Leonard Peltier remains defiant, maintaining innocence and vowing continued activism
Graham Lee BrewerAssociated PressBELCOURT, N.D. — More than 50 years after a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation landed him in federal prison, Leonard Peltier remains defiant.He maintains his innocence in the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975 and sees his newfound freedom — the result of a commutation from former President Joe Biden — as the beginning of a new phase of his activism."I'm going to spend the rest of my life fighting for our people, because we ain't finished yet. We're still in danger," Peltier, now 80, said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press at his new home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, his tribal homeland in North Dakota, near the Canadian border.There among the rolling, often snow-covered hills, he will serve out the rest of his sentence on house arrest.Born into an era of violent hostility between the American government and Indigenous peoples, the former American Indian Movement member has now stepped into another politically volatile moment in the country. He said he understands well the threats the rise of the far right, as well as the federal government, pose to tribal nations and Indigenous peoples. He believes that, like previous administrations, President Donald Trump will come for mineral and oil on tribal lands."You don't have to get violent, you don't have to do nothing like that. Just get out there and stand up," he told AP this week, in his first sit-down conversation with a journalist in over 30 years. "We got to resist."
The FBI and Native American activists: A volatile mixPeltier was part of a movement in the late 1960s and 1970s that fought for Native American rights and tribal self-determination, sometimes occupying federal and tribal property.The movement grabbed headlines in 1973 when it took over the village of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge, leading to a 71-day standoff with federal agents. They also protested at Alcatraz and the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters. For many members of the American Indian Movement, or AIM, their activism was part of legacy of resistance stretching back to the country's founding.The day of the shootout came amid heightened tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation, where residents felt the FBI's heavy presence was a threat to the people's autonomy. Peltier and other AIM members got into a confrontation with agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams when the agents drove onto a rural property where the AIM members were staying. Both agents were shot and killed, along with Joseph Stuntz, another AIM member.The FBI says Peltier shot the agents at close range. In a letter sent to Biden last year opposing his release, former FBI director Christopher Wray called Peltier a "remorseless killer."His guilt is clear to many, including North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong."More than 20 federal judges upheld his conviction, and he was denied parole as recently as last July," Armstrong said in a statement to the AP. "There was no legal justification for his release. He should still be in prison."
Peltier was not pardoned; Biden said he was commuting Peltier's sentence because of his age, his declining health, and the long period he had already been in prison.Peltier has acknowledged he was at the shootout, but says he acted in self-defense and wasn't the one whose bullets killed the agents. He believes the FBI and prosecutors were looking for someone to take the blame, after his two co-defendants were exonerated for self-defense."They wanted revenge, and they didn't know who was responsible," Peltier told the AP from the kitchen table of his new home. "And they said 'Put the full weight of the American government on Leonard Peltier, we need a conviction.' And when they say that you don't have no rights," he said.Amnesty International and scores of political leaders around the world called Peltier a political prisoner of the U.S., questioning the fairness of his trial and conviction. James Reynolds, the former U.S. Attorney who oversaw Peltier's conviction, urged clemency in a letter to Biden in 2021, acknowledging that prosecutors couldn't prove Peltier fired the fatal shots and calling his imprisonment "unjust".His grandson, Cyrus Peltier, remembers visiting him every weekend at Leavenworth, a federal prison in Kansas. He didn't always understand why his grandfather wouldn't just tell the parole board he was sorry for the crimes, and hopefully win his freedom."And he would say 'Well, that's just not what I'm fighting for, grandson,'" Cyrus Peltier, now 39, recalled from his home in North Dakota this week. "'I'm sorry for what happened to those agents, but I'm not going to sit here and admit to something I didn't do. And if I have to die in here for that, I'm going to.'"A life behind bars, but always hope for freedomIn prison, Peltier's fame only grew, as he amassed the support of prominent political leaders around the globe and celebrities in the U.S. and became a symbol of the injustices against Native Americans.He said it was all their letters of support and acts of protest for his release that kept him going.Peltier said there were moments in the last few years where he began to lose hope that he would ever see freedom. His denial of parole in July was another crushing blow."They gave me the strength to stay alive and to know what I was in prison for," he said.
