In what may have been his final official act as President of the United States, Joe Biden granted clemency to Leonard Peltier, an activist for indigenous rights who has been imprisoned since 1976 after being found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Peltier’s case has been a source of controversy for decades, with many public figures and human rights organizations calling for his release over the years due to claims of questionable evidence being used against him. In the years preceding the shootout in the Pine Ridge Reservation, Peltier had been involved with the American Indian Movement (AIM), a grassroots movement focused on issues like poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians.
This group found itself at odds with Richard Wilson, elected chairman of the Oglala Lakota tribe of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of his office. After a failed attempt at impeaching Wilson, members of AIM and the Oglala Lakota tribe occupied Wounded Knee (also on the Pine Ridge Reservation) in protest for 71 days in 1973, with federal authorities putting the territory under siege during that period with roadblocks. U.S. government authorities backed Wilson as conflict brewed between his Guardians of the Oglala Nation paramilitary force (known as the “Goon Squad” by opponents) and AIM on the other, which had support from a large portion of Wilson’s own Oglala Lakota tribe. GOON was known for attacking political opponents even prior to the Wounded Knee occupation.
By the time of the shooting between Peltier and FBI agents in 1975, the situation between AIM and GOON was marked by violent incidents. “Pine Ridge was a powder keg with the Goon Squad operating there with the government’s help,” said Peltier’s attorney Kevin Sharp in an interview last year with Native News Online. “When plain-clothed agents in unmarked cars arrived, a firefight ensued.” FBI Agents Ronald Arthur Williams and Jack Ross Coler followed a Chevy Suburban SUV carrying Peltier and two other men, with the firefight breaking out when the Suburban stopped at Jumping Bull Ranch and the three men got out.
Peltier denied taking part in the shootout during the trial and for decades thereafter, admitting to his role in it in his 1999 memoir Prison Writings: My Life is a Sun Dance, though still maintaining that he did not kill the FBI agents. Federal authorities have been accused of improper conduct during the investigation, having buried an exculpatory ballistics report and used testimonies from two witnesses who later recanted, claiming they were coerced. (Another’s testimony was given in exchange for immunity.) During Peltier’s trial, a juror admitted her “prejudice against Indians,” but was allowed to continue serving on the jury.
Peltier remained politically active during his imprisonment, running for president in 2004 as nominee for the Peace and Freedom Party in California, receiving 27,607 votes in that state.
