Free Leonard Peltier

September 13, 2019

Out of the blue yesterday Leonard Peltier popped into my head.  It was only during my internet search for a picture that I learned yesterday was Leonard’s 75 birthday.  For those unfamiliar, and there are far too many, Peltier is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa, who is also of Lakota and Dakota descent.  He is a long-time Native American activist – an early member of the American Indian Movement.

Against all odds, Leonard Peltier is still alive.  He continues to languish in United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida.  In 1977 Peltier was railroaded, 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 the June 26, 1975, shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 

There was no evidence against Peltier, and his two co-defendants were acquitted before his trial started.  Peltier was convicted by the FBI’s hand-picked racist judge. Other government misconduct during Peltier’s trial included coercion of witnesses, intentional use of false testimonies, hiding ballistics evidence, and manufacturing a murder weapon.  Despite this, Peltier has been consistently denied requests for a new trial.

Peltier has also struggled through numerous serious health problems during his incarceration, and was repeatedly denied appropriate medical care.

Peltier has been a model prisoner (at least since his brief escape in 1979) during his bogus incarceration, filling the role of elder for other Native prisoners and fighting for Native rights for those incarcerated.

Many questions remain about the case and Amnesty International placed Peltier’s case under the "Unfair Trials" category of its Annual Report: USA 2010.

I have been following Peltier’s situation pretty much since day one.  I twice wrote letters to then-president Barack Obama in support of Leonard’s clemency request.  I wrote two because I received no response whatsoever to the first.  Same with the second.  Thanks Obama.

I. Mangrey repeating.