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Published
on Sunday, January 7, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times
Leonard Peltier:
Put a Close to This Sad Chapter
by Kevin McKiernan
SANTA BARBARA -- I don't know which American Indian killed FBI agents Jack Coler
and Ronald Williams in a notorious South Dakota shoot-out 25 years ago. Nor do
I know the identity of the federal lawman who shot and killed Joe Stuntz, the
American Indian Movement (AIM) member, whose body I photographed afterward. But
I was there on June 25, 1975, outside the Jumping Bull ranch on the Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation, when some of the bullets were flying. A stray round hit my
pickup, and my memory is still fresh of crouching low behind the truck with my
portable tape deck, recording the exchange of gunfire for a National Public Radio
broadcast.
The government has never produced an eyewitness in the deaths of the agents,
and prosecutors admit they still don't know who actually killed Coler and Williams.
But AIM leader Leonard Peltier, one of the estimated two dozen Indians present
on the 40-acre reservation that day, has admitted that he participated in the
firefight. A U.S. appellate court upheld his murder conviction as an aider and
abettor, but the court chastised the FBI for its use of "fabricated" evidence
in securing Peltier's extradition from Canada and for withholding from the jury
an exculpatory ballistics test conducted on a rifle attributed to Peltier.
Amnesty International maintains that Peltier, who is 56 and has been in jail
for the last 25 years, did not get a fair trial. Now, in the waning days of the
Clinton administration, the organization is one of several groups petitioning
the president to commute Peltier's sentence.
Two other AIM members were acquitted in the case, on grounds of self-defense,
despite testimony that they had fired in the direction of the agents. The jury
also heard evidence about COINTELPRO, the FBI's counterinsurgency program used
against AIM, and a representative of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission testified
to the "climate of fear" on the reservation before the 1975 shootings.
Other testimony challenged FBI assertions of neutrality in the tribal civil war
that followed AIM's takeover of the historic reservation village of Wounded Knee
two years earlier. Two Indians were shot to death at Wounded Knee; a dozen Indians
and two lawmen also received gunshot injuries during the 10-week takeover.
There have long been allegations that the FBI chose sides in the internecineconflict
that took place from 1973-75 be tween AIM-led traditionalists and a vigilante
group of mostly mixed bloods who called themselves the GOONs (Guardians of the
Oglala Nation). But testimony concerning FBI activities on the reservation before
the 1975 killings was excluded by the judge in the case of Peltier, who was tried
separately from the other two defendants.
In fact, the climate of fear back then was all too real, and it matched anything
I have experienced reporting from war zones like El Salvador and the Middle East.
In those days, the reservation seemed like the Wild West, and almost everyone
was armed. I once was threatened with guns in my face when I tried to film a
GOON squad roadblock; another time I was slammed up against a wall by GOONs,
who tended to perceive the entire press corps as AIM sympathizers. The brakes
on my car were cut, and, on one occasion, a high-powered rifle blew a hole in
an automobile in which I was riding. My experiences pale by comparison to the
beatings, fire-bombings and drive-by shootings were common during the period;
at least 25 murders of Indians still remain unsolved. Former South Dakota state
Sen. James Abourzek said that the near-lawless atmosphere on the reservation
approached "total anarchy."
District U.S. Judge Fred Nichol, who tried many of the Wounded Knee cases, once
told me in a filmed interview that "The FBI and the GOON squad worked pretty
much together . . . because they were against AIM." In a 1984 televised
interview, which I conducted for PBS's "Frontline," a leader of the
GOON squad claimed that FBI agents provided his group with intelligence on AIM
and, in one instance, "armor piercing" bullets for use against AIM
members who, like the GOONs, were heavily armed at the time.
A few years ago, Gerald W. Heaney, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals that
upheld Peltier's conviction, petitioned the White House to commute Peltier's
sentence. Heaney stated in a letter that the FBI shared the blame for the two
agents and one Indian killed in the South Dakota shoot-out. He said that the
government "overreacted" to the 1973 occupation at Wounded Knee. Instead
of "carefully considering the legitimate grievances of Native Americans," he
said, "the response was essentially a military one that culminated in a
deadly firefight on June 26, 1975.
Before he leaves office, President Bill Clinton can provide closure to a difficult
and divisive period in Indian history. As Heaney wrote in his clemency plea, "At
some time, the healing process must begin. We as a nation must recognize their
unique culture and their great contribution to our nation."
- - -
Kevin McKiernan covered the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for National Public
Radio from 1973-1976. He was the Co-producer of the PBS "Frontline" Program "The
Spirit of Crazy Horse."
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