And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
LISN NEWS, INFORMATION & UPDATES {excerpted from}
Volume 2, #185 (11-19-99)
Statement About FBI Involvements On Pine Ridge Reservation: By
William F. Muldrow, Former Director [R/O-U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights]
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Leonard Peltier Freedom Month:
What's Happening in Washington, D.C.? [With Photos]
http://www.lisn.net
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Statement About FBI Involvements
On Pine Ridge Reservation:
P.O. Box 2462
Santa Fe, NM 87504
November 1, 1999
From:
William F. Muldrow
Former Director (Retired)
Rocky Mountain Regional Office
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I have been asked to make a statement with regard to F.B.I. involvements
on the Pine Ridge Reservation before and after the shooting of two
agents there in June 1975. The U.S. Commission on civil rights as an
independent, fact-finding agency of the Federal government, exercises
its responsibility to collect and study information related to the
denial of civil rights and make recommendations for corrective action.
A history of mistrust of the FBI for the traditional Indian people was
intensified during the period following the occupation of Wounded Knee
in 1973 when over 500 indictments resulted in dismissal or acquittal due
to spurious actions by the FBI. An unprecedented climate of fear and
terror gripped the Pine Ridge Reservation for the next three years, due
in large part to tensions between the more traditional Indians and those
who were more politically, or governmentally, oriented. These tensions
were exacerbated during the regime of tribal president Dick Wilson and
his vigilante, self-termed "goon squad." During this period there were
over 60 unsolved murders on the reservation for which the investigatory
responsibility lay with the FBI.
In one particular incident in Wanblee, a community on the reservation of
more traditional Indian people, members of the goon squad arrived to
shoot up the town, allegedly in retaliation for the community's
resistance to Wilson's policies. One person was killed. FBI agents
called to respond from their headquarters in Rapid City allowed the
shooting to continue the entire night, stating that they were an
investigatory, not an enforcement agency, thus heightening the
perception on the reservation that the FBI had no sympathy for
traditional Indian people.
It was in this climate of fear and tension in 1976 that the two FBI
agents, in unmarked cars and clad in civilian clothes, were shot in a
firefight. This occurred after they chased a pick-up truck into an
isolated homestead that contained an Indian family with small children,
and where there was a nearby encampment of American Indian Movement
activists. Joe Stuntz, an Indian in the compound, was also killed during
the shootout, but no charges or arrests were ever made in connection
with his death.
Following the shooting, the reservation was turned upside down by the
more than 300 combat-clad FBI agents, armored vehicles and helicopters
that were sent in to find the perpetrators. The Commission on Civil
Rights immediately began to receive calls from reservation residents
regarding abuses by the FBI. As a Civil Rights Analyst for the
Commission, I was sent up to observe and report on the happenings.
Terror reigned. Roadblocks were set up and all vehicles were stopped and
searched. There were reports of numerous incidents of isolated
farmhouses being surrounded by military vehicles, with a helicopter
overhead and the occupants ordered by megaphone to leave their homes.
More first-hand accounts told of agents with automatic weapons breaking
down doors to search houses without warrants.
In the period which followed Anna Mae Aquash, a Canadian citizen, who
was seen as a key witness, and who was allegedly threatened and abused
by the FBI, was found shot to death and her body dumped in a ravine. An
FBI-ordered autopsy failed to reveal the large bullet wound in the back
of her head, leading to more criticism of the FBI and their methods.
At the request of members of the Canadian parliament, who were upset
over the extradition of Leonard Peltier to the United States under a
false affidavit, and the alleged mistreatment of one of its citizens,
the Commission on Civil Rights sent me as their representative to Canada
to review the alleged abuses by the FBI that I have described above.
In memoranda to the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights reported that the FBI was an extraneous force on the
reservation whose agents often lacked any comprehensive understanding of
Indian culture or traditions. It was noted that the FBI's actions and
investigations were seen as biased, and were the source of much tension
and controversy. The Commission recommended that the FBI be relieved of
its responsibility to investigate felonies on the reservation. This
recommendation was never implemented.
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League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
LISN Web Site: http://www.lisn.net
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