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Monday, June 10 marked a parole hearing for Leonard Peltier, now serving a life sentence for the murders of FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler in 1975. The latest campaign to free the convicted murderer kicked off last November, when Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “the president should grant clemency to Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier.”
Warren, who falsely claimed to be Cherokee, did not explain why the “rights activist” needed clemency. A group of senate Democrats, including Warren, Bernie Sanders and Mazie Hirono, claim that Peltier “was arrested and later convicted for his alleged involvement in the murder of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation despite evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and due process violations mounted throughout his trial.” The Democrats failed to name the FBI agents or chart the criminal career of Leonard Peltier.
Born in 1944, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, of Chippewa and Dakota antecedents, Peltier enlisted in the Marines but was discharged for medical issues. In 1972 in Milwaukee, Peltier pulled a gun on a cop and pulled the trigger, but the gun failed to fire. Peltier got five months in jail and after release went underground.
In 1974, Peltier was arrested on Mercer Island, Washington, giving the name of Leonard Little. He was charged with possession of illegal weapons, and fugitive alerts described him as “armed and dangerous.” In 1975, Peltier was living on the Pine Ridge reservation and acting as an enforcer for the American Indian Movement, which in 1973 seized the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, and held it for 71 days.
On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler came to Pine Ridge looking for Jimmy Eagle, wanted on assault charges. Williams sent a radio report of rifle fire from behind a row of junked cars. The agents were armed only with revolvers. When Coler went to retrieve a rifle from the trunk of his car, bullets blasted through the lid and severely wounded the agent.
Coler crawled into the car, quickly shredded by volleys of gunfire. Williams was also hit and attempted to surrender. The agent raised a hand and pleaded for his life, but the shooter, later identified as Peltier, fired an AR-15 into his hand and then shot him in the head. Peltier also shot Jack Coler in the head, and both men were shot again after they were dead — what police call “overkill.”
In November of that year, Leonard Peltier, James Eagle, Darrell Dean Butler, and Robert Robideau were indicted on two counts of first-degree murder. While on the run, Peltier shot it out with Oregon policemen, who stopped his motor home. Peltier fled to Canada but was eventually extradited. At his 1977 trial in Fargo, North Dakota, a jury took 10 hours to convict Peltier on two counts of murder and sentenced him to two life terms in federal prison. The convicted murderer quickly became a hero to the left, which considered him a political prisoner.
“I stand before you as a proud man. I feel no guilt!” said Peltier said in a pre-sentencing statement. “I have no regrets of being a Native American activist — thousands of people in the United States, Canada, and around the world have and will continue to support me to expose the injustices which have occurred in this courtroom. I do feel pity for your people that they must live under such an ugly system. Under your system, you are taught greed, racism, and corruption — and most serious of all, the destruction of Mother Earth.” And so on.
Famed left-wing lawyer William Kunstler took up Peltier’s case, and in 1987 the convicted murderer sought asylum in the Soviet Union, claiming there was “no justice for my people” in the United States. Peltier remained a celebrity prisoner, championed by Nelson Mandela, Danielle Mitterrand, and other politicians. Nothing came of the effort, and backers put their hopes in Bill Clinton.
In late 2000, some 500 current and retired FBI agents marched to the White House with banners reading “Never Forget” and bearing a letter opposing clemency for Peltier signed by 8,000 FBI agents. Clinton pardoned Puerto Rican terrorists but not Leonard Peltier. Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump also failed to grant clemency to Peltier, but the murderer’s fans now look to Delaware Democrat Joe Biden.
The FBI continues to oppose Peltier’s release and a statement Christopher Wray said “we must never forget or put aside that Peltier intentionally murdered these two young men and has never expressed remorse for his ruthless actions.” The conviction was “rightly and fairly obtained” and “has withstood numerous appeals to multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.” Peltier, now 79, faces a federal Parole Commission but whatever they recommend, the president can still have Peltier released on “compassionate grounds.” That calls for reflection.
Leonard Peltier took the lives of Jack Coler and Ronald Williams and got to keep his own life, so strictly speaking he got off light. This writer first addressed the case in the January 2000 issue of Heterodoxy, predecessor of Frontpage Magazine. The headline, “Bury His Heart,” came from colleague Peter Collier, who passed away in 2019. If he was still with us, readers should know, Peter wouldn’t change it now.