Pine Ridge Reservation Deaths To Be Reinvestigated

by Charles Michael Ray NPR

AP In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement occupied the town of Wounded Knee, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. They were protesting the murder of an Oglala Lakota man and the failed impeachment of a tribal president that AIM members accused of corruption. The protests escalated into a deadly standoff that lasted 71 days.

 

August 18, 2012 from SDPB

 

In the late 1960s, Native Americans fed up with what they saw as years of mistreatment by the federal government formed an organization known as the American Indian Movement.

Founded in Minnesota, the group followed in the footsteps of the civil rights movement and took up protests across the country. One of those protests took place in 1973, when some AIM members occupied the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Their protest followed the murder of an Oglala Lakota man and the failed impeachment of a tribal president that AIM members accused of corruption. The protests escalated into a violent standoff with federal authorities.

The 71-day siege was only the beginning of turmoil on Pine Ridge. Local residents, such as AIM member Milo Yellowhair, say the violence continued for years.

"There had been a tremendous amount of carnage on the reservation [and] it was almost a daily occurrence, when people were disappearing or died or were found dead," Yellowhair says. "We always called it a 'reign of terror.' "

Federal Authority Distrusted

Yellowhair says the violence in the 1970s left behind a festering wound. Many on the Pine Ridge reservation think FBI officials backed the tribal police in carrying out assaults and murders against AIM supporters.

Today, widespread mistrust of the federal government continues, so much so that the Oglala Sioux Tribal Government recently asked U.S Attorney Brendan Johnson to look at 45 deaths that tribal officials believe have not seen justice. The cases include two unsolved execution-style murders in 1998. Johnson says he agreed to re-examine all 45 cases in question.

"Recognizing that it's very unusual for a U.S. attorney to go back and to agree to look at historic cases," Johnson says, "it's nonetheless important because it's part of the journey that we're on to continue to build trust in these communities."

Johnson says FBI officials also are dedicated to keeping Indian country safe and that he doesn't wish to tarnish the agency's reputation or current work with this new investigation. FBI officials wouldn't comment on tape, but say they're cooperating fully with the review and deny any involvement in crimes on Pine Ridge.

Skepticism On Both Sides

John Trimback is the son of a former Pine Ridge FBI agent and co-wrote the book American Indian Mafia. He says allegations against the FBI of wrongdoing on Pine Ridge are false and perpetrated by suspicious sources.

"It's from the people who were involved in the rapes and the murders and the assaults on the Pine Ridge reservation during that period," Trimback says. "I'm talking about, in general, the AIM leaders."

For their part, AIM leaders adamantly deny they were involved in crimes on Pine Ridge. AIM members such as 72-year-old Madonna Thunderhawk welcome the U.S attorney's review of these old cases but doubt justice will be served.

"I mean, come on, the U.S. government investigating itself, again. ... I'm skeptical," Thunderhawk says. "I'm glad it's happening [and] I'm going to sit here and watch."

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It's not only older AIM members who are watching.

On a recent day, a drum group on Pine Ridge played at the annual commemoration of a 1975 firefight known as the Incident at Oglala. It left two FBI agents and an AIM member dead. Most of the young men around the large drum are the grandchildren of those who were here in the 1970s. Among them is Robert Watters.

"Now their time is over and now it's our time to be doing these things," Watters says. "It's just history repeating itself; I'm following in my grandma's footsteps, what she taught me all these years growing up."

Johnson, the U.S. attorney, says he has no timeline for the results of the review. It's doubtful, though, that the findings will calm the debate over who is responsible for decades-old actions on Pine Ridge. Still, many on the reservation share in the U.S. attorney's hope that at the very least some sort of closure can be found.

Tribe Seeks Reopening of Inquiries in ’70s Deaths

Associated Press

In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement, who had tried to seize control of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, clashed with federal officers.

June 15, 2012 By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS New York Times

PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. — Forty years after the siege at Wounded Knee by members of the American Indian Movement, the Oglala Sioux tribe has demanded that the federal government reopen dozens of cases it says the F.B.I. may have mishandled decades ago. 

Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was among those killed on the reservation in the '70s.

Enlarge This Image

Johnny Sundby/Associated Press

Arlo Looking Cloud was one of two convicted of killing Anna Mae Pictou Aquash.

Enlarge This Image

Associated Press

Special Agents Jack R. Coler, left, and Ronald Williams of the F.B.I. were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. 

