PELTIER: COWARDICE & THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Dear Supporters:

Felons, like Leonard Peltier, surrender certain rights by virtue of their convictions, as here with double first degree murder and aiding and abetting. Included among those forfeited rights are voting and jury service, being barred from obtaining, receiving, transporting or possessing any firearm or ammunition, serving in the Armed Forces, obtaining certain federal licenses, federal employment and certain benefits. Voting restrictions, however, vary from state to state.

It’s doubtful, though, whether Peltier cares about voting since he does not consider himself an American citizen.[i]  Peltier possessing a firearm is another matter altogether.

A right that a convicted felon does not forfeit is established within the Bill of Rights: the First Amendment, which generally guarantees the right of free assembly and speech.

There are limitations on free speech, of course, that include concepts like fighting words, inciting illegal action or panic (like yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater), obscenity, slander, and libel, among others.

Much depends on the venue one chooses to express certain ideas and speech and arguably the most widely recognized forum today is the Internet.

Publishing ones thoughts, words and statements on an Internet website amounts to offering those statements for a response in the court of public opinion. That action establishes the First Amendment right of anyone reading those statements to comment and respond on its validity, accuracy and truthfulness. That right of free speech is not a one-way country back road but a multi-lane superhighway. If one chooses to make public statements in such a manner, he must accept the concurrent responsibility to defend those statements and rise to the occasion when challenged. It’s really quite simple, it just goes with the territory. That certainly applies to those who challenge as well.

Peltier maintains the right to free speech, however, has added one more critical element to that equation. He has consistently promoted himself as a public figure, trying to garner both sympathy and financial support by thrusting himself to the forefront of a particular controversy in order to influence a resolution and affect public opinion of himself. The legal standard for libel of a public figure is much higher than for the average citizen. For example, Peltier has proclaimed, “My autobiography is the story of my people.” [ii] That alone places him in the public arena.

What if some concerned person or association was to call Peltier a coward?

Standing on its own would that amount to slander or libel, or just an opinion? Asked another way, can someone even slander, defame, or libel a convicted double murderer?  Yet another way: can someone slander a convicted double murderer without making knowingly false statements of fact? Or, can someone slander or libel a double convicted murderer by providing the truth from public documents and Peltier himself?

Was Peltier a coward during his brief involvement with the American Indian Movement or during any other time in his life? With Peltier, his actions speak louder than his words.

Would it be cowardly (as suspected by AIM that Anna Mae Aquash was a government informant), for Peltier—on orders from AIM hierarchy, to put a gun in her mouth to make her confess? Imagine how she felt during those terrifying moments. Peltier glaring into her frightened eyes, putting the filthy barrel of a gun into her throat, accusing her of betraying AIM. Imagine the panic and horror she must have felt. (She didn’t confess because there was nothing to confess to; she wasn’t, but that mattered little, because as everyone knows, she was kidnapped, murdered and her lifeless body dumped in a ravine.) [iii]  

Would doing that to a young woman and mother make Peltier a coward?

Hold that thought for a moment.

What about Peltier’s respect for women in general?

"When I was younger," Leonard says, "I thought it was a lot of fun running around like that, shaking off all those wives. Now I'm older, I realize I hurt a lot of those women, and I feel very bad about it, I really do. I think about them all the time now, especially the ones that had my kids.[iv]  Now that the fun is over, at least he supposedly “thinks” about it.

On June 26, 1975 Peltier tells us he acted bravely that day, as a warrior he claims, saving women and children, but, and here again we can rely on Peltier’s own public proclamations, namely in the Redford film, Incident at Oglala.[v]

“And I heard crying and everything. We gotta get those women and children out of that place, man. Cause there were babies there. There was a…I thought the old folks were there. I said we gotta get those people out of there man, what the hell is going on.”

(Sounds good, but there were no babies as Peltier claims, some children yes, like Angie Long Visitor, with her husband and two children who made their way from Jumping Bull to Highway 18.[vi]) 

But for all Petlier’s feigned bravado on film, let’s dig a little deeper and uncover a compelling little detail. More publically available facts to consider:

Meanwhile, Nilak (Butler) and the children were making their way back up the creek. “We hooked up with the guys about that point—we were just crossing this little river, going across this bog, and I lost my moccasins…And we got growled out because they said, We didn’t know where you guys were, and we were worried about you.” [vii] 

A brave woman, with children, making her way to escape the carnage of two murdered Agents, and where is Peltier and the other brave warriors? Hightailing it to the hills as fast as he could leaving at least Nilak and her children and Angie Long Visitor and her children to fend for themselves.

