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Codename Section
01-29-2014, 04:56 PM
I have a grandmother who lives on a reservation. Some of you know this, others don't.

In The Spirit of Crazy Horse was one of the first non-fiction, super-long books I ever read and since then I got real turned on to trying to educate people about what really happened. No website details it all. I say read the book.

Here are some quick facts:

http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/violations.htm

http://www.freeleonard.org/case/

QUICK FACTS
CASE OF LEONARD PELTIER
http://www.freeleonard.org/images/leonard_bw.jpg

Leonard Peltier is an imprisoned Native American considered by Amnesty International, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rev. Jesse Jackson, among many others, to be a political prisoner who should be immediately released.


Leonard Peltier was convicted for the deaths of two FBI agents who died during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Mr. Peltier has been in prison for over 29 years.


The Wounded Knee occupation of 1973 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 American Indian Movement (AIM) activity and sentiment. More than 60 traditional tribal members and AIM members were murdered and scores 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 was an AIM leader and was asked by traditional people at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to support and protect the traditional people being targeted for violence. Mr. Peltier and a small group of young AIM members set up camp on a ranch owned by the traditional Jumping Bull family.


On June 26, 1975 two FBI agents in unmarked cars followed a pick-up truck onto the Jumping Bull ranch. The families immediately became alarmed and feared an attack. Shots were heard and a shoot-out erupted. More than 150 agents, GOONS, and law enforcement surrounded the ranch.


When the shoot-out ended the two FBI agents and one Native American lay dead. The agents were injured in the shoot-out and were then shot at close range. The Native American, Joseph Stuntz, was shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet. Mr. Stuntz’s death has never been investigated, nor has anyone ever been charged in connection with his death.


According to FBI documents, more than 40 Native Americans participated in the gunfight, but only AIM members Bob Robideau, Darrell Butler, and Leonard Peltier were brought to trial.


Mr. Robideau and Mr. Butler were arrested first and went to trial. A federal jury in Iowa acquitted them on grounds of self-defense, finding that their participation in the shoot-out was justified given the climate of fear that existed on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Further, they could not be tied to the close-range shootings.


Leonard Peltier was arrested in Canada on February 6, 1976, along with Frank Blackhorse, a.k.a. Frank Deluca. The United States presented the Canadian court with affidavits signed by Myrtle Poor Bear who said she was Mr. Peltier’s girlfriend and allegedly saw him shoot the agents. In fact, Ms. Poor Bear had never met Mr. Peltier and was not present during the shoot-out. Soon after, Ms. Poor Bear recanted her statements and said the FBI threatened her and coerced her into signing the affidavits.


Mr. Peltier was extradited to the United States where he was tried in 1977. The trial was held in North Dakota before United States District Judge Paul Benson, a conservative jurist appointed to the federal bench by Richard M. Nixon. Key witnesses like Myrtle Poor Bear were not allowed to testify and unlike the Robideau/Butler trial in Iowa, evidence regarding violence on Pine Ridge was severely restricted.


An FBI agent who had previously testified that the agents followed a pick-up truck onto the scene, a vehicle that could not be tied to Mr. Peltier, changed his account, stating that the agents had followed a red and white van onto the scene, a vehicle which Mr. Peltier drove occasionally.


Three teenaged Native witnesses testified against Mr. Peltier, they all later admitted that the FBI forced them to testify. Still, not one witness identified Mr. Peltier as the shooter.


The U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case claimed that the government had provided the defense with all FBI documents concerning the case. To the contrary, more than 140,000 pages had been withheld in their entirety.


An FBI ballistics expert testified that a casing found near the agents’ bodies matched the gun tied to Mr. Peltier. However, a ballistic test proving that the casing did not come from the gun tied to Mr. Peltier was intentionally concealed.


The jury, unaware of the aforementioned facts, found Mr. Peltier guilty. Judge Benson, in turn, sentenced Mr. Peltier to two consecutive life terms.


Following the discovery of new evidence obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Mr. Peltier sought a new trial. The Eighth Circuit ruled, “There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case." Yet, the court denied Mr. Peltier a new trial.


During oral argument, the government attorney conceded that the government does not know who shot the agents, stating that Mr. Peltier is equally guilty whether he shot the agents at point-blank range, or participated in the shoot-out from a distance. Mr. Peltier’s co-defendants participated in the shoot-out from a distance, but were acquitted.


