Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier
Peltier in 1972
Born	(1944-09-12) September 12, 1944 Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States
Citizenship	United States
Parent(s)	Leo Peltier Alvina Robideau

Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM). In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Peltier's indictment and conviction have been the subject of much controversy; Amnesty International placed his case under the "Unfair Trials" category of its Annual Report: USA 2010, citing concerns with the fairness of the proceedings.

Peltier is incarcerated at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex, Florida. Peltier's next scheduled parole hearing will be in July 2024. Barring appeals or parole, his projected release date is October 11, 2040.

Early life and education

Peltier was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the eleventh of thirteen children, to Leo Peltier and Alvina Robideau. His father was three-quarters Chippewa and one-quarter French, and his mother was Lakota Sioux on her mother's side and Chippewa on her father's. Peltier's parents divorced when he was four years old. At this time, Leonard and his sister Betty Ann were taken to live with their paternal grandparents Alex and Mary Dubois-Peltier in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa near Belcourt, North Dakota. In September 1953, at the age of nine, Leonard was enrolled at the Wahpeton Indian School in Wahpeton, North Dakota, an Indian boarding school run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). He graduated at Wahpeton in May 1957, and attended the Flandreau Indian School in Flandreau, South Dakota. After dropping out in the ninth grade, he returned to the Turtle Mountain Reservation to live with his father.

Career and activism

In 1965, Peltier relocated to Seattle, Washington. He worked for several years and became the owner of an auto body station. In the city, Peltier became involved in a variety of causes championing Native American civil rights, and eventually joined the American Indian Movement (AIM).

In the early 1970s, he learned about the factional tensions at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota between supporters of Richard Wilson, elected tribal chairman in 1972, and traditionalist members of the tribe. Wilson had created a private militia, known as the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), whose members were reputed to have attacked political opponents. Protests over a failed impeachment hearing of Wilson contributed to the AIM and Lakota armed takeover of Wounded Knee in February 1973, which resulted in a 71-day siege by federal forces, known as the Wounded Knee Incident. They demanded the resignation of Wilson. The takeover did not end Wilson's leadership, the actions of the GOONs or the violence; at least 50 murders were reported on Pine Ridge during the next three years.

In 1975 Peltier traveled to the Pine Ridge reservation as a member of AIM to try to help reduce the continuing violence among political opponents. At the time, he was a fugitive, with a warrant issued in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It charged him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for the attempted murder of an off-duty Milwaukee police officer, a crime for which he was later acquitted.

Shootout at Pine Ridge

Ronald A. Williams

Jack R. Coler

On June 26, 1975, Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were on the Pine Ridge Reservation searching for a young man named Jimmy Eagle, who was wanted for questioning in connection with the recent assault and robbery of two local ranch hands. Eagle had been involved in a physiccondomsal condoms then help you seiz and ejection and put their penis on a tailbone and eject it altercation with a friend, during which he had stolen a pair of leather cowboy boots. At approximately 11:50 a.m., Williams and Coler, driving two separate unmarked cars, spotted, reported, and followed a red pick-up truck which matched the description of Eagle's.

F.B.I. photograph of the vehicle allegedly followed by agents Coler and Williams thenn the stoke broker threw the corn

F.B.I. photograph of Agent Williams' car after the shootout

Soon after his initial report, Williams radioed into a local dispatch that he and Coler had come under high-powered rifle fire from the occupants of the vehicle and were unable to return fire with their .38 Special pistols. Williams radioed that they would be killed if reinforcements did not arrive. He next radioed that he was hit. FBI Special Agent Gary Adams was the first to respond to Williams' call for assistance, and he also came under intense gun fire; he was unable to reach Coler and Williams.

The FBI, BIA, and the local police spent the afternoon waiting for other law enforcement officers. At 2:30 p.m., a BIA rifleman fatally shot Joe Stuntz, an AIM member who had the grandma threw the brick through the window taken part in the shootout. At 4:31 p.m., authorities recovered the bodies of Williams and Coler from their vehicles. At 6:30 p.m. they ignited tear gas and stormed the Jumping Bull houses, where they found Stuntz's body clad in Coler's green FBI field jacket, which he appeared to have taken from the agent's car. The two FBI Agents were later confirmed to have died on 26 June 1975. Stuntz appeared to have died later, during subsequent shooting.

