In 1975, Two FBI Special Agents Ronald Arthur Williams and Jack Ross Coler were murdered on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, after a shootout with unknown suspects.
The federal government theorized, agents Williams and Coler were on the reservation in separate unmarked vehicles searching for Jimmy Eagle, a person of interest in the assault of two local ranch hands and theft of a pair of cowboy boots.
Later that day, authorities found Williams’s vehicle stripped of its parts on the Jumping Bull Ranch, where the Jumping Bull family had allowed members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) to camp.
The authorities indicated three men, out of the numerous men at the Jumping Bull Ranch. These three men were Peltier, Robert Robideau, and Darrelle “Dino” Butler. A jury acquitted Robideau and Dino in separate trials, but found Peltier guilty, who at the time of the incident had an outstanding warrant for attempted murder on a Milwaukee police officer, and had fled to Canada after the indictment.
At the time of Peltier’s trial, two other men who were charged with these murders were acquitted by juries. The incentive for the federal government to convict someone, must have been intense.
In the 2021, Peltier Clemency brief, under the heading, “The FBI’s Reign of Terror,” attributed the following quote to former South Dakota prosecutor William Janklow, “The only way to deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota is to put a gun to the AIM leaders’ heads and pull the trigger.” This same document cited the on the record statement by Judge Gerald Heaney, former Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals who presided over Leonard Peltier’s appeal, “The United States Government must share the responsibility with the Native Americans for the June 26, 1975 firefight.”
In a January 3, 2017, letter to President Barack Obama writes former FBI Special Agent John C. Ryan, “Leonard Peltier was not treated fairly and did not get a fair trial.”
“It is clear that the FBI has conducted their activities on the Pine Ridge Reservation in such a manner as to leave the Bureau with little or no credibility as either a law-enforcement or investigatory agency with the people whom they are there to serve, states former United States Senator of South Dakota James Abourezk, in the Miramax documentary film, INCIDENT AT OGLALA.
1970s Hyper Hostilities on South Dakota, Lakota Tribal Lands from Internal and External Forces
Many Americans remain unaware of the FBI’s aggressive campaigns against Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In 1890, the United States Army perpetrated the Wounded Knee Massacre, regarded as the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Nearly 300 Lakota people were killed near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. This massacre, part of what the U.S. military termed the Pine Ridge Campaign, stands as a stark reminder of the violence inflicted upon Native American communities.
In 1973, the Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as the Second Wounded Knee, unfolded when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota people and American Indian Movement (AIM) supporters took control of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation. This protest was sparked by the failure of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to impeach tribal president Richard Wilson, who faced allegations of corruption and abuses of power. For 71 days, AIM and the Oglala activists maintained control of the town, while federal authorities, including the FBI and U.S. Marshals, established a blockade around the area. The protesters selected the site of the 1890 massacre for its deep historical and symbolic significance.
The 71-day standoff was marked by gunfire, resulting in fatalities on both sides. AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means were later charged for their involvement, but their case was dismissed in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct, a decision later upheld by an appellate court.
In the three years following the occupation, violence escalated dramatically on the Pine Ridge Reservation as political divisions deepened. Many residents attributed much of the unrest to Wilson’s private militia, the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs). AIM reported that during this period, 64 murders of tribal government opponents went unsolved, leaving a legacy of unresolved trauma and conflict.
Who Was Leonard Peltier?
The history of the U.S. government’s dealings with Native Americans is a chronicle of relentless betrayal, marked by broken treaties, the seizure and desecration of sacred lands, the erasure of Indigenous cultures, and violent oppression. Leonard Peltier’s life exemplifies the enduring scars of this tragic legacy.
Born on September 12, 1944, Leonard Peltier grew up on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, home to the Turtle Mountain Chippewa, near Belcourt, North Dakota. He was one of 13 children in a family struggling to survive in harsh economic conditions. Although Native American men, including Leonard’s father, contributed significantly to the U.S. war effort during World War II—nearly a third enlisted—these sacrifices yielded little improvement for Indigenous communities. Leonard’s family relied heavily on his father’s Army pension, which was insufficient to support their family of 15.
Primarily raised by his grandparents, Leonard’s early years were filled with love and cultural tradition. However, when Leonard was just nine years old, his grandfather passed away, and his grandmother, who spoke no English, sought financial aid from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Instead of assistance, the BIA forcibly removed Leonard from his family, declaring that he would be sent to an Indian boarding school far from home. Neither Leonard nor his grandmother had any say in this matter. In what can only be described as a government-sanctioned abduction, Leonard was taken from his grandmother’s arms despite her desperate protests.
He was sent to the Wahpeton Indian School in southeastern North Dakota, one of many federally operated boarding schools established to assimilate Native children into Western culture. These institutions, inspired by Civil War Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt, were designed to strip away Indigenous identities. Pratt’s infamous motto for such schools, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” underscored their mission. At Wahpeton, Native traditions were systematically suppressed, leaving lasting scars on the children forced to attend. Leonard’s time at the school was emblematic of a broader effort to erase Indigenous culture through forced assimilation.
