Peltier still claim he's innocent

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - American Indian activist Leonard Peltier says he regrets the bloody shootout that left two FBI agents and an American Indian Movement (AIM) member dead 25 years ago in South Dakota.

But, in an interview last week at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Peltier carefully adds that he did not kill Special Agents Jack Coler, 28, and Ronald Williams, 27.

"I have so much remorse. I think about it a lot," said Peltier, serving two life sentences for the shootings. "I wish I could have prevented it. But I didn't kill those people, and I'm very sorry lives were lost that day."

The case against Peltier, 55, has been dissected, examined and critiqued since his arrest in 1976.

According to court testimony, the two agents were following a red and white Chevrolet Suburban when they were ambushed and fired upon from three elevated positions, 180 to 220 yards away. At least seven rifles pinned the lightly armed agents in a deadly crossfire.

Four men were arrested in connection with the shootings. Charges against one were dropped; two others were acquitted. On April 18, 1977, a Fargo, N.D., jury convicted Peltier of two counts of first-degree murder.

Celebrities ranging from Robert Redford and Whoopi Goldberg to Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa have called for clemency for Peltier.

In light of what some see as mounting public support for a presidential pardon for Peltier, the FBI today will take the unusual measure of placing photographs, documents and other evidence in the murder case on its Web site (www.fbi.org).

"We have been bad in the past about getting our message out," said Chip Burrus, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge of Indian Country.

The agency opened the files for the Argus Leader, displaying pictures of bullet-riddled vehicles, an arsenal of weapons from AR-15s and M-1 carbines to grenades, and autopsy photos of the agents' execution-style wounds.

The Web site is sure to reignite the debate over what happened that hot June day on the Jumping Bull ranch.

"This is one of the worst shootouts in FBI history," Burrus said. "Two young FBI agents, with service revolvers . . . the terror going through their minds we can never imagine."

Here are the issues that have kept the Peltier case a matter of public debate:

FBI officials say Peltier has changed his story several times. For example, he first said he didn't know who killed Williams and Coler, but then said someone he calls Mr. X shot the agents.

AIM leaders have said the shooting was not an ambush, as painted by prosecutors, but rather self-defense. They say the FBI had trained and equipped a vigilante group on the Pine Ridge reservation. AIM leaders say FBI agents that day were mistaken for the armed vigilantes who terrorized the area. FBI officials dispute that theory.

Peltier says prosecutors coerced false testimony from a woman who said she was an eyewitness to the shooting and used it to have him extradited from Canada.

Ballistics evidence introduced in the trial has been questioned. Peltier also said he discovered other ballistics evidence the jury wasn't shown.

The government withheld more than 6,000 pages of documents about the case, Peltier says. The FBI says Peltier didn't pay a bill for documents they sent at his request.

Violence escalates in 1970s

Everyone agrees the Pine Ridge reservation was out of control in 1975. Burrus said 12 agents were working out of the Rapid City FBI office, many on temporary duty.

The violence escalated in the early 1970s, though, in part because of convergence of two events: the election of Dick Wilson as tribal chairman and AIM's growing activism.

Wilson created a vigilante force known as Guardians Of the Oglala Nation, a name that some tribal members derisively abbreviated as "goons."

"The elders and traditional people were under attack on the reservation from the goons," AIM co-founder Clyde Bellecourt said. Bellecourt and others have accused the FBI of training the goons and arming them.

Burrus bristles at these allegations, saying "that the FBI would intentionally supply people with weapons so they could intimidate and harm other people is preposterous."

AIM became allied with a group generally opposed to the Wilson administration and in favor of a return to a traditional way of life and tribal leadership.

In 1973, tensions boiled over. AIM led a 71-day takeover of Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre by Army soldiers of more than 200 followers of Chief Big Foot. The occupying forces demanded Wilson's resignation, a return to the Treaty of 1868 and investigations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal government and law enforcement. Two Indians were killed during the occupation. A federal marshal was paralyzed by a gunshot wound, and an FBI agent was hit in the hand by a bullet.

Beatings, burnings and even murders escalated after the occupation ended. Investigation and prosecution of major crimes are a federal responsibility, so FBI presence increased on the reservation.

Peltier, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe in North Dakota, met AIM members in the early 1970s. They were not a paramilitary group, he says.

"We didn't have much money for ammunition."

Burrus sees it differently.

"He was the leader of a group of burglars and thugs."

On June 26, 1975, Peltier says he was in an AIM encampment known as Tent City, in woods about 3 miles southeast of Oglala.

"We had heard rumors of a possible goon assault," Peltier says. "We were aware of other threats. Tensions were high. I heard bullets zinging and hit the ground."

Peltier says he ran through several cabins that morning, checking on those inside.

"I heard whimpering in one and found some people hiding under a bed," he says.

Taking up a surplus British .303 Lee-Enfield rifle and a 30-30 carbine, Peltier says he began shooting toward the source of the incoming rounds.

"When we first started receiving gunfire, I fired that way, but I didn't see anybody. I never shot those agents," he says. "I was never shooting specifically at them."

The incoming gunfire, he believes, was coming from Bureau of Indian Affairs police.

The FBI investigation revealed a different chain of events.

Williams and Coler were looking for Jimmy Eagle, wanted for robbery. They followed a red and white Chevrolet Suburban into a shallow depression, radioed that it had stopped, and immediately reported coming under fire.

"If you don't get here quickly, we're dead men," Williams yelled into the radio.

At least seven rifles from three positions formed a deadly crossfire. A total of 125 bullet holes were found in the cars.

Both agents were overcome by their wounds, but alive. Burrus says Peltier walked 200 yards to where the agents lay, executing them with shots to the head from his AR-15.