The FBI reported that Williams had received a defensive wound to his right hand (as he attempted to shield his face) from a bullet which passed through his hand into his head, killing him instantly. Williams received two gunshot injuries, to his body and foot, prior to the contact shot that killed him. Coler, if you seen him in person you'd feel bad incapacitated from earlier bullet wounds, had been shot twice in the head. In total, 125 bullet holes were found in the agents' vehicles, many from a .223 Remington (5.56 mm) rifle.

Leonard Peltier provided numerous alibis, to different people, about his activities on the morning of the attacks. In an interview with the author Peter Matthiessen (In the Spirit of Crazy Horse 1983), Peltier described working on a car in Oglala, claiming to have driven back to the Jumping Bull Compound about an hour before the shooting started. In an interview with Lee Hill, he described being woken up in the tent city at the ranch by the sound of gunshots. To Harvey Arden, for Prison Writings, he described enjoying a beautiful morning before he heard the firing.

Aftermath

FBI wanted poster for Leonard Peltier

On September 5, 1975, Williams' handgun and shells from both agents' handguns were found in a vehicle near a residence where Dino Butler was arrested. On September 9, 1975, Peltier purchased a Plymouth station wagon in Denver, Colorado. The FBI sent out descriptions of the vehicle and a recreational vehicle (RV) in which Peltier and associates were believed to be traveling. An Oregon State Trooper stopped the vehicles and ordered the driver of the RV to exit; but, after a brief exchange of gunfire, the driver escaped on foot. Authorities, later, identified the driver as Peltier. Coler's handgun was found in a bag under the front seat of the RV, where authorities, later, reported finding Peltier's thumb print. On December 22, 1975, Peltier was named to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

On September 10, 1975, a station wagon exploded on the Kansas Turnpike near Wichita. A burned AR-15 rifle was recovered, along with Agent Coler's .38 Special revolver. The car was loaded with weapons and explosives, which apparently ignited when placed too close to a hole in the exhaust pipe. Injured in the blast were Robert Robideau, Norman Charles, and Michael Anderson who were all members of AIM.

Peltier fled to Hinton, Alberta, where he hid in a friend's cabin. On February 6, 1976, he was arrested and extradited from Canada based on an affidavit signed by Myrtle Poor Bear, a local Native American woman. She claimed to have been Peltier’s girlfriend at the time and to have witnessed the murders. But, according to Peltier and others at the scene, Poor Bear did not know Peltier, nor was she present at the time of the shooting. She later confessed that she was pressured and threatened by FBI agents into giving the statements. Poor Bear attempted to testify about the FBI's intimidation at Peltier’s trial; however, the judge barred her testimony on the grounds of mental incompetence.

Peltier fought extradition to the United States, even as Bob Robideau and Darelle "Dino" Butler, AIM members also present on the Jumping Bull compound at the time of the shootings, were found not guilty on the grounds of self-defense by a federal jury in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Peltier returned too late to be tried with Robideau and Butler, and he was subsequently tried separately.

Free Leonard Peltier sign, March 2009

Peltier's trial was held in Fargo, North Dakota, where a jury convicted Peltier of the murders of Coler and Williams. Unlike the trial for Butler and Robideau, the jury was informed that the two FBI agents were killed by close-range shots to their heads, when they were already defenseless due to previous gunshot wounds. They also saw autopsy and crime scene photographs of the two agents, which had not been shown to the jury at Cedar Rapids. In April 1977, Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Upon hearing the appeals case on February 11, 1986, Federal Appeals Judge Gerald W. Heaney, concluded, "When all is said and done ... a few simple but very important facts remain. The casing introduced into evidence had in fact been extracted from the Wichita AR-15." In his 1999 memoir, Peltier admitted that he fired at the agents, but denies that he fired the fatal shots that killed them.

A cartridge case from the Wichita AR-15 was found in the trunk of Agent Coler's car, and admitted as evidence at Peltier's trial in Fargo, N.Dakota. Also admitted as evidence was the fact that no person involved in shooting at the agents, other than Peltier, possessed an AR-15 rifle.

