Myron Dewey (49), founder of Digital Smoke Signals, a media production company that shared live frontline footage during the 2016 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, died in a car crash on September 26 in Yomba, Nevada.
According to Native News Online, "His drone footage of the DAPL protests garnered recognition for the cause and elevated his status as a journalist covering environmental and Indigenous issues...
Indian Country Today noted, " Dewey's lifelong partner Deborah Parker said Dewey died in a head-on collision. As first responders were using the Jaws of Life to extract Dewey from a vehicle, Parker says she was able to share the last loving thoughts with him before he died during a call on her cell phone...Parker shared other deep and heartfelt thoughts about her life partner, a man she said was a warrior that continued to fight for his people. "His every breath was a fight for his people," she said.
The LA Times reported that Dewey "had posted footage on Twitter a day earlier from a central Nevada military installation where he and other members of local tribes have long protested the proposed expansion of a U.S. Navy bombing range."
A citizen of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, Myron is survived by his wife, Deborah, and five children; the youngest is 11.
Brenda Norrell reports that the Nye Country Sheriff's accident report states that John David Walsh of Reno had pulled his vehicle into the oncoming lane, causing the collision. Walsh was airlifted to Renown Medical in Reno where he was interviewed by Nevada Highway Patrol.
Dewey posted his last video on YouTube just hours before his death.
At the end of this video, he notes that he is on his way to take additional videos for his grandchildren, however, there seems to be no information regarding whether there was any additional footage on his camera.
Dewey's drone footage of the DAPL protests garnered recognition for the cause and elevated his status as a journalist covering environmental and Indigenous issues. In 2017 he was a New York Drone Festival winner with this video:
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Dewey's funeral expenses.
I met Myron when OpedNews editor-in-chief Rob Kall, Senior Editor Marta Steele and I attended Marianne Williamson's Sister Giant Conference in Washington DC in 2017. I got Myron's business card and we planned to do an article some day, I'm sorry that it had to be this one.
[ Update:This article originally stated, "Information about the other vehicle involved in the head-on collision or its occupants does not seem to be readily available." New information from the Nye Country Sheriff's report has been added.]
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