Detroit police break up Native sugarbush ceremony, saying 'sovereign stuff is not valid'

Detroit police officers shut down an Indigenous sugarbush ceremony Friday night in River Rouge Park, despite claims from organizers of having valid fire permits and approval from the city.

Detroit Deputy Fire Commissioner Dave Fornell told the Free Press Tuesday that while the group applied for a permit, they never completed the application and therefore did not have a valid permit.

The ceremony was held to kick off the third annual tapping season as part of the Detroit Sugarbush Project, led by a coalition of local groups whose mission is to teach Detroiters how to tap — literally and figuratively — into the tradition of making maple syrup and pass on other ecological knowledge.

For three years, participants have learned from the Anishinaanabe and Potawatomi people from the Midwest about sugerbush ceremonies, tapped maple trees in River Rouge Park and boiled sap over a fire. The city of Detroit issued the project a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to do as much, according to the project website and ceremony organizers.

Antonio Cosme, Detroit Sugarbush Project organizer, said he also received a burn permit for Friday's bonfire from the fire department.

It was about 8 p.m., after the prayers and before dinner, when the roughly 20 attendees noticed a helicopter overhead. Then, Rosebud Bear-Schneider, a ceremony organizer, said they saw police cars and lights through the trees.

"We thought maybe somebody else might be getting pulled over. We didn't think it was for us. We were doing nothing wrong," Bear-Schneider said.

Cosme said he went to investigate and discovered that seven police cars and over 12 officers had arrived. He said he showed the permits and MOU to the officer in charge.

As Cosme and the officer in charge spoke at the edge of the woods, six officers in tactical gear appeared in the clearing and informed attendees they had two minutes to put out the fire and leave.

A video of this interaction posted to Instagram shows officers standing side-by-side along the edge of the clearing as smoke from the recently extinguished fire billowed between them and the attendees.

"We tried to talk them about the Religious Freedom Act," Bear-Schneider said. "We tried to tell them about our sovereignty. They didn't want to hear anything of it."

One officer can be heard in the video saying, "The sovereign stuff is not valid," insisting that attendees were in violation of city ordinances for entering the park after dark.

However, Bear-Schneider insists they were allowed to stay in the park until 10 p.m., even without the MOU and city permit.

Detroit Code of Ordinances chapter 33 states: "All City parks and public places ... shall be closed to the public from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., unless posted signs designate a different period of closure."

Just as he received the go-ahead from the officer in charge to continue the ceremony, Cosme noticed attendees filing from the woods carrying tables and chairs.

Back in the clearing, Bear-Schneider said the six officers watched the attendees pack up, threatening arrest if they didn't comply, until the situation was defused by the officer in charge.

Bear-Schneider said it was clear this was "a major miscommunication between all of these departments" that should not have happened.

No citations were issued. Instead, the night ended with upset attendees filing a police report with the officer in charge, Cosme said. Bear-Schneider said a second report was filed Saturday morning at the Detroit Police Department's 6th Precinct.

Cosme reaffirmed the group's paperwork is up to snuff and it will continue with the Sugerbush Project as planned.

"They're not stopping us. There's absolutely nothing these settlers could do to stop the cultural revival that's happening among Native peoples all over in this country."

Some of the attendees, including Bear-Schneider, reconvened in Rouge River Park on Saturday morning to reflect on the events of the night before.

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She said maple tapping season is part of a broader food sovereignty movement focusing on the right to Indigenous food systems and ways.

"We have a responsibility to this land and to these trees and to these ways, so we're not going to let any anything like that get in the way of our responsibilities," Bear-Schneider said. "It's a shame that it's 2022 and we still have to fight for our rights and just to exist as Native people."

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to say the group claimed to have valid fire permits, but the Detroit Fire Department said they never completed the application process.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit police break up peaceful Native ceremony