COUNTER FBI ATTACKS ON LEONARD PELTIER!
We are sure that many of you have recently encountered the FBI’s attempt to counter efforts to gain executive clemency for Native American, Leonard Peltier. They have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on newspaper and radio ads wrought with misinformation and outright lies in an attempt to mold public opinion before our grass roots campaign can bring them the truth. They are also submitting a dear editor form letter to numerous papers. In the midst of new revelations about the FBI’s shameless efforts to cover up important details regarding the Waco catastrophe, it is no wonder that they are now feeling so threatened as to launch a costly campaign to cover their tracks in regard to Leonard Peltier’s case as well.
In the advertisements, the FBI claim that they are attempting to spread the facts of the Peltier case while dispelling the inaccuracies Mr. Peltier’s supporters have disseminated, supporters such as Amnesty International, the late Mother Theresa, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights to name a small few. Of course the ads did not contain contested facts or attempts to challenge Leonard’s claims. Instead, they were based on brutal insults and emotional, unfounded, and undocumented claims.
Help get the facts of the Peltier case out. If your paper has printed slanderous dear editor letters about the Peltier case be sure to immediately respond with a dear editor letter of your own. Call the paper and let them know that you are outraged that they have printed such undocumented misinformation and ask them to print your letter. If your paper has not printed a slanderous letter, send a strong dear editor letter about Leonard’ s case to them before the FBI does. Hook it in to the holidays or other related current issues that your paper is interested in. Submit a letter no longer than 1000 words in double spaced format. Below are some points and rebuttals you can include in your letters.
Thank you.
—-LPDC
FALSE STATEMENTS IN THE FBI’s AD (Washington Post-Nov 99) The FBI would like your readers to believe that Mr. Peltier is a violent man with a violent past. However, not only did Mr. Peltier have an absolutely clean record prior to his conviction in question, but Lynn Crooks, the US prosecutor in this case, consistently concedes that they cannot prove who actually shot the agents, making the FBI’s slanderous statements toward Mr. Peltier without any basis whatsoever. What is well documented is the fact that Mr. Peltier is a victim of FBI misconduct. Had the FBI not falsified affidavits, withheld exculpatory evidence, threatened witnesses, and manufactured evidence, Mr. Peltier would not be where he is today.
To begin establishing Mr. Peltier as a violent man, the FBI’s ad opens by describing Mr. Peltier as a fugitive wanted for the attempted murder of a police officer. What the FBI fails to mention is that Mr. Peltier was found innocent of this charge after the police officer’s girlfriend testified that the officer had shown her a picture of Mr. Peltier and told her he was helping the FBI to frame up a big one. This was the first time Mr. Peltier was unfairly targeted because of his activities in the American Indian Movement. Again, Mr. Peltier has NO past record of violence.
The ad states that the agents had entered the Jumping Bull property on June 26, 1975 to arrest a young man in connection with a recent abduction and assault of two young ranchers. In fact, the agents had no physical warrant in their possession for such an arrest, and the warrant that had been issued was for the theft of a pair of cowboy boots and assault, not for abduction. On reservations, such crimes are investigated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police, not the FBI.
The FBI’s version of what occurred that day is dramatic and imaginative, however not the least bit documented. For example, there is no evidence that Mr. Peltier was followed by the agents onto the property that day. There is no evidence that the agents were following a red and white van and in fact there is plenty of evidence that they were following a red pickup truck, a vehicle that could not be linked to Mr. Peltier. There were no eyewitnesses to the shootings of the agents. There is no evidence that Mr. Peltier’s gun fired the fatal shots. Mr. Peltier never admitted to going down to the bodies; he only said that he had seen the bodies from a distance. In short, the FBI is claiming to know what it cannot know by the evidence which exists.
The ad goes on to state that after the shoot out, an Oregon state trooper stopped a recreational vehicle in which Mr. Peltier was hiding. They say that Mr. Peltier ran from the RV, fired at the officer and escaped. In reality, there is no evidence that Leonard Peltier was involved in this incident. As a matter of fact, charges in this regard were brought against him and later dropped for lack of evidence. The FBI states that Coler’s gun was found in a bag with one of Mr. Peltier’s thumbprint on it. What they failed to mention was that it was a used paper bag covered in various peoples’ fingerprints.
In an attempt to further implicate Peltier as a violent person, the ad accuses Mr. Peltier of telling the RCMP that “had he known the RCMP officers were there to arrest him, he would have blown them out of their shoes.” However, the RCMP did not put this statement on record until over a year after it was supposedly said. The first anyone heard of it was during Leonard Peltier’s trial. This statement was in fact never made. The FBI continues to use charges against Mr. Peltier when he has already been acquitted of them. They state that Mr. Peltier shot his way out of jail while incarcerated at Lompoc federal prison and then robbed and assaulted a rancher. This is simply false. Mr. Peltier did escape from Lompoc after another inmate warned him of an assassination plot against him. However, Mr. Peltier was found innocent of shooting at anyone, of assault, and of robbery. The inmate who claimed to have been hired to assassinate Mr. Peltier had charges of attempted murder of a police officer mysteriously dropped and he would later testify on Mr. Peltier’s behalf in court.