Judge Heaney, who authored the decision denying a new trial, has since voiced firm support for Mr. Peltier’s release, stating that the FBI used improper tactics to convict Mr. Peltier, the FBI was equally responsible for the shoot-out, and that Mr. Peltier's release would promote healing with Native Americans.


Mr. Peltier has served over 29 years in prison and is long overdue for parole. He has received several human rights awards for his good deeds from behind bars which include annual gift drives for the children of Pine Ridge, fund raisers for battered women’s shelters, and donations of his paintings to Native American recovery programs.

Currently, Mr. Peltier’s attorneys have filed a new round of Freedom of Information Act requests with FBI Headquarters and all FBI field offices in an attempt to secure the release of all files relating to Mr. Peltier and the RESMURS investigation. To date, the FBI has engaged in a number of dilatory tactics in order to avoid the processing of these requests.

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 04:57 PM
Or if you need it to music


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_vQt_v8Jmw
nic34

jillian
01-29-2014, 05:02 PM
really? peltier was arrested for his political positions?

or for killing two FBI agents?

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 05:07 PM
The American Indian Movement was a total group of hardassmuthafuckas until the FBI broke them up.

Dennis Banks was one of the leaders of AIM and a badass. :)

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRFlhS0xC7A5uMLJdvw127GyE-C_7UmS4lE3-EPiBI66I_LZ2Ka

http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/trailofbrokentreaties.html

And Russell Means, he was a libertarian native activist and someone with a lot of pull with Codename

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/RussellMeans1987.jpg


Russell Charles Means (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012) was an American Oglala Lakota (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglala_Lakota) activist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism) for the rights of Native American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas) people and libertarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism) political activist. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Movement) (AIM) after joining the organization in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage.Means was active in international issues of indigenous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas) peoples, including working with groups in Central and South America, and with the United Nations for recognition of their rights. He was active in politics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics) at his native Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation) and at the state and national level.
Beginning an acting career in 1992, he appeared in numerous films, including The Last of the Mohicans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Mohicans_(1992_film)) and released his own music CD. He published his autobiography Where White Men Fear to Tread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_White_Men_Fear_to_Tread) in 1995. Means died in 2012, less than a month before his 73rd birthday.

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 05:09 PM
really? peltier was arrested for his political positions?

or for killing two FBI agents?

Who didn't identify themselves (case fact) at a time when there were drive bys on the res (case fact) and intimidated people into testifying to what they have since said under lie detector tests were --forced--lies.

They have all the court documents on that website. Read it. Even the judge on that case later said had he known all the facts it would have gone much differently.

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 05:13 PM
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/security-and-human-rights/leonard-peltier


Leonard Peltier


Leonard Peltier, an Anishinabe-Lakota Native American, is a federal prisoner serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in 1975. Amnesty International (AI) has studied his case extensively over many years and remains seriously concerned about the fairness of proceedings leading to his trial and conviction. AI believes that political factors may have influenced the way in which the case was prosecuted. Leonard Peltier’s most recent petition for release on parole was denied by the US Parole Commission in 2009, and AI understands that he is not eligible for consideration for parole again until 2024. Given that all available legal remedies have been exhausted and that that Leonard Peltier has now spent over 36 years in prison and is in poor health, AI believes that in the context of these ongoing concerns, the US authorities should order Leonard Peltier’s release from prison on humanitarian grounds and in the interests of justice.

Leonard Peltier was a leading member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), an organization which seeks to promote and uphold Native American Indian rights. On 26 June 1975, during a confrontation involving AIM members on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota, FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were shot dead. Leonard Peltier was convicted of their murders in 1977 and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Leonard Peltier does not deny that he was present during the incident. However, he has always denied killing the agents as was alleged by the prosecution at his trial.

A key alleged eyewitness to the shootings was Myrtle Poor Bear, a Lakota Native woman who lived at Pine Ridge. On the basis of her statement that she had seen Leonard Peltier kill Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, Leonard Peltier was extradited from Canada, where he had fled following the shootings. However Myrtle Poor Bear later retracted her testimony. Although not called as a prosecution witness at trial, the trial judge refused to allow Leonard Peltier’s attorneys to call Myrtle Poor Bear as a defense witness on the grounds that her testimony “could be highly prejudicial to the government.” In 2000, Myrtle Poor Bear issued a public statement to say that her original testimony was a result of months of threats and harassment from FBI agents.

