​Piece of chicken lands Native man in jail… again

FARGO – In January 2017, Zebadiah Gartner took an extra piece of chicken from a Cashwise Foods sample plate, and threw it away after workers said he could only eat one. A month later, Gartner – along with other participants – were pulled out of an Indigenous sweat lodge by Fargo Police wearing little but shorts in freezing temperatures.

The ensuing resisting arrest charge against Gartner was later dropped, but the theft charge stuck, and haunted him to the Fargo Amtrak Train Station where early Wednesday morning police arrested Gartner on a bench warrant for failure to pay $500 fine.

In Municipal Court Wednesday morning, Judge Stephen Dawson came close to suspending the fine and sentencing Gartner to 10 days in jail for failure to pay the fine related to the extra piece of sample chicken, when his mother, Monica Gartner, offered to pay. Gartner has another scheduled court appearance for sentencing Monday morning after the court fine has been paid, Dawson said.

“All fines are suspended, serve 10 days,” Dawson said before Monica volunteered to pay the fine. “When you are done with that then you are done with this.”

Dressed in prison orange, Gartner asked the judge for leniency in paying the fine, but Dawson refused.

Family said Gartner, an Anishinaabe, was on his way to continue his work with Indigenous ceremonies, sometimes at sweat lodges, other times at rallies or powwows. This time, he was traveling to Montana. Gartner’s interest in Native traditions began at a young age after his grandmother, Sandra Berlin, gave him an old drum to beat.

Excluding a driving without insurance charge from 2015, Gartner has no other convictions on his criminal record, save for misdemeanor theft he pleaded guilty to in February 2017, of an extra sample piece of chicken.

“The streets of Fargo are safer tonight,” Berlin wrote in a Facebook post. “My grandson was taken to jail as he was waiting to board the train tonight, to go help at a ceremony. As that is what he does, as a young Native American man. Just like a year ago, February, when he was pulled from the sweat lodge, as he was praying and then taken to jail.”

“How many Native American kids are staying on the right path?” Monica said after Gartner’s court appearance. “The courts and the police are just waiting for him to fall, but they’re not going to catch anything because he is not a bad person.”

Gartner’s mother, his grandmother, and Leona Owlboy, from the Spirit Lake Tribe, showed up at municipal court to support Gartner. All of them say police have been harassing the family since the sweat lodge incident occurred on February 23, 2017.

“When they see him, they give him looks, they flip him off,” Owlboy said.

“Why do they care?” Monica said. “To me, they’re stalking him. They harass us at our house.”

After a sweat ceremony, police are typically sitting at a store close to the sweat lodge area, Owlboy said.

“They’re only hurting Zeb more, and it’s messing with him,” Owlboy said. She has had a recent relapse of ovarian cancer after a four-year remission, and Gartner helped her heal at a sweat ceremony less than a week ago.

“I didn’t feel sick anymore,” Owlboy said. “Zeb took it away, he took my pain. When someone needs help, he doesn’t grab anything, he just goes.”

“They don’t understand this way of life,” Berlin said. Gartner has become increasingly active in Native marches and ceremonies in Fargo and elsewhere during the past year. He sings traditional songs and beats a Native drum.

“There needs to be more people like Zeb.” 

Fargo Police Crime Prevention and Public Information Officer, Jessica Schindeldecker, wouldn’t release the names of the arresting officers, but said multiple officers were at the scene.

“I think it would be highly unlikely he was targeted,” Schindeldecker said.