Many Indigenous people, leaders, and organizers lobbied for decades for Peltier's release.However, some who believe Peltier was involved in the murder of AIM member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash in 1975, fought against his release. Two other AIM members were convicted of the crime."Their ability to say that he is free and he gets to go home negates the whole fact that Anna Mae never got to go home," said Aquash's daughter, Denise Pictou Maloney.In his interview with the AP, Peltier denied having any knowledge of Aquash's death.'I didn't give my life for nothing'In the end, Biden listened to the counsel of former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to lead the Interior Department. Pelltier was released on Feb. 18, and returned to North Dakota.A week later, he still often wakes up at night terrified that it is all a dream and that he is still in a cell.Peltier remains confined to his home and nearby community. But he now has access to routine medical treatment for his many health issues, including an aortic aneurysm. He gets around with the help of a cane or a walker.He is heartened by the many people who come to visit him and drop off gifts like beaded medallions, letters and artwork, which are piling up in his home.Peltier wants to make a living selling his paintings, as he did in prison, and plans to write more books. He also wants to train young activists about the threats they will face.When he was in prison, lying in his bunk at night, he would often wonder if his protest efforts resulted in any change. Seeing young Native activists today continuing to fight for the same things gives meaning to the 49 years he was incarcerated."It makes me feel so good, man, it does," he said, holding back tears. "I'm thinking, well, I didn't give my life for nothing."AP reporter Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this report.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Survivors, victims' families tour Pulse nine years after mass shooting
For Marissa Delgado, the empty Pulse nightclub holds joyful memories of dancing with friends on Latin night and dark reminders of the worst moments of her life. This week, she plans to step into the shuttered club for the first time since the early hours of June 12, 2016 when an armed gunman stormed inside and started firing, killing 49 and injuring scores of others, including Delgado who still carries bullet and shrapnel inside her. Delgado sees the visit as a way to move forward and a chance to ease a bit of the immense grief, sadness and trauma that still weighs on her. But Monday, she admitted, she was still torn about her plans. 'It could help me,' she said. 'It could backtrack me. It could bring back a bad feeling,' she added. 'I don't know. I'm very scared.' The city of Orlando plans to demolish the club's building and erect a memorial on its site. But starting Wednesday afternoon and continuing this week it is offering families of those killed and survivors of the shooting a chance to see inside before the structure is torn down. The building has been closed and surrounded by a temporary memorial to the victims for years. Relatives of 24 of the 49 people killed plan to go inside starting late Wednesday as do about 70 survivors, city officials said, though they know some may decide once they arrive that they cannot go through the doors. The building has been cleaned and sanitized since the massacre nine years ago,but bullet holes still dot the inside walls. Portions of the walls have large holes where people tried to escape. There is no furniture inside, however, so the visitors will see only barren rooms. FBI agents trained with helping victims and survivors will accompany the tours. They will offer support and be able to show where the dance floor, the stage, the bar, the bathrooms — where some people were held hostage for hours — and the dressing rooms were located, said Donna Wyche, a mental health specialist for the city, who is helping to coordinate the tours. The agents also will be able to show visitors, if they ask, the exact spots where many of the victims fell. 'They may want to stand or be in the place where their loved one died,' Wyche said. The city is holding the tours — which are not open to the public — at the request ofvictims' families and survivors. 'It's not closure. But it is part of the journey of grief,' Wyche said Wednesday while standing outside of the Pulse building. 'We've heard them. We've listened to them. And they've said it very clearly: 'We want to see it one last time. We want to be in that sacred place, one more time.'' Christine Leinonen's son Christopher 'Drew' Leinonen, 32, and his boyfriend Juan Guerrero were both killed in the shooting. She is traveling from Polk County to Orlando for a late Wednesday afternoon visit. She has never been inside the club before and doesn't know what she expects to see or feel — but said she is determined go inside no matter what. 