Justin Little Hawk, a 40-year-old Native American man, was shot in Pine Ridge, South Dakota on November 22, 2020, in an episode that left his family grasping for answers as the winter set in. Accounts of what led up to the gunfire have varied: some reports described a dispute that flared at the North Ridge Housing complex on the outskirts of the reservation, while other later reporting—told through relatives—described a sudden ambush while Little Hawk was driving two teenage family members,
with the shooter getting into the vehicle and firing as the kids fled. What remained consistent was the aftermath: Little Hawk was grievously wounded, taken for higher-level care out of state, and died the following month at a hospital in Colorado.
Investigators soon focused on Phillip Pond of Rapid City. Federal prosecutors said a grand jury indicted Pond on charges that included second-degree murder and a firearm offense tied to a crime of violence, and the U.S. Attorney's Office publicly emphasized that the allegations stemmed from a killing in Pine Ridge on November 22, 2020. Pond appeared in federal court in early March 2021 and entered a not-guilty plea, with the government noting that the FBI and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Public Safety were involved in the investigation. Reporting around the case also said Pond had turned himself in at a police station in Chadron, Nebraska, before being brought back to South Dakota to face proceedings.
As the case moved forward, the courtroom narrative grew more complicated. A later AP report from mid-2021 said prosecutors ultimately dropped the murder charge and pursued gun-related counts instead, and that Pond represented himself at a short trial that ended with a jury acquitting him of the firearm crimes on May 27, 2021. The same report noted Pond's argument that witnesses who implicated him were lying, and described him leaving court a free man after the verdict. That outcome meant that, despite an arrest and federal indictment tied to Little Hawk's death, the most serious accusation did not result in a conviction.