A responsible and decent person would consider that a cowardly act. Since it was Peltier who started the shooting and as a result placed all the others in jeopardy, bravado aside, he was only worried about one person. Himself.

But hold that thought for a moment.

Going back to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Jumping Bull property, June 26, 1975, one of the participants in the attack on the agents, Norman Brown:

“From the green house in the compound, looking downhill to the west, Norman Brown saw two cars and two white men well over a hundred yards away; a gold and white car was parked behind a green one, both aimed in the general direction of the camp. The trunk of the gold-white car was open, and its driver was behind it, a rifle or shotgun at his shoulder; the other man, using a handgun was crouching and shooting next to the green car. Brown recalls seeing Leonard Peltier lying down by a row of junked cars near the woods, rising up to fire, lying prone again.” [viii]  

Pinning down two Agents in an open field, firing down upon them with rifles until they are wounded and can’t defend themselves is pretty much what a civilized person would consider a cowardly act by Peltier and all the AIM members involved.

On November 14, 1975, while the fugitives from Jumping Bull were making their way north, Peltier was travelling in a motor home when stopped by an Oregon State Trooper. The individual in the front passenger seat, later identified as Peltier, was ordered to the ground. A shot was fired and distracted the trooper as Peltier “…sprang up and took off on the run toward the right-of-way fence along the highway” escaping into the woods, but not before the trooper swung his shotgun, fired, wounding Peltier in the shoulder. Peltier eventually made it to Canada.

Under the seat where Peltier sat in the motor home was a paper bag. Inside the paper bag was Agent Coler’s revolver. Found on the bag was a latent thumbprint of Leonard Peltier. This was part of the government’s strong circumstantial evidence connecting Peltier to Jumping Bull and the brutal slaying of Agents’ Coler and Williams, as well as evidence of his guilt and flight from justice.[ix]   

Also travelling in the motor home was AIM leader Dennis Banks, Anna Mae Aquash, a pregnant Kamook (Darlene) Nichols, and Nichols’ little girl, Tasina Wanblee.[x]

It’s important to note that during their flight north, Peltier confessed to the murders of Coler and Williams, punctuating it by holding up his hand in a defensive gesture stating, “The M….. F…. was begging for his life, but I shot him anyway.” This was very dangerous knowledge for the already suspected and threatened Anna Mae to learn, and in 2004, at the trial of Arlo Looking Cloud for the murder of Anna Mae, Nichols testified under oath about Peltier’s admission.[xi]  

It’s more than reasonable to believe that any decent and honest person would disagree that shooting two severely wounded human beings in the face at point-blank range with a high powered rifle makes Peltier a coward. [xii]

Back to the motor home:

So Peltier is nearly caught, lying on the ground while two women, one pregnant, and a child are again placed in jeopardy because of his actions. And what does he do? What he does best: he got up, concerned only about himself, and ran away like a frightened little girl.

No brave warrior here. None of that “…we gotta get those people out of here, man.”

Everyone is invited to add up all that Peltier has said about his own contrived bravery and compare it to his actions. Most reasonable people, considering the actual facts, not the folklore, would see his actions as cowardly. And they would be right.

There is more, but we’ll leave it here for the moment, except to comment that a recent Native American publication contained an article about various gatherings on February 6^th to recognize Peltier’s forty-year incarceration and demands for clemency. By most accounts the gatherings were small; there certainly weren’t thousands attending. What was notable, however, as it rehashed some Peltier myths: it never mentioned that he was allegedly innocent. That was likely not an inadvertent oversight.[xiii]

* * *

The clock and clemency:

Peltier is painfully aware that the clock is ticking and will stop dead sometime around noon on January 20^th. Parole is a distant hope; his next parole hearing is eight years away, leaving clemency or commutation as the last resort.[xiv]

The President likely would care less whether Peltier is or was a coward. The President has made it clear that his clemency efforts are directed toward long sentences for minor drug offenses and exclude crimes of violence. And that leaves Peltier out in the cold.

