It has been just over 31 years since two FBI agents were shot and killed on a South Dakota reservation while searching for a robbery suspect.  Their deaths lead to four arrests and one conviction — that of Leonard Peltier, the widely respected leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM).  

The combination of two dead FBI agents and a jailed cultural leader made this a fairly infamous case and, depending on whose side you listen to, Peltier is either a ruthless killer who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot an already wounded man from point blank range or an inspired leader wrongfully imprisoned because of the threat he posed.

Peter Matthiessen wrote a book about the incident entitled In the Spirit of Crazy Horse in which he described the history behind the shooting as well as the known facts of the case.  The arrest and subsequent prosecution of Peltier came to represent a people and their struggle to save their culture while merely surviving.  Matthiessen observed that “the ruthless persecution of Leonard Peltier had less to do with his own actions than with the underlying issues of history, racism, and economics, in particular Indian sovereignty claims and growing opposition to massive energy development on treaty lands and the dwindling reservations.”

Passion for these events still runs high years later, as seen in the petition on AIM’s current website and a CNN report from 2000, when Peltier was up for parole.  Louis Freeh of the FBI spoke of the crime’s “cold-blooded disregard for law and order” and how “the rule of law has continued to prevail over the emotion of the moment.”

Peltier, although saddened by the lives lost in the shooting, still professes his innocence and freely provides his thoughts on the subject:  “When you analyze this whole event of theirs, you are slapped in the face with the cold reality of racism.”

Looking back on injustices of the past is always easier than looking at those of the present, because…well, because they’re in the past.  Time and distance have softened the blows.  There is nothing to do except study them, acknowledge them, and vow not to make the same mistakes again.  

That is of course until the mistakes are repeated, leading to a period of acknowledgement and a vow not to make the same mistakes again.

We will never know whether or not Peltier is guilty of the crime he’s been convicted of unless somebody confesses.  We do know that where poverty and intolerance co-exist, crime will follow and things are not likely to get better from there.  

Individuals should not have to lose their lives to make the rest of us see what happens when these issues are ignored for too long.  One can hope that people from all walks of life learn from an occurrence like this, but that is still to be decided.

M R