Tonight on Full Circle, we raise our voices in the fight to free Leonard Peltier and all political prisoners!
Tonight’s show is “Letters For Leonard” and we will take your calls and shout-outs to free Leonard along with a letter writing campaign to urge President Obama to pardon Leonard before he leaves office this year.
On tonight’s show:
• We’ll speak with Samson Wolf of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and Lenny Foster spiritual adviser to Leonard.
• Also we hear from DJ Free Leonard and feature some of the music he has produced and collected in the fight for Leonard’s freedom.
• And we learn about other political prisoners and find out who has received a pardon from President Obama when we listen to a pair of commentaries from a current and a former apprentice.
President Obama would be ill-advised to grant clemency given these factual quotes:
“This story is true.”
Leonard Peltier, assuring his supporters that a mysterious Mr. X shot the FBI agents, with what his lawyer, Mike Kuzma, later admitted was a complete “concoction.”
“Peter, you put my life in jeopardy and you put the lives of my family in jeopardy by putting that bullshit in your books. Why didn’t you call me and ask me if it was true?”
Dean Butler, chastising Peter Matthiessen for including Peltier’s lone alibi, Mr. X, in his book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. An AIM member, David Hill, reportedly played the role of Mr. X in a video aired on American television.
“I seen Joe when he pulled it out of the trunk and I looked at him when he put it on, and he gave me a smile.”
Leonard Peltier, standing over the bodies of Jack Coler and Ronald Williams moments after their heads were blown off, commenting on Joe Stuntz wearing Jack Coler’s green FBI jacket taken from his car trunk, as quoted in Peter Matthiessen’s, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.
“I didn’t think nothing about it at the time: all I could think of was, We got to get out of here!”
Leonard Peltier, reacting to Joe Stuntz wearing Jack Coler’s jacket, from In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. Peltier could hear the chatter over the FBI car radio from other agents who were racing to the scene and attempting to re-establish contact with Agent Williams in response to his calls for help.
“The circumstantial evidence presented at the extradition hearing, taken alone [without the Poor Bear affidavits], constituted sufficient evidence to justify Mr. Peltier’s committal on the two murder charges.”
Anne McLellen, Canadian Minister of Justice, in a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, October 12, 1999.
“The two witnesses testified outside the presence of the jury that after their testimony at trial, they had been threatened by Peltier himself that if they did not return to court and testify that their earlier testimony had been induced by F.B.I. threats, their lives would be in danger.”
United States v. Peltier, 585 F. 2d 314, U.S. App. Decision September 14, 1978.
“This story that the government admitted they don’t know who shot the agents comes from an out-of-context quote from prosecutor Lynn Crooks. Let me tell you something. I know Lynn Crooks, and there is no one on the planet more convinced of Peltier’s guilt than Lynn Crooks.”
John M. Trimbach, American Indian Mafia
Mark Potter: “Did you fire at those agents, Coler and Williams?
Leonard Peltier: “I shot in their direction, yes.”
CNN interview, Oct 1999. Later in the interview, Peltier admits he left his firing position near a large tree and stood over the two dead agents.
“…I can’t tell the system I was shooting at their police officers that were trying to arrest me. They’ll hold that against me. I’ve got to be careful about that stuff.”
Leonard Peltier, 1995 interview with Native journalist Richard LaCourse, admitting that he mistakenly believed the FBI agents were there to arrest him. At the time, Peltier was a wanted fugitive under UFAP (unlawful flight to avoid prosecution) for the attempted murder of a police officer in Wisconsin. Agents Coler and Williams were looking for someone else when Peltier opened fire approximately 150 yards from the FBI cars and moved to a position approximately 200 yards away behind a large tree.
“When all is said and done, however, a few simple but very important facts remain. The casing introduced into evidence in fact had been extracted from the Wichita AR-15. This point was not disputed.”
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Feb 1986, finding of fact that the shell casing found at the murder scene was ejected from the AR-15 rifle carried by Leonard Peltier.
“The record as a whole leaves no doubt that the jury accepted the government’s theory that Peltier had personally killed the two agents, after they were seriously wounded, by shooting them at point blank range with an AR-15 rifle ….The critical evidence in support of this theory was a casing from a .223 caliber Remington cartridge recovered from the trunk of [the car of one of the murdered agents] … The district court, agreeing with the government’s theory … sentenced Peltier to two consecutive life sentences.”
United States v. Peltier, 800 F.2d 772, 772-73 (8th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 822, 108 S. Ct. 84, 98 L. Ed. 2d 46 (1987)
“There is no doubt that in June 1975 Leonard Peltier put a loaded gun in my mother’s mouth during one of her interrogations and that six months later, other members of the American Indian Movement carried out my mother’s torture, rape and murder. Leonard knows a lot about the people involved but even today, after all these years, he refuses to cooperate in the on-going murder investigation.”
Denise Maloney, daughter of AIM murder victim Anna Mae Pictou Aquash (Mi’kmaq)
“The motherf—er was begging for his life but I shot him anyway.”
Sworn testimony attributed to Leonard Peltier, boasting in the Marlon Brando motor home about shooting Ron Williams, as heard by Dennis Banks, Ka-Mook Banks, Bernie Lafferty, and (soon-to-be-murdered) Anna Mae Aquash. According to the autopsy report, Ronald Williams died with his right hand held up in front of his face; there were powder burns on his fingers.
“But in the end, while crossing back and forth over the issue of ‘without doubt,’ and crossing back again to wonder, it simply took a delegation of people who were tired of all the deceptions, lies and dangers to step forward and tell me the truth. ‘Peltier was responsible for the close range execution of the agents…’ and that was the end of that.“
Native journalist Paul DeMain, April 2, 2007, writing about “people who have agonized for years, grandfathers and grandmothers, AIM activists, Pipe carriers and others who have carried a heavy unhealthy burden within them that has taken its toll.”
“… the greater probability is that you yourself fired the fatal shots… It would be unjust to treat the slaying of these F.B.I. agents, while they lay wounded and helpless, as if your actions had been part of a gun battle. Neither the state of relations between Native American militants and law enforcement at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation prior to June 26, 1975, nor the exchanges of gunfire between individuals at the Jumping Bull Compound and the law enforcement agents who arrived there during the hours after Agents Coler and Williams were murdered, explains or mitigates the crimes you committed…Your release on parole would promote disrespect for the law in contravention of 18 U.S.C….”
Leonard Peltier’s 1993 Parole Board, commenting on his aiding and abetting conviction.
“For me it’s something very heroic that he’s done. He’s putting himself at risk, seriously at risk. I will say this: that this brother is a very strong brother. He is not a cold-blooded murderer. He is not a bad person, he’s very kind, generous and sincere.”
Leonard Peltier, 1991 Darrin Wood interview, describing the man who executed Ronald Williams and Jack Coler.