Leonard Peltier - Serving Two

Leonard Peltier - Serving Two Life Terms for a Crime Not Committed?

Did Leonard Peltier kill two FBI agents on June 25, 1975, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation? That is an issue that has not been thoroughly resolved, from the point-of-view of Peltier supporters, who believe that Peltier is a political prisoner and is being held on false charges. But from the point-of-view of the U.S. Government, Peltier is guilty of the murders, and he is presently serving two life terms in the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas for the alleged crimes. This paper will examine the situation which existed in and near the Pine Ridge Reservation prior to the events of June 25, 1975, the reasons for the stand-off between the Native Americans and the federal government, the results of that conflict; and also, the world Peltier exists in now will be covered, as well as his thoughts about his ongoing incarceration.

Who is Leonard Peltier? What kind of life did he lead prior to his incarceration?

Leonard Peltier is a 58-year-old member of the Anishinabe and Lakota Indian Nations. He was born on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, home to the Anishinabe (Chippewa) Indians. According to a 2003 brochure published by the LEONARD PELTIER DEFENSE COMMITTEE (LPDC), Post Office Box 583, Lawrence Kansas, Peltier was one of 14 children in a family that struggled through a life of deep poverty. When he was eight, he was "taken from his family and sent to a residential boarding school" (LPDC, p. 1) where the U.S. Government forbade Peltier - and the other young Indians - to speak the native language, insisting on English only.

As a teenager, Peltier returned to Turtle Mountain Reservation to live with his father. At that time, Turtle Mountain Reservation was one of the three reservations, which, under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), was a "testing ground," according to page one of the LPDC brochure, for the BIA's "termination policy." This policy was designed, LPDC claims, to "force Native families off their reservations and into the cities"; basically the "termination policy" meant the government was ending its federal food and heating assistance to Native peoples on three reservations - including Turtle Mountain. As a response to this policy, many Indians demonstrated against the BIA, and it was at this time that Peltier came into contact with resistance and protest from the Indian point-of-view.

During one very harsh winter, Turtle Mountain Indians made public their protest over the lack of food on the reservation, and as a result, a BIA social worker was sent to investigate. Peltier, the LPDC publication explains on page two, went from door to door throughout the reservation, to tell the Indians to hide their remaining food supplies, so the social worker would be moved to action by the dramatic shortages. However, Peltier quickly discovered there was not much food to hide in the first place - and that experience "awakened him to the desperate situation for all people on his reservation" (LPDC p. 2).

As he grew older, Peltier traveled with his father working as a migrant farm laborer, and in 1965, he moved to Seattle and operated an auto body repair shop, where he hired and trained Native Americans to work for him and learn skills. He also became involved in a Native American halfway house for ex-convicts, and he participated in public protests relating to the Indians' claim to various Native Lands in Seattle. Later Peltier worked as a welder in Wisconsin, and then became involved in the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Colorado. This association apparently radicalized Peltier to the point that he participated in the occupation (by Indians) of the BIA building in Washington, D.C.

His work with AIM brought him back to South Dakota, to help the Oglala Lakota People of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the 1970s. His efforts with social change groups within the reservation included planning of community activities, programs for improvement of living conditions for Indians, and he assisted in the security of Native peoples who had been "targeted for violence by the pro-assimilation tribal chairman and his vigilantes" (LPDC, p. 2).

What happened that day at Pine Ridge?

The firefight between militant Indians and the FBI (and other agents of the federal government) actually took place at Jumping Bull ranch, a parcel within the confines of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The origins of the firefight that day can be easily traced to the 72-day occupation of the Wounded Knee Indian Reservation in 1973. The two "ring leaders" of Wounded Knee - Dennis Banks and Russell Means - had been brought to trial on federal charges, but the judge had dismissed the case, saying "the waters of justice have been polluted." And in the aftermath of that failed trial, tension had built up between the FBI and militant Indians now stationed at Pine Ridge. A massive build-up of armed forces from various government agencies began in May, 1975.