Clemency is no more viable than parole and Peltier will continue to serve the remainder of his consecutive life sentences for the brutal slaying of Jack Coler and Ron Williams. The myth and folklore surrounding Peltier are irrelevant, but the facts his supporters conveniently ignore, most certainly are.

“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”

Ed Woods

---

[i] Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings: My Life is My Sundance, (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999) 63.  “I would like to say with all sincerity—and with no disrespect—that I don’t consider myself and American citizen.”

[ii] Peltier, 43

[iii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pm1Ic9A4aU (last accessed 3/4/16)

[iv] Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse; The story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI’s war on the American Indian Movement. (New York: Penguin Books, 1991) 533.

[v] Incident at Oglala, The Leonard Peltier Story, (Carolco films 1988), Miramax Films release, 1992

[vi] http://noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#critical; http://noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#13; see both re

Angie Long Visitor.

[vii] Matthiessen, 161

[viii] Matthiessen, 156

[ix]  http://noparolepeltier.com/585.html  8^th Circuit Court decision: 2.Ontario, Oregon, A. Evidence of flight: “We hold that there was a sufficient number of such evidentiary manifestations to make evidence of flight and of resistance to arrest highly probative of consciousness of guilt, and hence guilt itself in this instance. First, Peltier fled the scene of the crime immediately after its commission. His actions in Oregon were a continuation of that immediate flight. Second, the motor home and station wagon were travelling arsenals linked by communication devices and code words designed for avoidance of arrest was significant of Peltier’s state of mind. Finally, and most important, evidence linking Peltier to the murders was discovered upon a search of the vehicle from which he fled. The presence in the motor home of Agent Coler’s revolver, in a bag having Peltier’s thumbprint on it, was one of the key pieces of evidence against Peltier.” (Emphasis added)

[x] Matthiessen, 249-251

[xi] http://www.noparolepeltier.com/usapressrelease.pdf  U.S. Department of Justice press release 8/21/09

[xii] http://noparolepeltier.com/585.html  8^th Circuit Court of Appeals, Direct Appeal. http://www.noparolepeltier.com/noon.html Image of the crime scene.

[xiii] http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/enewsletters/ictweeklymarch022016-163608

Indian Country Today Newsletter, March 2, 2016, page 8 (last accessed 3/4/16)

[xiv] http://noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#paroledenied 2009 Lewisburg parole hearing.

PELTIER: IT'S NOT ABOUT MASCOTS

Dear Supporters:

Before U.S.P. Coleman inmate #89637-132 gets too excited and giddy that his name was mentioned in a Huffington blog, let’s examine what the author, Jack Healy, didn’t say and why he’s selected the wrong person to promote his cause. (Footnote #1)

With all due respect to Mr. Healy’s lifelong quest for human rights, and notwithstanding his apparent disdain and bias towards the U.S. government, he has fallen prey, become a victim himself, to the perpetual mountain of myths, folklore, lies and fabrications that have festered around Peltier for the past four decades. His energy and intellect are woefully misplaced and promoting the myth, not the reality.

Most, and certainly not this writer, would argue against or fail to recognize the crippling history against First Americans. We can neither deny nor ignore what happened and that, as Mr. Healy points out (excluding the casino-rich tribes), the majority of Native Americans need and deserve our respect and support, not just for the injustices of the past but the condition many still find themselves in today. Pine Ridge being a glaring and shameful example. (Fn. 2)

But Mr. Healy calls for clemency for Peltier as if that would somehow heal the wounds and correct those historic wrongs. He could be no further from the truth and the heart of the matter as he shamefully references the deaths of FBI Agents Coler and Williams.

Mr. Healy alludes to Peltier’s trial and “…many legal flaws…” At least Mr. Healy didn’t pander the usual Peltier tripe of “Constitutional violations.” This case has been scrutinized perhaps to a greater extent than death-row inmates. “Legal flaws” may be a euphemistic pretense for Mr. Healy but he cannot ignore the scores of attorneys who have torn apart every crevice of his conviction, and except for one (ballistics) hearing (for which Peltier’s attorneys offered no contrary evidence, even though they had their own expert in the courtroom), Peltier’s conviction and sentence has withstood the legal test of time and never altered. Perhaps, Mr. Healey should invest the time and energy to understand the details of this case and not the mythology pandered by Peltier and his sycophants. (Fn. 3)

Without an ongoing dialogue—that this writer would welcome—there is no way of knowing exactly how much of the Peltier fables Mr. Healy has accepted as fact, but for illustration sake let’s assume he has accepted at least a good portion and provide just a handful of explicit examples to keep the record straight.