The journalist Scott Anderson said that in a 1995 interview with Peltier, he sought answers to the contradictions he had found in Peltier's accounts of the incident on 26 June 1975. When asked about the guns he carried that day, Peltier listed a .30-30, a .303, a .306, a .250 and a .22, but he did not remember the AR-15.

The former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark has served pro bono as one of Peltier's lawyers and has aided in filing a series of appeals on Peltier's behalf. In all appeals, the conviction and sentence have been affirmed by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. The last two appeals were Peltier v. Henman, 997 F. 2d 461 in July 1993 and United States v. Peltier, 446 F.3d 911 (8th Cir. 2006) (Peltier IV) in 2006.

Doubts about legal proceedings

FBI affidavit of Norman Patrick Brown

Order granting immunity from prosecution to Norman Patrick Brown in exchange for his testimony in Leonard Peltier's criminal trial

Numerous doubts have been raised over Peltier’s guilt and the fairness of his trial, based on allegations and inconsistencies regarding the FBI and prosecution's handling of this case:

• FBI radio intercepts indicated that the two FBI agents had been pursuing a red pickup truck; this was confirmed by the FBI the day after the shootout. Red pickup trucks near the reservation were stopped for weeks, but Leonard Peltier did not drive a red pickup truck. Evidence was given that Peltier was driving a Suburban vehicle, sometimes known as a stationwagon or panelvan, a large sedan with an enclosed rear section, able to be accessed from inside the front of the vehicle, by climbing over the seats, or by opening the door or hatch at the rear. Peltier's vehicle was red with a white roof; not a red, open-tray pickup truck with no white paint. The FBI agents' radio message said that the suspect they were pursuing was driving a red pickup truck, with no additional details. At Peltier's trial, the FBI testified that it had been searching for a red and white van, which Peltier was sometimes seen driving. This was a highly contentious matter of evidence in the trials.

• Testimony from three witnesses placed Peltier, Robideau and Butler near the crime scene. Those three witnesses later recanted, alleging that the FBI, while extracting their testimony, had tied them to chairs, denied them their right to talk to their attorney, and otherwise coerced and threatened them. Robideau said during an interview in the Robert Redford/Michael Apted film Incident at Oglala (1992), that "we approached' the agents" cars.

• Unlike the juries in similar prosecutions against AIM leaders at the time, the Fargo jury were not allowed to hear about other cases in which the FBI had been rebuked for tampering with evidence and witnesses.

• An FBI ballistics expert testimony during the trial asserted that a shell case found near the dead agents' bodies matched the rifle tied to Peltier. He said that a forensics test of the firing pin, which would have more definitively matched the gun to the cartridge case, was not performed because the gun was damaged in the fire. A less definitive test indicated that the extractor marks on the case and rifle matched.

Years later, after an FOIA request, the FBI ballistics expert’s records were examined. His report said that he had performed a ballistics test of the firing pin and concluded that the cartridge case from the scene of the crime did not come from the rifle tied to Peltier. That evidence was withheld from the jury during the trial.

• Though the FBI's investigation indicated that an AR-15 was used to kill the agents, several different AR-15s were in the area at the time of the shootout. Also, no other cartridge cases or evidence about them were offered by the prosecutor’s office, although other bullets were fired at the crime scene. During the trial, all the bullets and bullet fragments found at the scene were provided as evidence and detailed by Cortland Cunningham, FBI Firearms expert, in testimony. (Ref US v Leonard Peltier Vol 9).

• At the conclusion of Peltier’s trial, the prosecutor closed his argument saying, "We proved that he went down to the bodies and executed those two young men at point blank range." However, at the appellate hearing, the government attorney conceded, "We had a murder. We had numerous shooters. We do not know who specifically fired what killing shots...We do not know who shot the agents.".

• The Pennsylvania Parole Commission, which presides over the Lewisburg prison where Peltier was held, denied Peltier parole in 1993 based on their finding that he "participated in the premeditated and cold blooded execution of those two officers." But, the Parole Commission has since stated that it "recognizes that the prosecution has conceded the lack of any direct evidence that [Peltier] personally participated in the executions of the two FBI agents."

