Supporters of Leonard Peltier are calling on President Biden to grant clemency to the Indigenous leader and activist, who marked his 80th birthday behind bars on Thursday after nearly a half-century in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. The ailing Peltier, who uses a walker and has serious health conditions, including diabetes, has always maintained his innocence over the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His conviction was riddled with irregularities and prosecutorial misconduct, and he is considered to be the longest-serving political prisoner in the United States. For much of the last four years, Peltier has been held under near-total lockdown. For more on Peltier and the campaign to free him, we speak with Nick Tilsen, president of the NDN Collective, and two attorneys on Peltier’s legal defense team, Jenipher Jones and Moira Meltzer-Cohen.
Robert Redford narrates this documentary about the Pine Ridge Shootout on an Oglala Sioux reservation in South Dakota. On June 26, 1975, two FBI agents are searching for tribesman Leonard Peltier, wanted in connection with an assault. They are killed after coming under heavy fire, presumably from Peltier and his accomplices. However, proponents claim that the FBI botched the investigation by tampering with and suppressing evidence, and that Peltier’s imprisonment is a miscarriage of justice.
Watch this riveting documentary to become permanently disgusted with the US’s handling of Peltier’s case.
Incident at Oglala
“miscarriage of justice” is an understatement.