The ambush occurred June 26, 1975, on the grassy Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Bullets fired from a raised plateau rained down on FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, who were searching for a robbery suspect named Jimmy Eagle.
“If you don’t get here quickly, we’re dead men!” Williams, 27, screamed into his FBI radio. Williams had been shot in the foot, side and arm, yet he crawled to Coler, 28, and used his own shirt as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding from a gaping wound that had nearly severed Coler’s arm. The firefight was one-sided: the agents got off a total of just five shots at their seven or more assailants, but their two cars alone were struck by 125 bullets. As the agents lay in the dust, the shooting stopped. But not for long.
An eyewitness later established that three assailants walked to the agents, who were then shot to death. A forensic reconstruction showed that Williams was executed with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle as he put his right hand against the muzzle in a fruitless gesture of self-defense; the bullet sliced through Williams’ hand, entered the center of his face and tore into his brain. Coler, who probably had lost consciousness, was killed by an AR-15 bullet fired through his jaw and into his head, also at close range.
In 1977, a federal jury convicted an American Indian Movement (AIM) member named Leonard Peltier of murdering the agents. At the time of the ambush, Peltier was a federal fugitive wanted for the attempted murder of an off-duty Milwaukee cop. Peltier, who was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, admitted in a 1991 interview with “60 Minutes” that he had fired at the FBI agents. Last year, in a CNN interview, he acknowledged for the first time that from a distance he had seen the agents’ bodies after the gunfight.
But Peltier, the only assailant who possessed an AR-15 that day, has always said he didn’t kill Williams and Coler. At times in recent years, he has said the fatal shots were fired by “Mr. X,” a person whom he cannot or will not identify. The alleged role of Mr. X is one of several key changes over the years in Peltier’s story.
What has not changed is that Peltier is as guilty as it gets. President Clinton, who said last month that he would consider clemency for Peltier, should leave him to rot in a federal prison.
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Of course, that would disappoint the bevy of celebrities–Robert Redford, Whoopi Goldberg and Desmond Tutu, to name a few–who have tried to portray Peltier as a martyr. Peltier is, to some, a cult figure, a victim of ethnic oppression and of an overly zealous FBI.
Peltier’s supporters point to what they see as serious flaws in the case, such as the fact that federal prosecutors couldn’t produce eyewitnesses to absolutely prove it was Peltier who fired the fatal bullets. But under federal law, Peltier was responsible regardless of whether he pulled the trigger, or whether he was a deeply involved accomplice. Because of his proven close proximity to Williams and Coler, his control of the AR-15 and other evidence, Peltier was found guilty of the murders.
It’s true that the prosecution’s case wasn’t perfect. The government was, for example, slow to give Peltier’s attorneys several documents related to early firearms testing. But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thoroughly examined those flaws and repeatedly rejected appeals from Peltier. What’s more, the U.S. Supreme Court has twice inspected and declined to hear his appeals. And Peltier has been rejected for parole, as recently as last June. Barring the unexpected discovery of new evidence–in 25 years, nothing that suggests Peltier is innocent has surfaced–it’s over.
Some of those now pleading for mercy talk less about Peltier’s porous claim of innocence than about a broader victimization of Native Americans by the U.S. government. The early 1970s were indeed a nervous time in which federal agencies viewed AIM, the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground with fear and disdain. The murders of Williams and Coler occurred two years after AIM led a 71-day seizure of Wounded Knee, a map dot on the same reservation where, in 1890, soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry slaughtered some 200 poorly armed Sioux men, women and children.
But the case of Leonard Peltier is not about righting societal wrongs. It is, instead, about two carefully calculated murders. The lame argument that Peltier should get a break because his people endured numerous raw deals is as foolish as suggesting that a ruthless killer of Irish, African or Jewish ancestry deserves clemency because he or she belongs to a group that has suffered painful discrimination.
There is no reason, let alone a compelling reason, for Clinton to consider clemency. Peltier deserves no greater show of mercy than that which he displayed as he blazed away with his assault rifle in 1975. Consider: While the assailants gathered up and removed some shell casings from the crime scene after their 10-minute attack, investigators later established that at least 114 shells found there came from Peltier’s busy AR-15.
Keeping Peltier locked up has become a fervent cause of FBI agents, hundreds of whom marched in silence, two by two, to the White House last Friday to pointedly ask that Special Agent Williams and Special Agent Coler never be forgotten. That said, the best reasons for Clinton to deny clemency have little to do with the fact that the two men assassinated in a shallow South Dakota valley were part of the FBI. The killings of 1975 would be just as reprehensible if the executioner had chosen victims who weren’t law enforcement officers.
As for Leonard Peltier, he is guilty of two cowardly murders. He has lost every appeal. He is jailed for life.
Case closed.