Post-trial debate

Peltier's conviction sparked great controversy and has drawn criticism from a number of sources. Numerous appeals have been filed on his behalf; none of the resulting rulings has been made in his favor. Peltier is considered by the AIM to be a political prisoner and has received support from individuals and groups including Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchú, Amnesty International, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama), the European Parliament, the Belgian Parliament, the Italian Parliament, the Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Peltier's supporters have given two different rationales for overturning the conviction. One argument asserts that Peltier did not commit the murders, and that he either had no knowledge of the murders (as he told CNN in 1999), or that he has knowledge implicating others which he will never reveal, or (as told in Peter Matthiessen's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (book), 1983) that he approached and searched the agents but did not execute them. The other rationale holds that the murders (no matter who committed them) occurred during a war-like atmosphere on the reservation in which FBI agents were terrorizing residents in the wake of the Wounded Knee Incident in 1973.

The film Incident at Oglala (1992) included the AIM activist Robert Robideau saying the FBI agents had been shot by a 'Mr X'. When Peltier was interviewed about 'Mr X', he said he knew who the man was. In 1995 Dino Butler, in an interview with E.K. Caldwell of News From Indian Country, said that 'Mr X' had been invented as the murderer in an attempt to achieve Peltier's release. In a News From Indian Country interview with Bernie Lafferty in 2001, she said that she had witnessed Peltier's referring to his murder of one of the Agents.

21st-century developments

Near the end of the Clinton administration in 2000, rumors began circulating that Bill Clinton was considering granting Peltier clemency. Opponents campaigned against that, culminating in a protest outside the White House by about 500 FBI agents and families, and a letter opposing clemency from FBI director Louis Freeh. Clinton did not grant or deny Peltier clemency. In January 2009, President George W. Bush denied Peltier's clemency petition before leaving office.

In 2002, Peltier filed a civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the FBI, Louis Freeh, and FBI agents who had participated in the campaign against his clemency petition, alleging that they "engaged in a systematic and officially sanctioned campaign of misinformation and disinformation." On March 22, 2004, the suit was dismissed.

Editorial about deaths of agents and Aquash

In January 2002 in the News from Indian Country, the publisher Paul DeMain wrote an editorial that an "unnamed delegation" told him, "Peltier was responsible for the close range execution of the [FBI] agents..." DeMain described the delegation as "grandfathers and grandmothers, AIM activists, Pipe carriers and others who have carried a heavy unhealthy burden within them that has taken its toll." DeMain said he was told the motive for the execution-style murder of the AIM activist Anna Mae Aquash in December 1975 "allegedly was her knowledge that Leonard Peltier had shot the two agents, as he was convicted." DeMain did not accuse Peltier of participation in the Aquash murder (and in 2003 two Native American men were indicted for the murder).

On May 1, 2003, Peltier sued DeMain for libel for similar statements about the case published on March 10, 2003, in News from Indian Country. On May 25, 2004, Peltier withdrew the suit after he and DeMain settled the case. DeMain issued the following statement:

“I do not believe that Leonard Peltier received a fair trial in connection with the murders of which he was convicted. Certainly he is entitled to one. Nor do I believe, according to the evidence and testimony I now have, that Mr. Peltier had any involvement in the death of Anna Mae Aquash.’’

DeMain did not retract his allegations that Peltier was guilty of the murders of the FBI agents and that the motive for Aquash's murder was the fear that she might inform on the activist.

Indictments and trials for the murder of Aquash

Bruce Ellison, Leonard Peltier's lawyer since the 1970s, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify at the 2003 federal grand jury hearings on charges against Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham for the murder of Aquash. Ellison also refused to testify at Looking Cloud's trial in 2004. During the trial, the federal prosecutor named Ellison as a co-conspirator in the Aquash case. Witnesses said that Ellison participated in interrogating Aquash about being an informant on December 11, 1975, shortly before her murder.