'I just want to see where my son took his last breath, where he bled to death,' Leinonen said. 'I owe it to him.' Leinonen said her son was shot nine times. Sometimes, she tries to imagine the pain he felt from the bullets, and the shock and terror as he lay helpless on the dance floor, waiting for aid that never came. She wants to see the last things he saw, she said, and breathe the air he breathed. 'I'm never going to actually know what he felt…but I have to get closer,' she said. 'I have to get close to my son's reality. I'm never going to get closure. I'm not trying to get closure.' About 250 people are expected to tour, many of them relatives but also friends or clergy members who victims and survivors have asked to accompany them. The city will have mental health counselors on site, too, to speak with any visitors who want that help. Delgado, 38, who lives in Clermont, has a friend going with her. She expects she'll hold her hand tightly during their tour Friday morning. Despite what she's faced, including hospital stays and countless therapy sessions, Pulse still sometimes also means 'great memories' when she thinks about about all the time she and friends danced and listened to music at the club on south Orange Avenue. Pulse was billed by its founders as 'the hottest gay bar in Orlando' but it was popular with a large crowd — gay and straight. The club's theme on the night of the shooting was Latin night, when Pulse became a crossroads of the Latino and gay communities. 'It had such a great vibe,' Delgado said. 'I remember how great everyone was.' Not all the survivors of the Pulse shooting want to go back inside. Leonel Melendez Jr. — who was shot multiple times and whose parents were told he might not survive his first days in the hospital — said he's not interested. Every year, he dreads mid-June, when he is reminded again of the worst night of his life. 'The whole thing just brings bad memories,' he said of the Pulse nightclub building. 'But I try not to feel sad. Pulse to me is like a cut, or a wound. I know that it happened. But with time, it heals.' he said. 'But the scar will always be there.' During the shooting, bullets tore through the back of his head and ripped apart his left leg. His good friend Javier Jorge-Reyes was killed. For two weeks, Melendez — 38 at the time — was in intensive care in critical condition. He was on a respirator for 10 days and endured several surgeries. His parents, Nicaraguan immigrants, still call it a milagro, a miracle, that he is alive. Today, Melendez can no longer hear out of one of his ears. And he struggles with physical pain and the emotional toll of the shooting. 'It's just very hard,' he said. 'It's a lot of mixed feelings, mixed emotions. Emotionally, it's very sad that my friend is no longer here.' Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer toured the building nine years ago, after the FBI, which investigated the shooting, turned the building back to the city. He visited again more recently. 'It's a very emotional thing. Each person is going to experience it, I suspect, very much differently,' he said. 'Nothing can bring those 49 back. Nothing can cure the mental anguish that so many people have gone through,' Dyer said. 'There are different phases of grief, and everybody experiences it somewhat differently. I would hope that a site visit would be helpful to some, but I would also hope that the completion of the memorial would help everybody,' he said, speaking to reporters outside the club Wednesday. Building a Pulse memorial has been a drawn-out, controversial affair. Orlando took over the effort in late 2023 after the collapse of the onePulse Foundation. A demolition date has not been set, but city officials said the entire building will be razed, though the iconic Pulse sign will likely be saved. The new memorial — now estimated to cost $12 million — should be built by the end of 2027. Early plans show a reflection pool where the club's dance floor stood. An 18-member citizens' advisory group that includes victims' families, survivors and others helped choose the design. Though there was eventual agreement, some members initially wanted to save the building. Joshua Hernandez, who survived the shooting, will travel to Orlando from his home in Puerto Rico this week but is still not sure if he is ready to step inside the Pulse building. Hernandez had just left the dance floor to go to the bathroom when the shooting started. He was shot in his left arm and in the stomach and lay on the floor for nearly three hours until police killed the gunman and rescued him. He was in the hospital for two weeks. 'Probably yes,' he said about taking the tour. 'It probably will help me heal. … But every day I have this on my mind. It's still like yesterday.' Hernandez is frustrated there is still no permanent memorial 'It's been nine years. I don't want it to be 20 years and still no memorial,' he said. 'I'm ready to finish this facet of my life.' Skyler Swisher of the Sentinel staff contributed to this story.