Tribal leaders say that as many as 75 people were killed on Pine Ridge during a three-year period of internecine violence that followed the 71-day Wounded Knee standoff with federal troops in 1973, a time that came to be known on the reservation as the “reign of terror.”

The federal government has declined so far to re-examine the cases.
The dead, many of whom were members of the American Indian Movement, or AIM, often had been shot or hacked, their bodies disposed of on remote parts of the reservation’s sprawling badlands.

“In many of these cases, the issue is not the lack of evidence and the attendant need for more,” the tribe wrote in a letter on May 23 to Brendan V. Johnson, the United States attorney for South Dakota. “Rather, in many cases the issue is the potential impropriety of those required to investigate and prosecute these deaths.” 

The tribe says it believes that at least 28 deaths required an official re-examination, in part, “to determine whether the cases were closed for legitimate and conclusive reasons, notwithstanding the potential criminal implication of federal agents.” 

The federal government, which has denied any role in the deaths, says most of them were not murders, but suicides, accidents or unintentional poisonings. 

“If there’s ever any new information on these deaths, the F.B.I. will of course take a look at that information,” said Kyle A. Loven, an F.B.I. spokesman. Absent that, he added, “the F.B.I. does not have any intention of reopening these cases just to reopen them.” 

But William Means, a former American Indian Movement leader, said that because the federal government has declined to make its case files public, relatives of the dead have been left in limbo.

“Justice is always important,” Mr. Means said. “The families have never had any type of explanation.” 

The early 1970s was a dark, confused time on Pine Ridge, reflecting the turmoil in much of the rest of the United States. On Pine Ridge, the American Indian Movement’s attempt to oust Richard A. Wilson, the tribal president, led to sporadic warfare between AIM members and the Guardians of the Oglala Nation, a paramilitary organization known as GOONs, organized by Mr. Wilson. 

The federal government was frequently forced into the role of peacemaker — and occasionally, combatant. At least two F.B.I. agents were among those killed at Pine Ridge during the violence, which was, at the time, propulsive. 

From 1973 to 1976, the homicide rate on Pine Ridge was 170 for every 100,000 people, according to the tribe. By comparison, Detroit, which was among the nation’s most violent big cities, had a rate of about 50 per 100,000 in 1974. 

An F.B.I. review in 2000 of 57 deaths during the era of the reign of terror concluded that many deaths deemed suspicious by the tribe had not been murders. Among them was the case of John S. Moore, an American Indian Movement supporter found in December 1974 with stab wounds to his face and neck. A coroner ruled the death a suicide, a decision the F.B.I. has not challenged. 

But Lisa R. Shellenberger, a lawyer for the tribe, said the 1975 murders of the F.B.I. agents on the reservation had “bred deep mistrust” between the Oglala Sioux and the F.B.I., which she says may have affected the quality of the original criminal investigations and colored subsequent inquiries. Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement member, was eventually convicted of the agents’ murders. 

The tribe’s recent list of 28 deaths include cases that span a period from the politically volatile 1970s to recent years, when the vast majority of homicides on Pine Ridge have been related to alcohol consumption. The reservation remains inundated by violent crime, with a rate at least five times higher than the national average. 

Tom Poor Bear, the tribe’s vice president, is among those whose lives have spanned Pine Ridge’s bloody eras: He was wounded on the reservation in the ’70s, shot in the head by people he describes as “political opponents.” Mr. Poor Bear did not report the shooting to the authorities, believing that crimes committed against AIM members would not be taken seriously by the F.B.I. or by the tribal government, which he says were closely aligned. Twenty-five years later, in 1999, his brother and a cousin were found beaten to death, a case the tribe wants reopened. “Our people are being murdered,” Mr. Poor Bear said, “and nothing is being done.” 

Among the other cases the tribe wants reopened is the 1975 death of Hilda R. Good Buffalo, another American Indian Movement supporter, who was discovered dead inside her home — also with a stab wound in her neck. According to the 2000 F.B.I. review of the case, investigators also found evidence that a fire had broken out in her house. Her death, the F.B.I. report said, had been caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, acute alcoholism “and other factors.” 

The next spring, in May 1976, Julia Pretty Hips, an American Indian Movement member, was found dead outside a Pine Ridge school. She died of pneumonia caused by carbon tetrachloride poisoning, according to the F.B.I. (Carbon tetrachloride was once commonly used for dry cleaning and in fire extinguishers, among other things.) 

In May 1975, Ben Sitting Up, another American Indian Movement member, was killed by a blow from a hatchet. But after federal agents identified a suspect, the killer “was not prosecuted because of impairment caused by a mental condition,” according to the F.B.I. case review. 

