The Billings Gazette from Billings, Montana • A1

1 Volume 134, Issue 145 A Lee Enterprises Newspaper Copyright 2019 Follow us online: facebook.com/billingsgazette twitter.com@billingsgazette instagram.com/billingsgazette 6 18134 41213 4 SUNDAY DAILY $2.00 PREMIUM DAY CLASSIFIEDS C3 COMICS D3 DEATHS B5 MLB SCORES D6 A5 OPINION A4 TV D4 WYOMING B4 WEATHER B6 PARTIAL SUNSHINE 75 47 FORECAST, B6 Tuesday, sepTember 24, 2019 billingsgazette.com receive free alerts on breaking news, sports and obituar- ies by visiting billingsgazette.com/email. AT BILLINGSGAZETTE.COM Air upgrade Airport breaks ground on $55M expansion LOCAL STATE, PAGE B1 Conference play is here Bobcats, Griz preparing for Big Sky openers SPORTS, PAGE D1 PHOEBE TOLLEFSON The city of Billings sent a geo- technical expert up to the base of the Rimrocks Monday morning to assess stability after a weekend rock slide that crushed a house. Dave Mumford, Public Works director for the city of Billings, said cleanup work at the West End site would begin as soon as the area was deemed safe. The 1:30 a.m. slide Saturday struck a home on Laredo Place owned by Bill Mercer, a promi- nent local attorney and member of the state Legislature.

Mercer, who was home alone at the time, was freed by a neighbor from the crushed house. The slide left a trail of large boulders from the Rims which are still blocking the residential street. Before contractors can begin breaking up the boulders and hauling them out, the city needs to determine where to start. want to remove JULIANA SUKUT In front of a giraffe mural in the newly renovated pediat- rics department at St. Vincent Healthcare, administrators met Monday to celebrate a new pro- gram that will bring advanced pediatric surgeons to Billings.

The hospital is expanding its current partnership with the In- termountain Primary Hospital and the University of School of Medicine, both in Salt Lake City. The partnership will feature 10 pediatric surgeons of different expertise, including neonatal surgery, rotating their time in Billings. The doctors will be on call 24 hours, spend one to two weeks in town, take consultations, and perform one elective surgery per week. Any of the 10 doctors in Utah will also be able to offer tele-medical services, if their expertise is needed while they in Billings. built in redundancy into our said Dr.

Katie Rus- sell, Trauma Medical Director at Primary Hospital. all do pediatric surgery. But we each have our own areas of Russell said the program has been worked out so there a lapse in care in Billings or at fa- cilities in Utah. Each doctor has a specialty, and then a backup to cover when a doctor is gone, in addition to tele-medical services. hoping to bring the two worlds much closer together, and make it not disruptive to our practices but beneficial for the Russell said, who had MIKE KORDENBROCK As the family of Kaysera Stops Pretty Places continues to grieve and seek answers in the death of the teenager, people rallied in Hardin to ensure the investiga- tion brings justice.

Stops Pretty Places was found dead by a jogger along a residen- tial street in Hardin on Aug. 29, two days after she had been re- ported missing and several days after she was last seen alive. It was on that spot along Mitchell Avenue that around 100 people gathered, many of them wearing red, represent- ing the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls movement. An obituary for Stops Pretty Places lists her heritage as Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara. She would have been a senior at Hardin High School this year.

The cause of her death has not been made public and an investigation is ongoing. Before the march, Stops Pretty aunt Percelia Bull Tail gathered with her children around some flowers leaned against the chain link fence near where her body was found. Bull Tail says she is the one who reported the teenager miss- ing and that she had looked after her alongside her own children, as if she was her daughter. She described feeling when reporting her missing and questions whether law enforce- ment collected all the necessary information. Her doubts end there.

Bull Tail says she got no official confirmation that it was Stops Pretty Places who was found on Mitchell Avenue until more than a week had passed. when I had to call my sister and the rest of my siblings and let them know it was she said. She fears that Stops Pretty death will get swept un- der the rug. we want is jus- she said. are grieving in a lot of ways, with anger, hope this opens the eyes of a lot of teenagers, the youth.

Because she just barely turned 18. She was just starting her life and then this Bull Tail said. Also attending the rally were Stops Pretty parents, Geralyn Bulltail and Alan Craig Stops. Before long on Monday, people began to crowd around Bull Tail and the flowers along the fence, some of them offering hugs. The march began with a prayer before participants began walk- ing and chanting for justice.

The march ended in front of the Big Horn County courthouse with speeches made loud by speakers and a microphone. Those who spoke at the court- house rally included state legis- lators, family members and other Native American women whose daughters went missing in Mon- tana and were later found dead. The front doors of the court- house stayed shut during the rally but some of the windows in the stone building were open and the faces of people inside were sometimes visible through the tinted glass. One of the first speakers was Crow Agency Rep. Sharon Stew- art-Peregoy.

In the Crow lan- guage, Peregoy-Stewart shouted into the microphone before translating into English. has to Pere- goy-Stewart said. has been going on in this county for 20-plus years. Now spread across Montana. across the nation.

across Canada. an epidemic, but we should say a pandemic. about pub- lic safety. about people being safe in their own Peregoy-Stewart said people need to stand united for justice regardless of their tribal affilia- tions. She urged the young peo- ple present to stand their ground, and for older attendees to stand beside them.

time that we become she said. only then, it is only then, when we are strong, that we cannot be bro- ken. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. Justice for our rela- Lame Deer Rep.

Rae Peppers then spoke. death cannot be ignored as just another dead Indian. We will continue to fight passionately for Peppers said. Northern Cheyenne Tribal President Rynalea Pena Whiteman later lead the crowd in a chant for justice before reading aloud a letter she said she wrote to Big Horn County Attorney Jay Harris offering the Northern Cheyenne support in the investigation. Harris, along with Big Horn County Coroner Terry Bullis, were both criticized by speakers at various points during the rally.

At one point a woman named Jennie Parker was given a chance to speak about her problems with Bullis that go back to the early 2000s when she filed a com- plaint against the mortician and coroner for embalming the body of her granddaughter after a fatal car crash near Lame Deer without permission and then charging for it. The complaint led to the state Board of Funeral Services requir- ing Bullis to reimburse the fam- ily. Bullis was also placed on pro- fessional probation for a year in 2003 as a result of the complaint. Shawn Real Bird, a Crow Tribal legislator, also spoke, shouting at Larry mayer pHOTOs, BILLINGS GAZETTE Protesters fill the entrance to the Big Horn County Courthouse in Hardin after marching from the site where Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was found dead recently. Regional pediatric partnership announced City checking slope stability after weekend rock slide is Family demands justice after young woman found dead Alan Craig Stops is comforted by friends as a protesters speak at the Big Horn County Courthouse in Hardin.

daugher Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was found dead recently. St. to collaborate with 10 surgeon specialists from Utah Please see JusTICe, Page A6 Please see rOCK sLIde, Page A6 Please see pedIaTrICs, Page A6.