In 1980 documents were released to Leonard Peltier’s lawyers as a result of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents contained evidence which might have assisted Leonard Peltier’s case, but which had been withheld by the prosecution at trial. However in 1986, the US Court of Appeal for the Eighth Circuit denied Leonard Pelter a retrial, stating that: “We recognize that there is some evidence in this record of improper conduct on the part of some FBI agents, but we are reluctant to impute even further improprieties to them.”
In 1991 Gerald Heaney, the judge who presided over Leonard Peltier’s 1986 appeal hearing, expressed his concerns about the case. In a letter to Senator Daniel Inouye, Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, Gerald Heaney wrote that he believed: “the FBI used improper tactics in securing Peltier’s extraction from Canada and in otherwise investigating and trying the Peltier case.” He added: “Although our Court decided that these actions were not grounds for reversals, they are, in my view, factors that merit consideration in any petition for leniency filed.”



The US Parole Commission has held a number of parole hearings on Leonard Peltier’s case. However, it has always denied parole on the grounds that Peltier did not accept criminal responsibility for the murders of the two FBI agents. This is despite the fact that, after one such hearing, the Commission acknowledged that, “the prosecution has conceded the lack of any direct evidence that you personally participated in the executions of two FBI agents.”

And they FBI has wormed out of many attempts at FOIA requests on this case.

nic34
01-29-2014, 05:17 PM
....someone had to take the fall....

This is a huge miscarriage of justice.

Kabuki Joe
01-29-2014, 05:20 PM
...I have a buddy that's married to a 100% Indian gal...he's been with her longer then I've been with my wife (34 years)...he has said their rules on the reservation have gone from Indian stuff to whitey stuff...the reservation was run by the Indians to now run by whites...sure, the Indians look like they are in charge but behind the scenes it's the whites...not much you can do when the government says so...one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist...

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 05:20 PM
....someone had to take the fall....

This is a huge miscarriage of justice.

The book on this is awesome. I was completely pissed at the end of it. That shitty movie, Thunderheart, did an ok job and it had John Trudell in it.

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRHqmEQB1unL1AQZrVnx1G5cr_6OMT_d ZXR9h2sn_eDU9pQ_JrpWg


One of the reason Alyosha and I are tight homies is our interest in this case.

nic34
01-29-2014, 05:21 PM
I've been here before, and I can't believe it could happen again....



[Editor's note: On December 15, an estimated 500 former and ex-FBI agents marched to the White House to request that Clinton deny clemency to Peltier. The Washington Post noted that most agents were from the DC and Baltimore FBI offices.

FBI Director Freeh also wrote an open letter to Clinton and Attorney General Reno, saying in part that the "...premeditated execution of two young FBI Agents is the most vile disrespect for all that we cherish under our law and our God and for which moderation can only signal disrespect." Freeh insisted that there was ample evidence that Peltier committed the "sickeningly brutal" crime.
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and 21 other House members also on Dec. 15 signed an anti-Peltier letter to Clinton]

http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0012a/copyright/peltierpardon.html

....we know what the outcome would be ....

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 05:27 PM
The 30 year rule should kick in but it hasn't.

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 05:31 PM
What's shitty about that whole period is that there was a pride going for minorities that the feds kept squelching...what could have happened if this hadn't gone down like that?

jillian
01-29-2014, 05:36 PM
Who didn't identify themselves (case fact) at a time when there were drive bys on the res (case fact) and intimidated people into testifying to what they have since said under lie detector tests were --forced--lies.

They have all the court documents on that website. Read it. Even the judge on that case later said had he known all the facts it would have gone much differently.

case fact? they were being shot at from a pick up truck. how should they have identified themselves?

case "facts" are subject to being twisted.

and while i understand that amnesty international put his trial on the "unfair trial" list… i think their concern is selective.

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 06:04 PM
case fact? they were being shot at from a pick up truck. how should they have identified themselves?

case "facts" are subject to being twisted.

and while i understand that amnesty international put his trial on the "unfair trial" list… i think their concern is selective.


Did you read the same case as everyone else? :)

Codename Section
01-29-2014, 06:06 PM
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/18/159058219/near-wounded-knee-years-of-alleged-injustice