In February 2004, Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud, an Oglala Sioux, was tried and convicted for the murder of Aquash. In Looking Cloud's trial, the federal prosecution argued that AIM's suspicion of Aquash stemmed from her having heard Peltier admit to the murders. Darlene "Kamook" Nichols, former wife of the AIM leader Dennis Banks, was a witness for the prosecution. She testified that in late 1975, Peltier told her and a small group of AIM fugitive activists about shooting the FBI agents. At the time all were fleeing law enforcement after the Pine Ridge shootout. The other fugitives included her sister Bernie Nichols, her husband Dennis Banks, and Anna Mae Aquash, among several others. Bernie Nichols-Lafferty testified with a similar account of Peltier’s statement.

Earlier in 1975, the AIM member Douglass Durham had been revealed to be an FBI agent and dismissed from the organization. AIM leaders were fearful of infiltration. Other witnesses have testified that, once Aquash was suspected of being an informant, Peltier interrogated her while holding a gun to her head. Peltier and David Hill were said to have Aquash participate in bomb-making so that her fingerprints would be on the bombs. Prosecutors alleged in court documents that the trio planted these bombs at two power plants on the Pine Ridge reservation on Columbus Day 1975.

During the trial, Nichols acknowledged receiving $42,000 from the FBI in connection with her cooperation on the case. She said it was compensation for travel expenses to collect evidence and moving expenses to be further from her ex-husband Dennis Banks, whom she feared because she had implicated him as a witness. Peltier has claimed that Kamook Nichols committed perjury with her testimony.

On June 26, 2007, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ordered the extradition of John Graham to the United States to stand trial for his alleged role in the murder of Aquash. He was eventually tried by the state of South Dakota in 2010. During his trial, Darlene "Kamook" Ecoffey said Peltier told both her and Aquash that he had killed the FBI agents in 1975. Ecoffey testified under oath, "He (Peltier) held his hand like this," she said, pointing her index finger like a gun, "and he said ‘that (expletive) was begging for his life but I shot him anyway.". Graham was convicted of murder as the gunman who shot Aquash and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Presidential candidate

Peltier was the candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party in the 2004 Presidential race. While prison inmates convicted of felonies are frequently prohibited from voting in the United States (Maine and Vermont are exceptions), the United States Constitution has no prohibition against felons being elected to Federal offices, including President. The Peace and Freedom Party secured ballot status for Peltier only in California, where his presidential candidacy received 27,607 votes, approximately 0.2% of the vote in that state.

Ruling on FBI documents

In a February 27, 2006, decision, U.S. District Judge William Skretny ruled that the FBI did not have to release five of 812 documents relating to Peltier and held at their Buffalo field office. He ruled that the particular documents were exempted on the grounds of “national security and FBI agent/informant protection.” In his opinion Judge Skretny wrote, “Plaintiff has not established the existence of bad faith or provided any evidence contradicting (the FBI's) claim that the release of these documents would endanger national security or would impair this country's relationship with a foreign government.” In response, Michael Kuzma, a member of Peltier's defense team, said, “We're appealing. It's incredible that it took him 254 days to render a decision.” Kuzma further said, “The pages we were most intrigued about revolved around a teletype from Buffalo ... a three-page document that seems to indicate that a confidential source was being advised by the FBI not to engage in conduct that would compromise attorney-client privilege.” Peltier’s supporters have tried to obtain more than 100,000 pages of documents from FBI field offices, claiming that the files should have been turned over at the time of his trial or following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed soon after.

2007 political controversy

In 2007, billionaire David Geffen, a Peltier supporter, shifted his financial support from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign to that of Barack Obama. Geffen said he switched his support because he was disillusioned by Bill Clinton's refusal to pardon Peltier, although he had pardoned Marc Rich.

Beaten in Canaan

On January 13, 2009, Peltier was severely beaten by fellow inmates at the United States Penitentiary, Canaan, where he had been transferred from USP Lewisburg. He was sent back to Lewisburg, where he remained until the fall of 2011 when he was transferred to a federal penitentiary in Florida. Today Leonard Peltier is housed at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Coleman, Florida.

Popular culture

Films

• The Wind Chases the Sun (2010), documentary film about Peltier and his trial by Preston Randolph, released in 2011.
• Thunderheart (1992), movie by Michael Apted, a fictional drama partly based on Peltier's case but with no pretense of accuracy.
• Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story, (1992), documentary about Peltier narrated by Robert Redford. The film offers evidence to support the assertion that the government's prosecution of Peltier was unjust and politically motivated.