The F.B.I. however, has not disclosed the nature of the suspect’s impairment, why the suspect’s ability to stand trial was not left for a court to decide or whether the suspect was a threat to kill again.

Tribal leaders say the case of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a high-ranking American Indian Movement member, illustrates the sloppiness of death investigations on Pine Ridge. 

Ms. Aquash’s decomposing body was discovered in a field in 1976. A coroner ruled her death had been caused by exposure to the cold. But after Ms. Aquash’s family demanded a second autopsy, she was found to have been shot behind the left ear. It was not until 28 years later, in 2004, that the first of two men was convicted in her death. 

For years, rumors have swirled that Ms. Aquash’s killers had been federal agents. But in 2004, evidence showed the men had been American Indian Movement members who believed she was an F.B.I. informant.

SD court upholds conviction in 1975 AIM slaying

May 31, 2012 Associated Press

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) ­ The South Dakota Supreme
Court on Thursday upheld a Canadian man's murder
conviction and life sentence in the 1975 slaying
of a fellow American Indian Movement activist,
ruling that the state had jurisdiction to prosecute him.

John Graham was convicted in December 2010 of
taking part in the killing of Annie Mae Aquash.
Prosecutors said Graham and two other AIM
activists, Arlo Looking Cloud and Theda Clarke,
killed Aquash because they suspected she was a government informant.

Graham, a member of the Southern Tutchone tribe
in Canada's Yukon Territory, argued that the
government should not have been allowed to move
his case from federal to state court after his extradition to the U.S.

However, the state's highest court ruled
unanimously that the state had jurisdiction to
prosecute Graham and that prosecutors presented
sufficient evidence to convict him. Graham's
sentence of life in prison without parole also is
not grossly disproportionate to his crime, the justices said.

"Indeed, the evidence reflects that Graham was
involved in Aquash's initial kidnapping, in
ensuring that she was kept in captivity, in
transporting her to her place of death, and in
the ultimate shooting," Justice Steven Zinter wrote for the court.

Graham's lawyer, John R. Murphy of Rapid City,
said he and Graham are disappointed in the ruling
but will pursue secondary appeals.

"We are going to continue to pursue relief both
in the courts in the United States as well as
seeking to address certain matters regarding the
propriety of the extradition in Canada," Murphy said.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley was
traveling and not immediately available to comment on the ruling.

Aquash's body was found in a remote area in
southwest South Dakota in February 1976. She was
a member of the Mi'kmaq tribe of Novia Scotia.
Federal agents investigated the case for years
but didn't bring an indictment until March 2003,
when Denver police arrested Looking Cloud.

Looking Cloud was convicted in federal court of
first-degree murder in 2004 and sentenced to life
in prison. A federal judge signed an order in
August reducing Looking Cloud's sentence to 20 years.

Clark, who was never charged, died in October.

Graham was arrested in December 2003 in
Vancouver, British Columbia, on federal charges
in Aquash's killing. Two courts ruled that the
U.S. government lacked jurisdiction to try Graham
because he is not an American Indian. The case
was eventually moved to state court.

Graham was acquitted of premeditated murder in
the state trial, but was convicted of felony
murder and sentenced to life in prison without
parole. The felony murder charge alleged he was
involved in a killing while engaged in another felony, kidnapping.

Graham argued that the state lacked jurisdiction
to prosecute him for felony murder because he was
extradited from Canada on a different charge,
premeditated murder. He contended that his
conviction should be overturned and he should be
allowed to return to Canada to challenge his extradition.

But the Supreme Court said Canada consented in
February 2010 to Graham's prosecution for felony murder.

"Graham has not argued that Canada did or would
object to Graham's prosecution for felony murder.
On the contrary, the only record evidence
reflects Canada's express consent to the prosecution," the court said.

Graham also contended that several witness
statements should not have been allowed at his
trial, including those made by Looking Cloud
about an alleged 2002 telephone conversation
between Looking Cloud and Aquash's daughter,
Denise Maloney, in which Looking Cloud said
Graham shot Aquash with Looking Cloud and Clarke present.

Graham said Looking Cloud changed his story to negotiate a reduced sentence.

The Supreme Court said Looking Cloud's testimony
was admissible because it was consistent with his
prior statement to Maloney in the telephone call.

The appeal also questioned the inclusion of
another person's testimony about a conversation
in which Leonard Peltier ­ who is serving a life
sentence after being convicted in 1977 of
shooting two FBI agents ­ accused Aquash of being
an FBI informant. The Supreme Court said that
person's testimony was impermissible hearsay, but
that its inclusion in the trial was a harmless
error because it would not have affected the verdict.