And when the shooting began, on June 26, 1975, one journalist who was there observing the event was Kevin McKiernan, who was on assignment with National Public Radio's "All things Considered" at that time. Writing in the Los Angeles Times (McKiernan, 2001), the journalist remembered that "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 NPR." Prosecutors have admitted, McKiernan states, that "they still don't know who actually killed [the two FBI agents]. McKiernan goes on to report that though Peltier's murder conviction was upheld by a U.S. appellate court - as "an aider and abettor" but not necessarily a murderer - that same court "chastised the FBI" for using "fabricated evidence" to obtain Peltier's extradition from Canada, and for withholding from the jury an "exculpatory ballistics test conducted on a rifle" linked to Peltier.

On the subject of the withholding of that ballistics test, in his book, Blood of the Land (Chapter 6), author Rex Weyler excerpts an affidavit from the County of Santa Fe, in New Mexico, concerning the research conducted by private investigator Eda Gordon. Gordon states (Gordon, 2000, p. 1) that subsequent to Peltier's conviction, an FBI report was obtained through the "Freedom of Information" act, which "documented, contrary to FBI testimony at trial, that a ballistics test conducted by the FBI showed that a shell casing found at the scene was incompatible with a weapon attributed to Leonard Peltier." That ballistics test - in the form of a teletype - states that "recovered.223 caliber Colt Rifle...contains different firing pin than that in rifle used..." At the scene of the bloodshed.

Further, subsequent to Peltier's conviction, Gordon obtained copies of radio transmissions - also through the Freedom of Information Act - which indicated that the FBI was actually chasing a red and white pickup truck into Jumping Bull, not the red and white van that the FBI had said in the trial it was chasing. Peltier was known to drive a red and white van. And Gordon's affidavit also shows that the private investigator interviewed to men who had testified at the trial against Peltier. The two, who were boys at the time, admitted to Gordon "that they were intimidated by the FBI into testifying against Peltier and told in front of their mothers that they could spend the rest of their lives in prison if they did not testify to implicate Peltier in the killing of the agents."

Ms. Gordon was in Pine Ridge as part of the process of interviewing jurors from the Peltier trial, to see if they would have produced a "guilty" verdict knowing that the FBI lied about the ballistics test on Peltier's rifle. "Of the three jurors who agreed to an interview," she stated in the affidavit reprinted in Blood of the Land (Weyler, 1984), two said that the ballistics test and the discrepancy between the red and white van, and red pickup, would have changed their verdicts to "not guilty."

What is Leonard Peltier's life like at Leavenworth?

The walls at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, are 40 feet high and extend 40 feet underground - to prevent inmates' escape by jumping over or digging under the facility.

There are 1,721 federal prisoners in this maximum security facility; its rated capacity is 1,197, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The prison, founded in 1896, consists of 22.8 acres inside the walls.

Leonard Peltier has been in Leavenworth since he was 31 years old, some twenty-seven years ago. In his book, Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance (Peltier, 1998), on pages 16-21 (in the chapter, "Aboriginal Sin"), he discusses his life as a federal prisoner - "for a crime I didn't commit" - at Leavenworth:

I've been told I have to live out two lifetime sentences plus seven years before I get out of prison in the year Two Thousand and Forty One. By then I'll be ninety-seven. I don't think I'll make it. My life is an extended agony. I feel like I've lived a hundred lifetimes in prison already. But I'm prepared to live thousands more on behalf of my people. If my imprisonment does nothing than educate an unknowing and uncaring public about the terrible conditions Indian people continue to endure, then my suffering has had - and continues to have - a purpose.

Peltier, who was sentenced to the two concurrent life terms in 1977, has produced some critically acclaimed oil paintings while at Leavenworth, according to an article in the journal the Progressive (July, 2001). "Painting is a way to examine the world in ways denied to me by the United States Justice system, a way to travel beyond the walls and bars of the penitentiary," Peltier is quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, on page 17 of his book, Peltier share some of his Indian philosophy of life, and also, he insists that he is not guilty of the crimes he was sent to prison for:

Speaking out is my first duty, my first obligation to myself and to my people. To speak your mind and heart is Indian Way. In Indian Way, the political and the spiritual are one and the same.