A six-year-old boy died on May 5, 2022, at his grandparents’ home north of the town of Pine Ridge. Logan Brent Warrior-Goings was killed by a bullet shot from outside into the house. Investigators have not yet found the shooter. Logan’s maternal grandmother spoke at an anti-gun violence rally this weekend in Rapid City.
Holly Wilson said she had just cooked a steak dinner and was ready to sit down to eat with her family that included six-year-old Logan. She said the dogs didn’t bark, and no one heard a vehicle coming up their road. But the family heard what they first thought were fireworks.
“And then my son says ‘Hit the floor, everybody. It’s gunfire.’ And Logan tried,” Wilson said. “He was sitting down by his cousins on the sofa, and he tried to duck down and get on the floor, and a bullet got him in the head, and he died instantly.”
When she heard the news on May 24 that 19 schoolchildren were shot to death in Uvalde, Texas, Wilson said she cried for days, knowing other families felt the same anguish as she did.
“Logan was six; he was kindergarten. He just learned his ABC’s. He loved school,” she said. “And I thought about them families, and I prayed for them. I just couldn’t get them and I still can’t get them out of my mind.”
Wilson said her rural home seemed safe, where grandchildren ride horses, play baseball, and jump on the trampoline. But she’s learned that’s not the case.
“Nobody’s safe. Nobody is safe anywhere in the United States. Nobody’s safe,” she said.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe has its own government and laws, and Wilson said Logan’s death is inspiring a push for tighter gun laws.
“Several people are organizing the meetings with the tribal council, and they’re looking at developing a law, a new gun law, for the reservation,” she said. “And they want it to be named ‘Logan’s Law.’”
Logan Goings’s obituary names a dozen grandparents, 22 aunts and uncles, and a long list of cousins. He was buried in the Wilson Family Cemetery eight miles north of Pine Ridge, near where he died.