Peltier denies ever having used the AR-15, a semiautomatic version of the military's M-16. Experts say the fatal shots were fired from that weapon. Investigators found in the trunk of Coler's car one shell casing that extractor tests proved came from the AR-15. Agents recovered 114 spent shells of .223 ammunition from that area. They say the shells came from the same AR-15.

Peltier says he never approached the wounded agents. Mister X did.

"I know I've said in the past who he is. I said it out of anger. I don't know who it is, either Mr. X, Y or Z," he says.

Peltier says he left the area on foot. "After we crossed a creek, we knelt down with a pipe and prayed. I saw the shadow of an eagle, heard the wings flapping, and followed him out of there."

Staying behind was Joe Stuntz, later shot to death by officers. He was wearing one of the dead agents' FBI jackets when his body was recovered.

There were no bullet holes in the coat, so some have implied that it was placed on his body after he was killed.

Burrus said Stuntz was killed by one round to the forehead, fired from a distance.

A witness, Michael Anderson, saw Peltier approach the wounded agents, the FBI says.

"Michael Anderson saw Peltier, (Robert) Robideau and (Darrelle Dean "Dino") Butler walk up to the agents after the shooting stopped. He turned his head and heard several shots," says Special Agent Doug Grell, who was assigned the case.

Anderson, an AIM member at the scene of the shooting, was killed in a car accident several years ago.

"Peltier was one of three individuals who walked up to the wounded and helpless agents," Burrus said. "He had the weapon (the AR-15), he was ID'd at the scene. The facts clearly indicate he's good for the crime."

Williams had a defensive wound to his hand, as if trying to ward off the final round, said Dr. Thomas Noguchi, chief medical examiner and Los Angeles County coroner who helped reconstruct the crime scene.

Weapons found in charred car

The AR-15 disappeared until Sept. 10, 1975.

Robideau, Norman Charles and Anderson were driving a Plymouth station wagon on the Kansas Turnpike near Wichita that day. The old vehicle had been purchased by Peltier, the FBI says, and was loaded with arms, ammunition and explosives.

Some of the explosives, which included dynamite, detonation cord and grenades, rolled too close to a hole in the exhaust pipe, Burrus said. As smoke began filling the car, the occupants bailed out. The blast that followed peeled the roof off the car.

Agents found several charred weapons, including the remains of an AR-15.

Although the plastic stock and grips had melted, Burrus said forensic experts were able to remove the weapon's bolt and place it into a functioning rifle for ballistics tests.

That testing also would become a source of controversy.

When a round is fired, the brass cartridge case is marked by the weapon's firing pin and the extractor - the part of the bolt that strips the empty cartridge from the chamber. Each weapon leaves unique marks, not unlike a fingerprint.

Burrus says the extractor tests determined that the recovered AR-15 was the weapon used to kill Coler and Williams.

But the firing-pin tests were inconclusive; the pin was too "smooth."

Peltier says the firing-pin test wasn't inconclusive.

"It was negative," he says. "And the firing-pin test never came out at trial."

Peltier arrested in Canada

The day before the Wichita explosion, Peltier had been stopped by Oregon State Police in an RV registered to actor Marlon Brando, Burrus said. Peltier fired at the troopers and fled, Burrus said, making his way to Hinton, Alberta. Peltier later abandoned the RV. Investigators found Coler's pistol when they searched the vehicle. Peltier's fingerprint was recovered from the weapon.

Peltier was cornered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in February 1976 and arrested.

U.S. prosecutors used an affidavit signed by Myrtle Poor Bear to persuade Canadian authorities to extradite Peltier. Peltier's defense lawyers in appeals challenged the validity of that affidavit, which said Peltier planned to kill federal agents before the shooting. "Myrtle wasn't in her right mind," Clyde Bellecourt says.

Her affidavit also states she was Peltier's girlfriend, and present during the gunfight.

"I saw Leonard Peltier shoot the FBI agents," the affidavit states.

But the "eyewitness" never was put on the stand by the prosecution.

"We had never met," Peltier says of Poor Bear. "I was very surprised and shocked by the affidavit. Judge (Paul) Benson ruled her incompetent to testify at trial."

Peltier says she was coerced by agents into making a statement, which the FBI denies. Says Burrus: "There were 4,000 interviews conducted. She was one of those 4,000."

Peltier claims the false extradition affidavit violated his rights.

"If anybody's rights were trampled on, it was Canada's," Burrus says. "They did a top-to-bottom comprehensive review last year and concluded there was no wrongdoing in the extradition process."

"And Poor Bear's information was never used in trial," Burrus says.

Robideau and Butler were acquitted of murder charges. Burrus said the scope of what was admissible in their trial was greater. More information about goons and a reservationwide climate of fear was allowed.

Special Agent Grell says Peltier's story is "full of inconsistencies. First, he said he was never there. Then he said he was there. Then he said he was at Tent City. Then the stuff about Mr. X."

Peltier says his story hasn't changed.

"I might tell it a little different, but look at it. My story hasn't changed."

Peltier occupies his days painting contemporary Native American art, and working in the prison furniture shop. His health doesn't allow much more.

Besides hypertension, diabetes, heart problems, kidney stones and high cholesterol, a rusty nail encountered in his childhood has led to a lifelong battle with lockjaw. He also is said to be nearly blind in one eye.

"There were a number of lives that were ruined that day," Peltier says. "I'm sure those agents were just following orders. I'm sure their families miss them.

"I know Joe Stuntz's kids and communicate with them. They miss their dad enormously," he says. "Their lives were ruined too."