For example, Mr. Healy wrongly states “…even his extradition to the United States from Canada was based on premises that were actively manipulated by the federal authorities.” There were challenges and questions regarding the use of the Myrtle Poor Bear affidavits, however, that was not the only justification for Peltier’s extradition. Perhaps simply reading the crucial October 12, 1999 letter (a full twenty-four years--after--the murder of the agents) from the Minister of Justice to U.S. Attorney General, Janet Reno where it states, “As I indicated above, I have concluded that Mr. Peltier was lawfully extradited to the united States” will clarify the misinformation from the Peltier camp and spouted by Mr. Healy. (Fn. 4) 

Sophomorically referencing the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Black Panther Party (BPP) as “…dissident groups in the United States,” as Mr. Healy does, is to ignore the reality of the destruction and chaos these groups caused. They were never simply social protesters but gangland style thugs who left a wake of social disruption and sometimes murder in their wake. Ask the widows of the police officers that fell victim to the BPP and research the destruction, under the guise of Native Rights, that AIM befell on Wounded Knee II, destroying a village and terrifying the innocent residents. Ask too, the family of Perry Ray Robinson, an AIM victim, whether AIM was just a “dissident group.” Dig further as well into the other AIM related bodies still hidden and buried in the hills surrounding that leveled hamlet (Fn. 5)

Mr. Healy does not comprehend that a truly innocent person need not offer a list of alibis, contradictory at their core, to push his feigned innocence on the non-believers. His fabrications have been as transparent as glass, starting with the twenty-year-lie that someone they all knew, Mr. X., killed the agents. So pervasive was this falsehood that his biographer (Matthiessen; who admittedly didn’t really believe it from the beginning but ran with it anyway), to Redford who bought into it but didn’t have the courage to admit he was duped, but finally even his own attorney publicly admitted it. This cannot be brushed aside because it is a glaring example of the fissure, a widening crack, in Peltier’s “I did it for my people,” vacant character.

The list is endless but focusing on the recent admissions of guilt, how can anyone be accommodating to, or ignore someone who says, “And really, if necessary, I’d do it all over again, because it was the right thing to do. (February 6, 2010),” and “I don’t regret any of it for one minute. (September 12, 2014).”

Mr. Healy frames the Incident at Oglala as “…a shooting left two federal agents dead.”  Really, a shooting? Check the facts…Agents Coler and Williams were wantonly attacked, ambushed would be a better word, by a superior and violent force of AIM thugs. Outgunned and outnumbered they were first mortally wounded. There’s no doubt about how the incident started, we have Ron Williams’ own voice overheard by several people describing what was about to happen. That was the first part, but this is the scene within which Mr. Healy must frame his call for using Peltier in “a new era of peace.”

“I seen Joe when he pulled it out of the trunk and I look at him when he put it on, and he gave me a smile.” (Fn. 6)

So here’s Peltier, with two dead and mutilated federal agents at his feet as he accepts a smile from one of the other AIM shooters who’s stealing Jack Coler’s FBI jacket.

This is Mr. Healy’s cause célèbre for peace and healing and his way to “honor the memory of Agents Williams and Coler?”

Mr. Healy rhetorically asks “What does it mean for the families of FBI Agents Williams and Coler who died on the Pine Ridge Reservation?”

To accept Mr. Healy’s premise, to free Peltier, would be to dishonor their memory, their bravery and in a greater sense suggest—in real terms—that they died in vain.

Peltier is a panderer of his own heritage, he has adulterated and stolen all that is good about Native American history and culture and hides behind it like a thief in the night, or in this case a coward of Jumping Bull. Peltier is the last person to represent even a hint of reconciliation, for past wrongs against Native Americans, or the slightest hint of repentance for his own murderous actions that day at Pine Ridge.

Mr. Healy asks “What might we undo?” Perhaps we can undo a lot, but we cannot undo June 26, 1975.

The term “redskin” may be offensive but mascots are a whole other issue, and this isn’t about mascots. It’s about cold-blooded murder and an unrepentant sociopath who must continue to serve his sentence and pay his debt to society, no matter how that end may come.

