California officials want to pay reparations for government-forced or coerced sterilizations, a permanent procedure to prevent pregnancy. It works by blocking the fallopian tubes. But they are having a hard time finding victims. The state has $4.5 million in reparations to distribute. Some people were victimized during the eugenics movement that peaked during the 1930s. Some of those forced sterilizations were on Native American women. Others were sterilized while in state prisons a decade ago. So far, state officials have awarded payments to 51 people out of 310 applications. State officials plan to air TV and radio ads this month in an attempt to find more victims. The program will shut down after 2023.
Law enforcement regularly put themselves in dangerous situations while serving in the line of duty. This is especially true in South Dakota, where the violent crime rate is the 10th highest in the nation, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Statistics, But not everywhere in the state is the same, and some jurisdictions are more dangerous for officers than others. Certain law enforcement agencies, including several on the state’s Indian reservations, as well as several small rural agencies, did not report data consistently and were not included.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI Newscenter.