REASON TO BE CONCERNED OVER THE PELTIER CASE:
The reason for the international uproar over the conviction and continued incarceration of Leonard Peltier is justified. Human Rights organizations, religious leaders, members of the US Congress, and millions of Americans are not being fooled by Mr. Peltier, as the FBI so patronizingly claims. On the contrary, those aware of the case are so disturbed by the well documented facts, that they are moved to speak out on his behalf. Amnesty International considers Mr. Peltier to be a political prisoner who should be immediately and unconditionally released. The National Congress of American Indians and the Assembly of First Nations, the two largest Native American Organizations in North America are also insisting that Mr. Peltier be immediately released.
CASE HISTORY:
To understand the climate when the shoot out broke out, one must understand the times. Conflict on the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation was rampant as American Indian Movement members were asked to come and counter the violence being inflicted on the traditional people by the pro-BIA tribal chairman. Drive by shootings, beatings, and murders of traditional people and AIM members who opposed the tribal government were common occurrences. The reservation had the highest murder rate than anywhere else in the US. The ratio of FBI agents to citizens was also higher than anywhere else in the US, and yet, the FBI was not investigating these documented murders. Many Pine Ridge residents refer to this era as the reign of terror.
This was the climate that existed when the shoot out took place. Why the FBI entered the Jumping Bull property on June 26, 1975 continues to be a mystery. A map of the Jumping Bull area found in one of the agent’s cars had labeled the families’ root cellars as bunkers. Over 150 FBI agents, SWAT team members, BIA police and local vigilantes were able to mobilize around the small isolated area within a very short amount of time after the shoot out began. The group of 30-40 men, women and children escaped through a hail of bullets, many of whom went into hiding fearing for their lives.
Mr. Peltier fled to Canada. While in Canada, his co-defendants were arrested, tried and found innocent on grounds of self defense. After being told that there was not enough evidence against Mr. Peltier to extradite him from Canada, the FBI obtained affidavits from a Myrtle Poor Bear, a local Native American woman known to have serious mental problems. She claimed to have been Mr. Petlier’s girl friend at the time and to have been present during the shoot out, and to have witnessed the murders. In fact she did not know Mr. Peltier, nor was she present at the time of the shooting. She later confessed she had given the false statements after being pressured and terrorized by FBI agents.
Mr. Peltier was extradited to the US where his case was mysteriously transferred to a different district by a different judge than the one who tried his co-defendants. He was found guilty of first degree murder in a trial where exculpatory evidence was withheld, key witnesses such as Myrtle Poor Bear were banned, the jury was intimidated, witnesses were coerced, and the judge erred in his rulings making it impossible for Mr. Peltier to defend himself. The case against Mr. Peltier was weak and Freedom of Information Act documents later released proved that Mr. Peltier’s conviction was unjust.
The main evidence used to convict Mr. Peltier was a shell casing found in the trunk of the agent’s car. This casing was said to match the gun which allegedly belonged to Mr. Peltier. . The FBI ballistics expert had testified that he was unable to do a more conclusive firing pin test on the casing because the gun had been damaged. But, an FBI teletype later released through a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit proved that he had in fact performed the more conclusive test and the casing did not match. When faced with this evidence on appeal, the US prosecutor stated that they could not prove who actually shot the agents, but that Mr. Peltier could still be guilty for aiding and abetting, a complete change of theory. Who he would have been aiding and abetting, how he would have aided and abetted them, and why he would have aided and abetted them has never been established.
The appellate judges decided that the ballistic evidence had been improperly withheld from the defense, and had the jury known about it Mr. Peltier may have been acquitted. Shockingly, the appeal was then denied on a technicality. The same judge would later write a letter recommending Mr. Peltier be released through a presidential grant of executive clemency.
The U.S. prosecutor and the FBI have established that they do not know what participation Mr. Peltier may have had in the agents’ deaths and yet Mr. Peltier remains in prison. The only evidence against Mr. Peltier is the fact that he was present at the Jumping Bull ranch during the fatal shoot out. There were more than thirty others there that day as well. Yet Mr. Peltier is the only one who was ever sentenced and imprisoned. The FBI and other officials clearly singled out Leonard Peltier as a scapegoat, and forced him to pay the collective price for the killings which occurred, despite the lack of evidence against him. Personalized vengeance of this kind in US officials cannot be tolerated.
As Federal Judge Heaney of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals stated in his letter recommending clemency for Leonard Peltier, “The United States government must share the responsibility with the Native Americans for the June 26 firefight. . . the FBI used improper tactics in securing Peltier’s extradition from Canada and in otherwise investigating and trying the Peltier case. . at some point a healing process must begin. We as a nation must treat Native Americans more fairly. To do so, we must recognize their unique culture and their great contributions to our nation. Favorable action by the President in the Leonard Peltier case would be an important step in this regard.”
It’s 1999, why is Leonard Peltier still in prison???
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
PO Box 583
Lawrence, KS 66044
785-842-5774
www.freepeltier.org
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