English II 1st
Block
Ms. McKoy
3 September, 2013
Waiting
for the Backfire
Have you ever wondered what it would feel like if you had
to be in prison for something you didn't do?
Well, Leonard Peltier knows this feeling all too well. Mr. Peltier was born in Grand Forks, North
Dakota on September 12th, 1944 to Leo Peltier and Alvina
Robideau. He dropped out of school in
the ninth grade and in 1965 moved to Seattle, Washington where he became
involved in Native American civil rights and joined the American Indian
Movement (AIM). In 1975, Mr. Peltier
arrived at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as a member of AIM to help reduce
the violence.
My
personal experience with this issue is my Nana. She was involved with marches, protest, and
was a Peltier supporter. My Nana died
in February of 2000 and I am interested in why my Nana supported Leonard
Peltier, so I decided to research more about the case. The first time I heard about Leonard Peltier
was from my mom who told me a little about the case. What I know is that Leonard Peltier went to
jail for a crime that he did not commit and the government is still keeping him
imprisoned for (possibly) Robert Robideau’s crime.
The incident occurred on June 26, 1975 on the Pine Ridge
Reservation at the Jumping Bull Compound in South Dakota. Two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald
Williams, thought they spotted Jimmy Eagle, who they had a warrant for his
arrest and had been told that he was at the Jumping Bull Compound. They were told that Jimmy Eagle would be
using a red and white vehicle, so when they spotted one that morning of June 26,
1975 they began to fallow it. The
vehicle lead them straight into the Jumping Bull Compound which was an area on
the Reservation set back from the highway, which consisted of four Indian
residences and a campsite containing a dozen or so members of the American
Indian Movement (AIM). Entering the
Jumping Bull Compound, they were entering a hostile environment due to their
encounter with the compound residence the previous day while trying to serve
the warrant on Jimmy Eagle. For forty
years, the residences of the Pine Ridge Reservation have been harassed and
intimidated by a vigilante group called the GOONs (Guardians of the Oglala
Nation). “The Wounded Knee occupation
of 1973, this marked the beginning of a three-year period of political violence
on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The tribal chairman hired vigilantes, self-titled as “GOONs,” to rid the
reservation of AIM activity and sentiment.
More than 60 traditional tribal members and AIM members were murdered
and score more were assaulted. Evidence
indicated GOON responsibility in the majority of crimes but despite a large FBI
presence, nothing was done to stop the violence. The FBI supplied the GOONs with intelligence
on AIM members and looked away as GOONs committed crimes. One former GOON member reported that the FBI
supplied him with armor piercing ammunition.” (Leonard Peltier Case: Quick
Facts). Between December 6, 1972 and
March 27, 1977, a total of fifty-one months there were fifty-seven deaths on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Out of
the fifty-seven deaths thirty-seven had no investigation; out of thirty-seven
that had no investigation eighteen were killed by GOONs or BIA (Bureau of
Indian Affairs). Out of those
fifty-seven deaths fifty-one were AIM supporters or members four where family
members of AIM supporters or members, two were children and two were adults,
and twenty-three of the fifty-seven were killed by GOONs or BIA.
Many times the news covered many stories of concern, but
the news does not handle some issues in South Dakota. The questions remains; why haven’t the FBI
and CIA taken action on the issues taken place in South Dakota? According to the note on the website
siouxme.com, GOONs are thugs hired by Dickie Wilson, and paid with federal
money, trained by FBI and CIA, so this might be the reason why they have turned
their backs to the issues in South Dakota; they don’t want anything linking
them to the problems. In the article
“The Case of Leonard Peltier; The Set-up” it states that four men were
initially accused of murder in the deaths of agent Williams and Coler. One of the men was supposedly Jimmy Eagle
who they claimed they were coming to the camp to arrest for the alleged theft
of a pair of used cowboy boots; all charges against him were dropped. The other two men, Robert Eugene Robideau
and Darrelle Dean Butler, were acquitted before a jury, they were found not
guilty by reason of self-defense the jury rightly concluded that the men had no
way of knowing that the two FBI agents who were dressed in plain clothes and
driving unmarked cars, were federal agents.
When the gunfire started, these men who were already used to the reign
of terror that was going on; having already lost at least 50 of their friends
and relatives and their deaths remain uninvestigated to this day, returned fire
as anyone would. Many Native Americans,
not only Leonard Peltier, face the horror of loss; one of these losses was
Edith Eagle Hawk (and her two children) who were killed in an automobile
accident after being run off the road by a white vigilante, Albert Coomes who
was also killed in in the accident; GOON Mark Clifford identified as having
also been in Coomes car, escaped and the investigation was closed without
questioning Clifford. This is just one
out of a total of sixty people who died and only one was used to frame an AIM
leader Richard Marshall and Russell Means also charged an acquitted.
In the article, “The RESMURS Case: The Investigation of
the Murders of FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams,” the bottom of page
eight states that Robideau’s fingerprints was found on the inside door handle
of Williams’ car. In another article,
“Leonard Peltier Case Chronology,” the last date states February 17, 2009
Robert Robideau passes away at his home in Barcelona, Spain. The finger prints obviously meant that he
was the only one that could have been close range to shoot FBI agents Williams
and Coler, but he was found not guilty in a trial by jury. Since the FBI needed to have someone go to
jail they decided to make all of the evidence point to Leonard Peltier, but the
evidence against him was false such as the affidavits signed by Myrtle Poor
Bear who said she was Leonard Peltier’s girlfriend and allegedly saw him shoot
the agents, but the fact was that Myrtle Poor Bear had never met Leonard
Peltier and was not present at the shoot-out.
Soon after she recanted her statements and said that the FBI threatened
her and coerced her into signing the affidavits.
Leonard
Peltier suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, a heart condition and
prostate cancer, and time is running out for justice. Leonard Peltier is serving someone else’s
time. Since Robert Robideau has passed
away that would mean the end of his sentence if he served his own time. Since Leonard Peltier is serving Robert’s
time shouldn't that mean that Leonard’s time is up as well, shouldn't he be set
free? Well, let’s leave that up to the
people to decide whether or not he gets set free or he stays in prison and
serves the rest of Robert’s time.
Leonard will turn 69 on September 12th, so you tell me should
he wait longer for freedom or should he just have his freedom?
Works Cited
Burnett Ann, Meister Mark. EBSCO HOST. 21 April 2005. September 2013 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=16794962&site=ehost-live>.
Federal Bureau of Investigations. n.d. September 2013 <http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/about-us/history-1/the-resmurs-case>.
Federal Bureau of Investigations. May 2000. September 2013 <http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/about-us/history-1/copy_of_report-for-pine-ridge-indian-reservation-south-dakota>.
Free Leonard Peltier. 25 January 2013. September 2013 <http://www.freeleonard.org/case/index.html>.
Murderpedia. 7 February 2009. September 2013 <http://www.murderpedia.org/male.P/p/Peltier-leonard-chronology.htm>.
Wicks, Mike. Amerivan Indian Cultural Support. 2005. September 2013 <http://www.aics.org/LP/index.html>.
Wikipedia. September 2013. September 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peltier>.