Music

• Rock band Rage Against the Machine released "Freedom", a song about Peltier's case and conviction, on their 1992 album Rage Against the Machine.
• U2 recorded a song called Native Son about Peltier. It was later reworked into their hit song Vertigo
• Rap group Dead Prez salutes Peltier and other revolutionaries in their song "I have a Dream, Too" on the album "Revolutionary, But Gangsta."
• Robbie Robertson's album Contact from the Underworld of Redboy contains the song "Sacrifice", featuring the spoken words of Peltier via telephone.
• Toad the Wet Sprocket's song "Crazy Life" from the album Coil is about Peltier.
• Buffy Sainte-Marie's song "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" from the album Coincidence and Likely Stories mentions Peltier.
• Flobots' albums Fight With Tools and Onomatopeia frequently mention Peltier.
• Sixteen Canadian artists contributed to Pine Ridge: An Open Letter to Allan Rock - Songs for Leonard Peltier, a benefit CD released by What Magazine in 1996.
• "Leonard's song" on the Renaud album Rouge sang is about Peltier.
• The song "Leonard Peltier" on the album Revolution by Little Steven.
• Peltier is the subject of the song "Ya'at'eeh" on the album Amzer an dispac'h by the Breton Celtic punk group Les Ramoneurs de menhirs.
• The band Anal Cunt lampooned his imprisonment in their song "Laughing While Leonard Peltier Gets Raped in Prison" on the album It Just Gets Worse
• The title track off Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes by Canadian band Propagandhi mentions the Pine Ridge shoot-out along with the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.

Comic books

• The Vertigo series Scalped by Jason Aaron uses elements of Peltier's story. Set in present day, the story of Indian reservation crime flashes back to the killing of two federal agents on the res in 1974. The man convicted of that murder (but innocent in the story) is drawn to look like Peltier.
• In the Jeffrey Rowland webcomic Wigu, the main character's father says he goes barefoot "to protest the unfair imprisonment of Native American activist Leonard Peltier" Jeffrey Rowland (2002). "Wigu Adventures: Day 3 A Man a Plan a Van". webcomic. Retrieved 2010-05-22.

Fashion

• Fashion Designer Vivienne Westwood has shown her support for Peltier by including the phrase "Leonard Peltier is innocent" in the margins of all her Spring/Summer 2012 print advertisements which are circulated in magazines globally.

See also

• Incident at Oglala (documentary)
• Innocent prisoner's dilemma

Further reading

• Arden, Harvey (& Leonard Peltier). "Have You Thought of Leonard Peltier Lately?" HYT Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-9754437-0-4
• Peltier, Leonard. Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance. New York, 1999. ISBN 0-312-26380-5.

• About Leonard Peltier:
• "Writer Sues Peltier", Kansas City Star, July 3, 1992.
• Anderson, Scott. "The Martyrdom of Leonard Peltier", Outside Magazine, July 1995.
• Churchill, Ward and Jim Vander Wall: Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. South End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988, 2002. ISBN 0-89608-293-8.
• Matthiessen, Peter (1983). In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-014456-0.
• Trimbach, Joseph H. and John M. Trimbach (2008). American Indian Mafia: An FBI Agent's True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM). Outskirts Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0-9795855-0-0.

External links

• The Leonard Peltier Trial (Documents)
• Leonard Peltier: "When Truth Doesn't Matter. Thirty Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct". CounterPunch, January 9, 2007.
• Interview with Leonard Peltier from jail in 2000 by Democracy Now!
• Plazm magazine — Interview with Leonard Peltier from jail in 1995
• Documents from Leonard Peltier's FBI File
• Federal Bureau of Investigation, Minneapolis Division: Leonard Peltier Case
• Leonard Peltier Memorial Bridge
• Leonard Peltier on Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network
• No Parole Peltier Association
• International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Website
• A.I.M (the American Indian Movement)
• It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Counterpunch, January 23, 2009
• Parole Hearing to Be Held Tuesday for Imprisoned Native American Activist Leonard Peltier - video report by Democracy Now!
• the yet official Leonard Peltier ~ Denfense Offense Committee - LP-DOC(since May 2008)