On June 23, 1975 there was an incident on the
Schwarting ranch, near Batesland, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South
Dakota.
After a day of ranch work branding cattle, Jerry
Schwarting, along with a young friend, Robert Dunsmore, gave a ride to Hobart
Horse, a family friend, to the residence of Teddy Pourier. Also at this
residence was Herman Thunderhawk and Jimmy Eagle. What started out as casual
evening of unwinding and jesting turned into a dangerous and violent
confrontation.
Jerry Schwarting was beaten by the others and young
Dunsmore was stripped of his clothes. They were both threatened, even with
castration, and had guns repeatedly fired over their heads. Schwarting's
vehicle, jacket and new cowboy boots (that were two months old and cost $200)
were stolen. Schwarting carries scars from knife wounds to this day.
As a result of this crime on a government
reservation, a violation under the jurisdiction of the FBI, federal
warrants were issued for the four individuals.
Special Agents Jack Coler, on temporary assignment
from the Denver Division, and Ron Williams, both from the Rapid City
Resident Agency that covers the surrounding counties and Pine Ridge, were
assigned to search for the fugitives.
On June 25th, Teddy Pourier was arrested.
Later that day three young Indians; Michael
Anderson, Wish Draper and Norman Charles walked along Highway 18 to the
hamlet of Oglala to take a shower. While returning they were stopped and
questioned by Agents' Coler and Williams who believed one of them may have been
Jimmy Eagle. The three were taken to the Tribal Police in the town of
Pine Ridge and it was determined that none of them was Eagle, however, at some
point Coler and Williams learned that Jimmy Eagle had been seen in the Oglala
area driving a red vehicle. A Tribal Police Officer later dropped off the
three on Highway 18 a few miles south of Oglala near a small farm owned by
the Jumping Bull family.
Unknown at that time to Agents' Coler and
Williams, or the FBI, was that members of the American Indian Movement had
set up a new camp in a ravine along White Clay Creek just south of the
Jumping Bull farm. The FBI was painfully aware of AIM's presence on
the Reservation, most noted through violent conflicts with the Tribal
Government and the utter destruction of the village of Wounded Knee in 1973, along
with the killing of civil rights worker Perry Ray Robinson and the suspected
disappearance of others. Nor did they know that Leonard Peltier, then a
fugitive from the attempted murder of a Milwaukee police officer, was also at
the White Clay camp.
Coler and Williams decided to meet the next morning
to continue searching the Oglala area for the fugitive, Jimmy Eagle.
It is absolutely undisputed how the shooting at
Jumping Bull began sometime around noon on that fateful following day of June
26th.*
A number of FBI agents and employees heard Ron
Williams on the radio describing that they had followed a vehicle from Highway
18; that the vehicle stopped, that it looked like they were going to be
fired upon…and the shooting began. They could hear Ron trying to describe their
location. They heard him say that if help didn't get there soon they would be
dead. They heard Ron get shot.
During those fateful moments, the three in the
vehicle, a white and red Chevrolet suburban, fugitive Leonard Peltier, Joe
Stuntz, and the young Indian who knew exactly who Agents' Coler and Williams
were, Norman Charles, began firing at the agent's who were now pinned down in
an open field. Peltier was quickly joined by other AIM members from the camp,
including Dino Butler and Bob Robideau, who, along with others, trapped the
agents in what can only be described as a deadly crossfire.**
Local agents and law-enforcement responded; the
first to arrive turning onto the same dirt road travelled earlier by Coler and
Williams, were taken under rifle fire and forced back onto Highway 18. None
were able to reach their besieged comrades.
In all likelihood, and under a hail of rifle fire, the
shooting didn't last long as Jack Coler received a devastating wound to
his right arm, was incapacitated, and probably going into shock. Ron,
wounded three times and hoping that help would soon arrive, removed
his shirt, crawled to his downed partner and used it as a tourniquet on
his badly injured arm; and then waited.
Both Jack Coler and Ron Williams, severely wounded
and unable to defend themselves, were then brutally executed.
Two young agents, one a former police officer, the
other a veteran, remained loyal to their sworn obligation to uphold the law, honored
their oath of Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity, and made the ultimate sacrifice
in the line of duty.
Although forty years have passed, their dedication
and memory will never diminish.***
"In the Spirit of Coler and Williams"
Ed Woods
Comments on Just After Noon, June 26, 1975
Comment on the timing of the attack on Agents' Coler
and Williams
Meet Jack Coler and Ronald Williams
