A Native American tribe’s lawsuit alleging that the remains of more than 100 of its ancestors were mishandled and “desecrated” during construction of a downtown Los Angeles museum has been thrown out by a judge.
In May, the Kizh Nation sued the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and the nonprofit LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes and others involved in the construction more than a decade ago.
The case was dismissed Jan. 30 by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Shultz, who ruled there was an “unreasonable 12-year delay” in filing the suit and that it exceeded the statute of limitations, Peter Gordon, one of the tribe’s attorneys, said Tuesday, Feb. 11.
The suit alleged that the defendants were negligent and violated Los Angeles County and state health codes and tribal laws. However, lawsuits alleging negligence must be filed within two years, Shultz wrote in his decision.
The county owns the land on which the remains were found, and LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes — a museum steps away from L.A.’s famed Olvera Street and whose construction in 2010 led to the suit. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles was named in the suit because it’s responsible for the First Cemetery of Los Angeles, located between the LA Plaza museum and Plaza Church.
Kizh Nation, commonly called the Gabrieleño Band Of Mission Indians, is a non-federally recognized tribe with roots in Los Angeles County. It once inhabited parts of Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties as well, the tribe’s website states.
Lack of funding prevented the tribe from filing the lawsuit sooner and it was able to sue in May because attorneys agreed to represent them for free, said Christina Swindall, tribal secretary for Kizh Nation.
The lawsuit alleges that the remains were to be put into individual wooden boxes that would be in separate graves, and reburied according to Catholic rituals and traditions after the museum’s construction. The reburial was completed in the center of LA Plaza’s 30,000-square-foot garden, Downtown Los Angeles News reported. Now, the area is called the Historic La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles Cemetery, where there is a plaque about the early history of Native and non-Native settlers and burials.
Instead, the lawsuit alleges, the remains were put in paper bags and placed into a single grave in the northeast corner of the La Iglesia cemetery, something the Kizh Nation ancestral chief Andrew Salas called a “mass grave.” It is unclear if the remains were put together in a mass grave or not. The archdiocese, LA Plaza and county officials did not address whether remains were placed in a mass grave or individually buried.
The archdiocese said that when the county — which owns the property — reported that it found human remains, Catholic officials “requested that the remains be treated with the utmost sensitivity and respect,” Archdiocese of Los Angeles spokesperson Adrian Alarcon said in an email.
“After dialogue with the County and representatives of the native peoples, it was agreed that the County would oversee the reburials according to the requests of the representatives of the native peoples,” the email states. “The Archdiocese consecrated the ground and provided a blessing according to the Rites of the Catholic Church for the reinternment by the County.”
LA Plaza officials declined to comment, spokesperson Veronica Diaz said.
County officials declined to comment because the issue could lead to further legal action, Senior Deputy County Counsel Keever Rhodes Muir said.
Kizh Nation sought a respectful reburial with individual graves, land to do so if there wasn’t room available at the cemetery to which they were moved and damages for emotional distress for the tribe, Gordon said. The amount sought exceeded $25,000.
To Native people, disturbing the bones and spirits of ancestors would “strike a painful nerve,” according to an article published by the Association on American Indian Affairs.
“Like cultures throughout the world, Native Peoples have deeply ingrained attitudes about the dead,” the article states. While religion and traditions vary, “there is a generally held belief among Native Peoples that when an individual dies … the remains and any sacred objects that are placed with them are not to be disturbed or displaced, except by natural occurrences.”
Members of the Kizh Nation said they can feel this pain.
“Whenever we walk downtown near the plaza, you can just feel it, it’s unsettled,” Swindall said. “We feel the unrest so we know our ancestors are not at rest, too.”
Swindall and Salas said the fight isn’t over.
“The lack of respect and the lack of regard for our ancestors, there’s got to be some new laws changed,” Salas said. “I think that’s where we need to focus, not just for ourselves, but all the other tribes all over the United States that are in similar situations.”