Leonard Peltier is a Native American political prisoner who was convicted for the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975. He was denied a fair trial by the FBI’s withholding of evidence, coercion of witnesses, and manipulation of ballistics. www.freeleonard.org › case
from thefreeonline on 28th July 2024 by FreeLeonardPeltierNow. via Stuart Bramhall (on Telegram: t.me/thefreeonline)
Native American Activist Leonard Peltier Pleads from Prison Amid …
[Source: en.wikipedia.org] By Jeremy Kuzmarov On July 2, Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), a leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s, was denied parole by the U.S. Parole Commission, ensuring that he will most likely die in federal prison.
Suffering from serious health issues as he nears 80, Peltier is serving two consecutive life sentences for killing FBI agents, Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975.
Imprisoned for nearly 50 years, Peltier has maintained his innocence and there are grounds to believe him.[1]
The federal government, for example, withheld a ballistics report at Peltier’s trial indicating the fatal bullets did not come from his weapon, according to court documents Peltier filed on appeal.
One prosecution witness, Michael Anderson, testified during cross-examination that he was threatened by an FBI agent, and said that he agreed to testify in exchange for criminal charges against him in another case being dropped.
More than 30 Arrested in Washington, D.C. at Leonard Peltier …
Another witness, Myrtle Poor Bear, said that she had been coerced into signing a false affidavit implicating Peltier and that her life had been threatened. “They had the law in their hands, and could do anything,” she said of the FBI.
AIM and Pine Ridge
A member of the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa Indians from North Dakota, Peltier had been a leader of AIM, which staged an occupation of the Pine Ridge Reservation in the early 1970s in an effort to reclaim land that had been taken during the 19th century Indian Wars.
The Life Of Leonard Peltier – Powwow Times
Pine Ridge was strategically located at the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, where the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry regiment killed about 300 Lakota Sioux civilians in revenge for the killing of General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Peltier had traveled to Pine Ridge in South Dakota in 1975 to help AIM members defend themselves against the head of the Oglala Sioux tribal council, Richard Wilson, who worked with the FBI and deployed his private militia, Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON), against AIM.
GOON killings went unpunished as the homicide rate on the Pine Ridge Reservation became among the highest in the U.S.
Conflicting Narratives
On June 26, 1975, Coler and Williams were on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to arrest a man, Jimmy Eagle, on a federal warrant for armed robbery in connection with the theft of cowboy boots, according to the FBI’s investigative files.
While they were there, the agents radioed that they had come under fire in a shootout that lasted ten minutes, the FBI said.
Peltier was fingered in part because his gun—an AR-15—matched the one that killed the agents (this evidence was put into dispute), and because he was found by an Oregon state trooper after he had fled with Agent Coler’s handgun in a bag with his fingerprint on it.[2]
In Peltier’s version of events, he was in bed at 11:00 a.m. when he heard gunshots and fellow AIM members told him “Man, we’re being attacked. We’re being attacked.” Peltier then said “Oh, my God.” and grabbed an old rifle and started running up to the house and fired his gun after being fired upon.
The FBI has said the agents were shot without provocation, though AIM said that they triggered the shootout, and killed an Indigenous man, Joe Stuntz, whose death was never investigated.
In the FBI’s version, Peltier was stopped while driving in a red truck because he had an outstanding warrant for the attempted murder of a police officer. Peltier allegedly exited the vehicle along with Norman Charles and Stuntz, and began firing at the FBI agents…….
……After the most recent parole hearing, Sharp commented that “today’s announcement continues the injustice of this long ordeal for Leonard Peltier. This decision is a missed opportunity for the United States to finally recognize the misconduct of the FBI and send a message to Indian Country regarding the impacts of the federal government’s actions and policies of the 1970s.”
Leonard Peltier Case Facts
The Free 