Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

       For a quarter of a century Leonard Peltier has been imprisoned for a crime millions of people are convinced he did not commit.

       In June, 1975 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Ronald Williams, then 27, and Jack Coler, 28 and the father of two children, were assigned to the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation in South Dakota as part of the federal government's attempt to restore peace on a territory which had become a virtual war zone.

       Dozens of Native people were murdered as a tribal council actively supported by the Bureau of Indian Affairs initiated a campaign of terror against those Lakotas who favored a return to traditional government and their American Indian Movement supporters.

       The FBI had the formidable task of investigating the killings but was perceived with mistrust and hostility by Native rights activists who believed the agency was less a law enforcement entity than one which was being used to silence opponents of Washington's federal Indian policies.

       At that time there were many groups targeted by the FBI as threats to national security with the American Indian Movement pegged along with the Black Panthers and Weather Underground as warranting infiltration, investigation and vigorous prosecution.

       Native people were then, as they are now, living in conditions of severe poverty. The meager funds directed their way did little to relieve deplorable social conditions marked by substance abuse, high suicide rates, ill health and violence.

       At Pine Ridge the community was under the grip of Richard Wilson, a particularly brutal tribal chairman who used federal funds to create a band of thugs he called "Guardians of the Oglala Nation" or "goons" by the rest of the community. Wilson had zeroed in on AIM as the serious threat to his authority; he directed a campaign of fear, intimidation and brutality to drive them from Pine Ridge by any means, including the killing of AIM supporters.

       Leonard Peltier was an AIM organizer from the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota called to Pine Ridge in the spring of 1975 to assist the opponents of the Wilson regime. He joined a group of Native men and women to establish an AIM camp on property owned by the Jumping Bull family.

       Peltier realized he was risking his life by going to Pine Ridge but felt compelled to take a stand against Wilson while supporting the traditional Lakota leadership. He knew, as did his compatriots, there was a strong possibility they would have to use firearms to ward off the attacks of the goons whom they believed had little to fear from the FBI.

       As the number of murders increased in the spring of 1975 the traditional Lakotas and their AIM allies came to suspect all law enforcement agencies, particularly the FBI.

       On June 26, 1975 agents Williams and Coler drove up to the Jumping Bull property in separate cars to arrest a young Lakota man for allegedly stealing a pair of cowboy boots. The question of who shot first has not been resolved but the FBI agents were soon taking, and returning, gunfire with the men at the AIM camp. Other police officers were in the area but before they could respond to the agents' appeals for help the wounded Willams and Coler were executed at close range.

       Peltier and the other AIM members were able to escape an encircling effort by the BIA police, Wilson's goons and other FBI agents by fleeing overland only to be the subject of a massive manhunt over the next few weeks. Peltier was charged with the killings but managed to flee to Canada where he was arrested and extradited on the testimony of a Lakota woman who later admitted her statements were coerced, and largely fabricated, by the FBI.

       Two other men, Darrelle Dean (Deano) Butler and Robert (Bob) Robideau were also charged with the Williams-Coler killings but found not guilty after a lengthy trial. Peltier was tried separately, convicted and sentenced to two life sentences.

       The question for the past 25 years has been the alleged manipulation of evidence by the FBI and its use of questionable tactics to extract testimony from "witnesses". There has never been a first hand account of the actual shooting, nor has the FBI been able to place the weapon used to execute Williams and Coler in Peltier's hands at the scene of the murders.

       The result has been a worldwide call for President Clinton to free Leonard Peltier, a man believed by human rights organizations to be a political prisoner. The response to the call for Peltier's release has been organized protests by the FBI which insists Peltier is the killer.

       Yet there is no call by the Bureau for an investigation into the estimated 100 murders which took place at Pine Ridge during that same tragic era, killings the FBI had an legal obligation to probe.

       It is this racially based inequity which cries out for justice which can be partially served by granting Leonard Peltier executive clemency.