AIM was founded in the late 1960s to protest the
U.S. government's treatment of Indians and to
demand the government honor its treaties with
Indian tribes. The group grabbed headlines in
1973 when it took over the village of Wounded
Knee on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, leading to a 71-day standoff with
federal agents that included the exchange of gunfire.

AIM Women's Leadership: Infiltration and stalking by US agents

Nov. 26, 2010

Women in the American Indian Movement share the stories of their lives

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

SAN FRANCISCO -- Women in the American Indian Movement shared stories of lives lived with great courage, as federal agents stalked them and attempted to intimidate them, during the AIM International Conference this week.
The AIM Women’s Leadership panel brought together five AIM women to share their life stories. Anne Begay, Navajo, was among them. Begay is the mother of Kathy Peltier, the daughter of Leonard Peltier.
Begay spoke of her Dine’ family, a medicine family of men and women medicine people, who provided her with a childhood of structure, rich with history and culture.
After returning from the Longest Walk in 1978, Begay took her daughter Kathy to the park one day. Her daughter was about two years old at the time.
“This gentleman sat down next to me, with shiny shoes.”

He began to question her.
“Who’s her father?”
“None of your business,” Begay told him. He persisted with his questions and referred to the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
He said, “Well, we know who you are. And if you’re smart, you’ll know what we did to Anna Mae can happen to your daughter too.”
“So, for all those years, it has been terrifying,“ Begay said, “to know that they can do that to my daughter.”
Speaking on the panel, Yvonne Swan, Colville from Washington State, spoke of being under government surveillance in the 1970s, because Leonard Peltier was her friend, and Bill Kunstler was her lawyer.
Swan spoke of learning to become aware of the men “with shiny shoes,” and men in suits, parked in unmarked cars. She trained her children to watch for these men, and once her son was grabbed by one of them, but was able to get away.
During her fight against corporate mining, she also watched for those federal agents that stalked members of the American Indian Movement.
“The government is merely a screen for the rich corporations,” Swan said. “They have the money to buy people off, they have the money to send people in to disrupt.
“But don’t ever underestimate the power of the people.”
Opening the panel discussion, Swan said the voices on the panel were coming from the hearts and spirits of the women.
“We’re survivors of abuse as women, as is Mother Earth, as is Grandmother Moon.”
Speaking of the importance of the American Indian Movement, Swan said she takes her actions seriously and holds herself accountable.
“We’re caretakers, we are up against the destroyers.”
“We are told to not take more than we need, because there are future generations that are coming that will be hungry.”
Swan pointed out that the Six Nations model of governance became the model for the US Bill of Rights. However, the US removed the aspects of the Six Nations governance that gave US women power and leadership. Ultimately, the US tortured and imprisoned women in the US as they fought for their right to vote.

Swan also pointed out the role of the Pope that resulted in American Indians being called “Savages.”
Madonna Thunderhawk, Lakota, said the struggles are intergenerational, the struggles for the “land, water, our people, the children.”
“The work continues, the struggle continues.”
Thunderhawk said she has continued to struggle since the 1960s in South Dakota, because this is what the movement taught her.
“I learned not to just sit back and complain.”
Thunderhawk said she appreciated seeing the youths present at the conference, and that Clyde Bellecourt’s talks always fire her up.
Corine Fairbanks of Santa Barbara, Calif., AIM, spoke of watching out for personal egos and those on Facebook who pose as traditional Indians, but are actually New Agers. Fairbanks also spoke of disruptions, with people carrying out the work of federal agents by spreading negative comments.
Speaking on infiltration, Fairbanks pointed out that even small groups of peace activities are targeted for infiltration by US agents.
Morning Star Gali, Pit River, born in the AIM Oakland house, said organizing within the movement has been an honor.
“For me, the movement was always grounded in a place of spirituality and love, that was the movement I was raised in.”
Morning Star spoke of bullying and abuse. She encouraged women to support one another.
“We’re survivors, we’re survivors of rape, we’re survivors of abuse.”
.

Watch this webcast, recorded live by Earthcycles. Women's panel begins at time: 1:54:00 on this video:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/11046674
Read about the case that led to Yvonne Swan Wanrow becoming a hero for women and Indian rights, in a case involving the sexual abuse of children:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Wanrow

Watch Parts II, III, IV and V
http://www.youtube.com/user/mihoaida