“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”

Ed Woods

Footnotes:

1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-healey/without-reservations-supp_b_5835422.html (last accessed 9/23/14)

2) http://noparolepeltier.com/pine.html

3) http://noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#concise

4) http://noparolepeltier.com/canadaletter.html Further, “In my opinion, given the test for committal for extradition referred to above, the circumstantial evidence presented at the extradition hearing, taken alone, constituted sufficient evidence to justify Mr. Peltier’s committal on the two murder charges.” (Please read the entire letter.)

5) http://rezinate.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/under-dogs/

   http://americanindianmafia.com/

6) Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse; The story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI’s war on the American Indian Movement. (Penguin Books, 1992) 552.

June 26, 2010: Peltier's confused history...

Peltier’s June 26, 2010 statement asks what remains of his dwindling supporters (for those very few who even have American Indian roots) that they should never forget. “So don’t forget. Not ever,” he proclaims in yet another scamming metaphor as he continues to confuse and blur the correlation between a proud Native American history and his own criminal acts.

And, he uses the dreaded G-word yet again.

It’s not difficult to separate truth from falsehood. It is totally irresponsible to state that the United States pursued a policy of genocide toward the Indians, to cite the Washita as an example. The United States did not follow a policy of genocide; it did try to find a just solution to the Indian problem. The consistent idea was to civilize the Indians, incorporate them into the community, make them part of the melting pot. That it did not work, that it was foolish, conceited, even criminal, may be true, but that doesn’t turn a well-meant program into genocide (Stephen Ambrose).

Peltier prophetically and thankfully mentions two very important people in this saga, Anna Mae Aquash and Joe Stuntz.

Anna Mae is intoned by Peltier for one reason, and one reason only, to deflect guilt. Do we have to remind Peltier that her kidnapping and brutal rape and murder sits on the doorstep of the American Indian Movement? Anna Mae was suspected of being one of the “scouts” that Peltier erroneously compares to “an informant,” which has been proven not to be true. But AIM’s suspicions prevailed and without any benefit of a presumption of innocence she was sentenced to a horrible and demeaning death, and Peltier’s involvement will hopefully still come to light. That inquiry is still ongoing and her family anxiously awaits her final justice. AIM, on the other hand, was an abject failure, it accomplished nothing and only worsened the plight of those they allegedly claimed to help; the history of AIM is replete with examples.

Joe Stuntz, wearing a dead FBI agent’s jacket, was killed that June day while shooting at responding law enforcement.

Arguably one of the most important quotes of the entire Peltier matter comes from Peltier himself, and it is critical to place it in its factual context:

“I seen Joe when he pulled it out of the trunk and I looked at him when he put it on, and he gave me a smile (ITOSH p.552).”

For those with some common sense, picture this: There are two government sedans, Peltier, Stuntz, and others are gathered around stealing whatever they can from the vehicles. Stuntz grabs agent Jack Coler’s jacket from the trunk and puts it on, smiling. Laying in the dirt next to them are two dead FBI agents. Both had been first shot and wounded and then had their faces brutally blasted away at point-blank range, while one even begged for his life. Since they were both shot in the face, someone there had to actually touch them and roll them over to face the ground. (We won’t dignify that act by even suggesting counting coup.)

These are the actions of brave warriors? In 1975? Hardly.

No, these were the actions of cowards led by Leonard Peltier.

Peltier’s confusion about the facts of his own case and how it does not tie into the history of Native America, reinforces the notion of how Peltier thinks others perceive him. It is clear that his life at Lewisburg has taken its toll and allows much time to reflect about his actions that day. Perhaps in fleeting moments of honesty—if he is even capable of that, it’s certain he would have acted differently. But that’s an immense stretch, as he looks at the bloated figure in the metal mirror on the wall of his concrete cell.

We can thank Leonard Peltier for the reminder, and no, we won’t forget the cowards of Jumping Bull. Peltier can rehearse his confused rhetoric and practice his scamming technique for those who blindly follow. Followers who don’t have the stamina or insight to seek out and understand the facts surrounding his guilt while he shamefully continues to denigrate what is otherwise a proud culture and heritage.

Real Native America understands that. Leonard Peltier never will.

“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods

(Next Parole Reconsideration Hearing: July 2024)