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by Caleb Kasper '03 Leonard Peltier, an Anishinabe-Lakota man, has spent the last 24 years of his life in prison despite the fact that the U.S. government has admitted on numerous occasions that they do not know who is responsible for the crime he was convicted of. Leonard Peltier is 54 years old and was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He came from a large family of 13 brothers and sisters. At the age of 8 years he was taken from his family and sent to a residential boarding school for Native people run by the US Government. This was his first experience with the intrusion of the United States Government into the lives of Native peoples. Leonard grew up in a time of great political and social change in our country. Peltier moved to Seattle and became active in supporting Indian rights. He founded a half-way house for ex-prisoners, provided low-cost auto repairs at his auto shop, employed Native Americans in his business, worked with native land claim issues, participated in protests concerning native owned land, confronted job issues, provided alcohol counseling, and worked on bringing better city housing to Native Americans. In the course of his work he became involved with the American Indian Movement (AIM) and eventually joined the Denver Colorado chapter. Leonard Peltier's support for the American Indian Movement led to his involvement in the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties which took him to Washington D.C., in the non-violent occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building. He became strongly involved in the spiritual and traditional programs of AIM. Leonard Peltier's involvement in AIM is what brought him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. During that time the reservation was rife with conflict between the conservative tribal chairman and his supporters and the traditional people who wanted to keep their land, language, culture, and spirituality. The tribal chairman and his hired vigilantes known as "GOONS" carried out a campaign of violence against those in opposition to his policies. In a period of three years over 60 traditional people were murdered on Pine Ridge and over 300 were severely beaten, several of whom were involved with AIM. During this period the reservation had the highest ratio of FBI agents to citizens than any other area in the US. Despite this, no murders or beatings were ever investigated. It was for this reason Leonard Peltier along with other AIM members were asked to come to Pine Ridge to help the people who were being targeted. It was in this climate of fear that a shoot out broke out on June 26, 1975 between two FBI agents in unmarked cars and local residents and members of AIM. The FBI agents were reportedly searching for a young Indian man who had stolen a pair of used cowboy boots. The two agents and one Native man were killed. Four people went to trial for the deaths of the agents, one of whom was Leonard Peltier. No investigation of the Native manŐs death took place. Two were acquitted and the government dropped all charges against the third to concentrate their "full prosecutorial weight...against Leonard Peltier." The handpicked judge, favored by the FBI for his anti-Indian reputation, refused evidence of self defense. Peltier was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in one of the most controversial trials of the century. When faced with previously withheld evidence on appeal pointing to Leonard Peltier's innocence, the prosecution admitted, and later established that they in fact could not prove who actually shot the agents or what involvement Leonard Peltier may have had in their deaths. The government has subsequently changed its theory on who killed the agents and today admits they have "NO IDEA WHO KILLED THEM." Peltier's trial and previous appeals had been riddled with FBI misconduct and judicial impropriety including: coercion of witnesses, perjury, fabrication of evidence, and the suppression of exculpatory evidence which could have proved his innocence. Despite this, Mr. Peltier remains in prison. For this reason, there is an international outcry for his freedom and Leonard Peltier has become a notorious symbol of injustice against Native Peoples. During a parole hearing in December 1995, US prosecutor Lynn Crooks admitted again that no evidence exists against Peltier. He further stated that the government never really accused him of murder and that if Peltier were retried, the government could not reconvict. The Parole Board, however, decided not to grant parole because Peltier continues to maintain his innocence (they stated that Peltier had not given a "factual and specific account of (his) actions...consistent with the jury's verdict of guilt") and because he was the only one convicted. As ridiculous as this reasoning sounds, it has thus far held up. Because of the glaring Human and Constitutional violations that have been made in the overall targeting, prosecution, and continued imprisonment of Peltier, millions have come to know of his case and support his freedom, including the late Mother Theresa, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Italian Parliament, the Belgium Parliament, the Green Party, 50 members of U.S. Congress, Robert Redford, the National Congress of American Indians, and Jesse Jackson.
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