Dear Supporters
Peltier’s June 26, 2014 “Press release” regarding
the 39th anniversary of the line-of-duty murders of FBI Agents Jack
Coler and Ron Williams would have had some meaning if it came from someone with
credibility. If the past four decades have proven anything it is that Peltier
will say whatever he thinks he can to garner the sympathy of those few who have
bought into the folklore.
Peltier takes a giant and fallacious leap into his own
history as he provides us with:
“By the time of the Oglala shoot-out
there had already been some 60 something of our Native people killed. These
people are the ones we are commemorating here today. I always especially
remember Joe Stunz (sic) who was a mentor to some of the younger boys in the
community.”
Really? “60 something” and “a mentor?”
Peltier consistently demonstrates that he can’t keep straight
or remember his own fabrications (lies) or those proffered by the LPDC and
LPDOC. The number of those alleged victims has varied over the years but now it’s
down to “sixty something.” Repeating the fable has not validated the facts.
Well, and for perhaps the hundredth time, believers and non-believers are
invited to look at list and decide for themselves. Remember too, that one of those on the list was Anna Mae
Aquash; the AIM member who Peltier stuck a gun in her mouth suspecting she was an
informant (this was consistent with Peltier’s reputation and disregard for
women in general), and who was killed, by AIM. (Footnote 1). Regardless of what AIM thought, Anna Mae was
not an “agent provocateur” (a term they love to brand people with). She was not
an informant but that mattered little when she was shot in the head and dumped
in a ditch.
This is the second time in less than a month that Peltier
and his dwindling network cannot even get Stuntz’s name right. Nonetheless, Peltier
is directly responsible for Stuntz’s death. As has been pointed out, Joe Stuntz
was shooting at responding law enforcement and was killed in that exchange. Joe
Stuntz followed Leonard Peltier to his own death. Peltier’s feckless leadership of AIM members placed them all
in jeopardy that June day.
But let’s assume for the moment that after the assault and
wounding of Agents’ Coler and Williams, and the brutal point-blank killing shots
to their faces, and after stealing Agent Coler’s FBI jacket and giving Peltier
a smile in the process…lets imagine what kind of “mentor” Stuntz would have
been had he escaped from Pine Ridge that fateful day.
Peltier offers no examples (the NPPA submits there are none)
of what kind of mentoring Stuntz had or would have provided the younger AIM
members.
Had Stuntz successfully escaped, what lessons would he have
imparted to other AIM members, young or old? Let’s not forget that during the
escape Peltier made that fateful admission “…the M…..F…..was begging for his
life, but I shot him anyway.” (Fn. 2)
So Stuntz makes it out alive and is on the run. He is
speaking to others in a private and secluded place not being able to display
his trophy in public. He wears the FBI raid jacket and points to the large
F.B.I. initials and tells them, “See that’s what you do when the white man and
Feds come to the Reservation. You attack. You shoot them and if they ain’t
dead, you shoot them in the face like the dogs they are. We counted coup and rolled
them over to honor our warrior heritage that the enemy must face Mother Earth
so he will never meet the creator in the afterlife. That’s what we did. I took the
wasichu’s jacket instead of a
scalp like our brave ancestors would have done so I can show you how brave we
were that day. We stole their weapons too, and following the Eagle made our way
out of the battle…”
Some mentor Stuntz would have made.
On July 7th Peltier’s latest message stooped to
levels that the NPPA could not believe even he could reach. Entitled “A very
personal request,” and concluding with a “Friend in Need,” he claims he has
found the “best legal team” and all he needs ”to book him immediately” is
$50,000 along with donations solicited on Indiegogo. Not a mere pittance he
admits, and in a follow-up on July 10th from the rented room in Lake
Mary, Florida, probably Harry David Hill (aka Mr. X; and the jury is still out
whether he was an agent provocateur as well. Fn. 3 ) offers the conundrum:
“It was
the great and beautiful Jane Fonda who purchased it last to help Leonard. Jane
donated it to the current owner who has been gracious enough to let us sell it
for a percentage. It is Leonard's most sought after piece of artwork.
Beautiful in every way. The iconic portrait of a warrior. It
is called " Protector of the Woods"
Hanoi
Jane. (Fn. 4)
It’s
“gracious” (hardly generous) that the current owner is willing to give up a
“percentage.”
Indiegogo as of 7/12/14 reached 10% of
it’s projected goal of 175K with $17,818. So there are a few gullible people
out there who have never asked Peltier the tough questions. How much has he
taken in and where has all the money gone? Has he paid his taxes on this
income? Money and funding remains Peltier’s dirty little secret. Transparency
is not a word he either understands or honors. Perhaps more follow-up letters
to the IRS are in order.
Peltier’s
motivation for all this is designed to generate a false sense of hope to keep
the coffers from completely draining with donations from über-gullible,
misinformed and misguided supporters. Those who are incapable of moving past the
fabrications (lies), myth and folklore; the fantasized version of who Peltier
is in real life.
The heart
of the matter is the new dream team.
Looking
back over the years there have been many capable attorneys who have, as a
matter of course, reviewed the entire legal history, from the trial, evidence,
testimony and transcripts and throughout all the appeals. Some were motivated
by notoriety, trying to glean some free publicity from representing the likes
of Peltier, others, were genuinely committed to ensuring that no stone was left
unturned and devoted hundreds, even thousands of hours of their professional time and effort, and many, a significant
amount of their own personal finances (pro bono; free to Peltier), to advance
the Peltier cause. Collectively they have all reached the same point in the
process; there’s nothing left. Only once in the four decade history of the
Peltier case has there been any progress, and that was the October 1984
“ballistic hearing” where they alleged that an October 2, 1975 FBI teletype
received through the FOIPA meant something other than it really did. But the
final word from the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals was crystal clear: “When all
is said and done, however, a few simple but very important facts remain. The
casing introduced into evidence had in fact been extracted from the Wichita
AR-15. This point was not disputed; although the defense had its own ballistics
expert, it offered no contrary evidence.” (Fn.5)
In other
words, another allegation without substance.
Peltier’s
attorneys have collectively, and valiantly in some instances, tried every
manner of legal technicality and maneuvering to no avail. There are no smoking
guns or loopholes to explore. Many of those who have tried to support Peltier
learned the hard way that his ungrateful, ragged demeanor and sociopathic,
unrelenting personality pushed away even the best of them.
None of
this goes to innocence however. We just don’t need the intimately examined
court record proving his factual guilt; we have Peltier’s own statements over
the years, proving beyond any doubt, his actual and unrepentant guilt; “And
really, if necessary, I’d do it all over again, because it was the right thing
to do.” (Peltier 2/6/10) (Fn.6)
“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods
Footnotes:
2)
http://www.noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#right
(Paragraph 14 and footnote #4 of that essay: Looking Cloud trial transcript at
144-145; in reference to a statement made to the witness by Leonard Peltier:
Prosecutor: “Exactly what did he say?” Witness: “He said the M…..F…..was
begging for his life, but I shot him anyway.”)
From 2004 Editorial Essay:
The funding issue is a constant source
of frustration for the LPDC and may help explain why they are still in El Paso
instead of Lewisburg. Their online store is filled with hackneyed and
uninteresting flea market items except for one puzzling piece of artwork entitled
"Protector of the Woods." The painting is uninspiring, even confusing; it's difficult
to tell exactly what's hiding behind that white birch. But the real problem
with this particular piece is that the original is owned by the one person who
is an anathema-the antichrist-to every American serviceman and servicewoman,
prior, present, living and deceased; Hanoi Jane3, aka Jane Fonda.
