY DAVID CORN   [Police loom as pro-Palestine students occupy Columbia University]( BY NAJIB AMINY   ["We need shade": America's hottest city rushes to plant more trees]( BY NINA LAKHANI   [Good recipes for tough times]( BY ALISSA QUART AND MARK BITTMAN Advertisement [Exit Wounds]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [A new police force chased a 17-year-old boy to his death. Then it vanished.]( The Crow Nation is still looking for answers. BY SAMANTHA MICHAELS MOTHER JONES MEMBERSHIP UPDATE   An important update on our finances We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals—and we can’t sustain coming up short on [donations]( month after month. It is [impossibly hard]( in the news business right now, and the [crisis]( facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. Neither is Mother Jones. 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