Brycee John Red Owl, a 19-year-old Native American man, died on June 27, 2018, in Kyle, South Dakota, after a late-night confrontation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation turned into gunfire.
Accounts tied to the federal prosecution described an argument escalating into a clash between groups, with Palani Bull Bear accused of drawing a firearm and firing two shots that struck and killed Red Owl.
In the same burst of violence, Bull Bear was also accused of firing at Colin Gregg, hitting the horse Gregg was riding. By the next morning, tribal officers located Bull Bear at the Sundance grounds east of Kyle and arrested him.
A federal grand jury later indicted Bull Bear on multiple counts, including second-degree murder, discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, and assault-related charges connected to the shooting. After initially contesting the case in court, he ultimately entered a guilty plea to reduced charges of voluntary manslaughter and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence; the record of the later proceedings also reflects a bank robbery conviction that became part of the same federal sentencing picture.
The sentence that followed was severe: 120 months for voluntary manslaughter, plus a mandatory consecutive 120 months for the firearm discharge count, for a total of 240 months in federal prison, with an additional concurrent term on the bank-robbery count. Bull Bear appealed, arguing errors in how the sentence was imposed and challenging the sentence as unreasonable, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the judgment in a decision filed January 26, 2022.