The Hill
16 minutes ago
- The Hill
More Americans see increased influence from religion in US: Gallup
More Americans said they see an increased influence from religion in the U.S., according to a new Gallup poll. The Wednesday poll found that 34 percent of respondents said they believe 'religion as a whole is increasing its influence on American life,' up 14 points from May 2024. In December, 35 percent said the same about religion, one point higher than the recent Gallup poll. Back in April, President Trump pledged that 'religion is coming back to America' after kicking off his first White House Easter Egg Roll since coming back to office 'We're bringing religion back in America. We're bringing a lot of things back, but religion is coming back to America. That's why you see the kind of numbers that you see, the spirit and the kind of numbers that you see,' the president said in April. In Wednesday's Gallup poll, 59 percent of respondents said they believe religion's influence is dropping, down 2 points from December. Two percent also said religion's influence is the 'same' while 5 percent had 'no opinion.' In February, a Pew Research Center survey found that a decline in the number of Americans who identify as Christian appeared to be slowing down following years of losses. The Gallup poll took place from May 1 to 18, featuring 1,003 people and plus or minus 4 percentage points as a margin of sampling error.


New York Post
16 minutes ago
- New York Post
MSNBC host tells Colbert that Trump has started to ‘f— around with the military'
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Tuesday that it felt different to have President Donald Trump 'f— around with the military' in his second term during an interview with late-night host Stephen Colbert. Wallace argued that there were no 'normal Republicans' in Trump's current administration and said 'what's different about Stephen Miller running the ICE raids, and running basically a siege of Los Angeles, is that there is no Mark Esper, Jim Mattis, and that's the big difference, and that is the danger.' Colbert then asked Wallace about the National Guard troops and the Marines that have been sent to Los Angeles to help quell the riots. 'We have seen Trump stretch his presidential powers over the last five months. Is this different?' 'It feels different, it feels different to, can we swear here?' she asked as Colbert said she could. 'To f— around with the military, it feels really different, and he wanted to the first time, but people like Mark Milley, people stopped him. It feels really different to use the military as pawns out loud and as a public tactic. That feels different to me.' A battalion of 700 U.S. Marines are mobilizing in Los Angeles to respond to anti-immigration enforcement riots, just days after Trump deployed the National Guard to the area as well. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded to criticism of Trump's actions on Tuesday, telling Fox News Digital that 'violent rioters in Los Angeles, enabled by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, have attacked American law enforcement, set cars on fire, and fueled lawless chaos.' On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said President Donald Trump 'f— around with the military' had a different feeling compared to what he has done throughout his time in office. Scott Kowalchyk/CBS 'President Trump rightfully stepped in to protect federal law enforcement officers. When Democrat leaders refuse to protect American citizens, President Trump will always step in,' she added. Colbert also asked Wallace about the state of the Democratic Party and asked the MSNBC host if they were 'in danger of an autocrat.' 'I don't know, and I think that, in politics, you are one leader away from a comeback, you're one moody character away from this unlikely hero. And so I think the Democratic Party hasn't rotted. I mean the Democratic Party has not corrupted itself, it hasn't turned on itself in the way that the Republican Party has. And I think the Democratic Party is one leader away from being something fresh and appealing to a majority of others again. I think the Republican Party is still heading down, down, down following Trump and his authoritarian ways,' she said. Wallace claims there are no 'normal Republicans' in Trump's current administration and that the difference is that with Stephen Miller running the ICE raids, it is basically running a siege in Los Angeles, California. AP Wallace previously made headlines earlier this year while covering Trump's address to Congress, during which the president made a 13-year-old cancer survivor, DJ Daniel, an honorary Secret Service agent. 'But I think this was a lesson in finding one thing that you let yourself feel,' Wallace said during her coverage of the address. 'And I let myself feel joy about DJ, and I hope he's alive for another, you know, 95 years, and I hope he lives the life he wants to live. He wants to be a cop. He knows what he wants to do, and maybe when you have childhood cancer, that crystallizes for you.' 'I hope he has a long life as a law enforcement officer,' she continued. 'But I hope he never has to defend the United States Capitol against Donald Trump's supporters, and if he does, I hope he isn't one of the six who loses his life to suicide, and I hope he isn't one who has to testify against the people who carried out acts of seditious conspiracy and then lived to see Donald Trump pardon those people.' The MSNBC host was criticized by Trump and the White House at the time.