The Democratic Brand
Since the time of FDR, the Democratic Party has been known as the party for the little people. It’s brand was it advocated for social justice, civil rights, economic opportunity, healthcare access, support for the underprivileged, environmental protection, and government as a force for good. In 2024, the Democratic Party lost the presidential election, sending shockwaves throughout the party that had never occurred before. Unlike any previous presidential election where the Republicans won, post FDR, this time, the Democrats’s core constituency either voted Republican or voted for the couch. This was a shock to the Democratic Party electoral system.
Democrats absolutely know why this had occurred; they abandoned their core constituents. However, favorable news coverage of their candidate and celebrity endorsements lead to a confidence they had this election in the bag. Voters of both parties want their elected officials to bring tangibles. They want deliverables.
The pardoning of Peltier can be a start for Democrats to send a message to their own constituents their back on code as a party of representing the core constituents; otherwise what was the purpose of President Biden’s October 2024 visit and speech in Arizona to Native American tribes and others gathered at the Gila Crossing Community School at the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix?
Just a week before the election, President Biden formally apologized for the federal government’s Native American boarding schools, calling it a “horrific era” in the nation’s history.
The dirty little secret that Democratic Party elites aren’t aware of, their core constituents want nothing to do with symbolic gestures. The era of symbolic gestures as a means of inspiring a voting block to get out and vote is over! They want tangibles.
What’s the purpose of the leader of the Democratic Party decrying forced Native American boarding schools, when such a victim of those deplorable boarding school policies is asking for a pardon or commutation of sentence? It’s this tone deafness that has gotten Democrats in the political turmoil they find themselves in today.
Why Parole Elder Abuse Concerns Everyone (P.E.A.C.E.) is Campaigning on behalf of Peltier for Commutation
Parole Elder Abuse Concerns Everyone (P.E.A.C.E.), was founded to bring awareness to out of control parole boards who are illegally manufacturing death sentences by slow walking non-death penalty and non-life without the possibility of parole sentences to their death through repeated parole denials.
In June, after a previous 15 year parole denial, a parole hearing was held for Peltier, the hearing was not open to the public. According to Charles Weisselberg, a Berkeley Law professor who has written about the “dysfunction” of the federal parole commission, “The Parole Commission typically has five members, but it has had only two since about 2018,” Weisselberg tells NBC news. Human Rights Attorney Jenipher Jones, Esq., Lead Counsel for Leonard Peltier said in a statement, “Leonard will not be eligible for another full consideration of parole until he is 94-years-old.” In other words, another 15 year parole denial.
The federal parole authority does not have any legal authority to condemn Peltier to death, only legislators, the courts, or jury. Neither of these criminal justice system actors sentenced Leonard Peltier to death, nor life Without the Possibility of Parole; yet the federal parole board is metting out a death sentence that is unauthorized by law!
The way they have treated Leonard is the way they have treated Indigenous people historically throughout this country,” said Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of the NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy group. “That is why Indigenous people and oppressed people everywhere see a little bit of ourselves in Leonard Peltier.”
Government officials, be it state or federal, cannot use parole boards as quasi-executioners. The phrase, “I am your retribution,” that has been battered about of late, has been going on for decades by out of control parole boards.
A commutation will allow President Biden to put his teeth behind his disdain regarding the board school forced separations. It appeases Christopher Wray, and the rest of the FBI, including the surviving family members of agents that want the status quo of accountability. Finally, it further prevents the delegitimacy of the government. Say what you will, our laws did not authorize this case to become a death penalty. Now through an extra judicial proceeding called a parole board, they are metting out a sentence of death that was not authorized by the other two branches of government, the legislators and judiciary.
President Biden, whose party’s 90-year-old political Brand has been, “Government as a force for good,” can stop the unauthorized executive branch’s death sentence of Leonard Peltier. The July 2, 2024, federal parole board’s 15 year denial of full parole consideration of Leonard Peltier until he turns 94, is clear as day. The federal government is going to carry out a quasi-execution of Leonard Peltier through slow walking him to death through repeated parole denials. So the question for Democrats is “What do you stand for?”
Call to Action
Urge President Biden to act now! Demand justice. Demand the commutation of Leonard Peltier’s sentence before it’s too late. Contact your representatives, write to the White House, and urge President Biden to take decisive action. Let him know that a government that stands idly by as an elderly man is condemned to die in prison—without legal authorization—is a government that betrays its promise to its people.
Together, we can ensure that Leonard Peltier’s name becomes a testament to accountability and justice, not another chapter in a long history of broken promises. It’s time to stand up, speak out, and demand that Leonard Peltier’s sentence is commuted—before it’s too late.
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