Under increasing scrutiny to avenge their fallen brothers, the FBI fans out across the country and tracks down the Jumping Bull fugitives one by one. Through a combination of illegal searches, physical violence, and coerced confessions, the Bureau builds a circumstantial case against Dino Butler, Bob Robideau and Leonard Peltier, who are indicted on charges of first-degree murder around Thanksgiving in 1975. Only one of those men is not in custody at the time, and he is caravaning up the West Coast in an RV owned by actor Marlon Brando.
Under increasing scrutiny to avenge their fallen brothers, the FBI fans out across the country and tracks down the Jumping Bull fugitives one by one. Through a combination of illegal searches, physical violence, and coerced confessions, the Bureau builds a circumstantial case against Dino Butler, Bob Robideau and Leonard Peltier, who are indicted on charges of first-degree murder around Thanksgiving in 1975. Only one of those men is not in custody at the time, and he is caravaning up the West Coast in an RV owned by actor Marlon Brando.
S2 E10: DRAGNET
REPORTER
Actor Marlon Brando is the owner of a motorhome apprehended in a shootout involving two men believed to be American Indian Movement members wanted on federal fugitive warrants.
VO
Four months after the Oglala firefight, the police dragnet was finally closing in on Leonard Peltier whose location was traced to the Pacific Northwest based on intelligence received by the FBI.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving in 1975, Oregon state trooper Ken Griffiths stops a caravan suspected of transporting Leonard near the Idaho border. It was a night neither would ever forget.
REPORTER
An RV was confiscated Friday night after a gun battle between an Oregon state policeman and an occupant of a vehicle the policeman had stopped for questioning.
A shot was fired at the trooper before the motorhome drove off and crashed into a highway median.
Four passengers were arrested and two others, believed to be American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier, escaped on foot.
The FBI refused to comment on the alleged Brando connection.
VO
You’re listening to LEONARD—a podcast series about Leonard Peltier, one of the longest-serving political prisoners in American history. I’m Andrew Fuller.
And I’m Rory Owen Delaney. We’ve spent the last four years working to share Leonard’s story with a new generation of people: who he is, how he ended up behind bars, and why we believe he deserves to go free.
This is Season 2, Episode 10, Dragnet. In this chapter the FBI finally gets their man. Well, most of ‘em. Plus, Brando. Because, Brando.
When we left you in Episode 4, Sacrificed, the Bureau was ransacking Pine Ridge as part of their ResMurs investigation into the deaths of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams on June 26th, 1975 in Oglala, South Dakota.
Dave Tilsen was on the ground just days after the shootout working as a paralegal for WKLDOC, the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Offense Committee.
Dave Tilsen
The FBI were going all over looking for the people who had been at the Jumping Bulls because everybody fled. Several times we were called. Said, “Oh, there's helicopters landing at Edgar Bear Runner's house in Porcupine or other people's houses. And we'd go there and there'd be lots of FBI agents with weapons, and sometimes they had a search warrant, most of the time they didn't but searched anyway. It was really a siege and it was really a reign of terror.
VO
Milo Yellow Hair remembered the FBI siege vividly when we interviewed him in the summer of 2019 with Edgar Bear Runner.
On June 26th, Milo was attending college in Kansas and nowhere near Oglala, yet he was deported from Canada so he could be interrogated by the Feds.
Milo Yellow Hair
Then they flew me to North Dakota. They chained me to the floor of the airplane, right? Sat me down. Chained me down to the floor. I said, “What's going to happen if the airplane goes down?” “You're out of luck,” he says. [Laughter] Ahh. Shit.
VO
The Bureau presented Milo with a photo lineup featuring various persons of interest in their investigation.
Milo Yellow Hair
It looked like they were black and white photographs from probably like eighth grade graduations and maybe some kind of church doings, family photos, that kind of stuff, you know. And there is usually a series of them, but I hardly recognized any of them.
Milo Yellow Hair
I said, “I don't know nothing, sir. I'm a little ol' Mexican.” [Laughter] Nada.
Rory
Who were they trying to get you to identify?
Milo Yellow Hair
Everybody.
Rory
Leonard and all them?
Milo Yellow Hair
Leonard was in there. June.
VO
June being June Little, Chase Iron Eyes’s dad, who was living in a cabin on the Jumping Bull property the day of the shootout. In the weeks that followed the Bureau identified the Vietnam vet as one of approximately 30 suspects.
Everyone was under suspicion.
Milo Yellow Hair
It was a crazy time in the sense that you couldn't do anything without some FBI agent sticking a gun in your face or putting a warrant in your face. Wherever you went.
VO
It was a crazy time because with each passing day the Feds were growing increasingly desperate to revenge their fallen brothers.
They also wanted to curtail negative stories in the press about how a rag-tag group of American Indian Movement activists had outfoxed and humiliated 250 of the Bureau’s finest agents while the whole world was watching.
BIA agent Robert Ecoffey recalled the fever pitch to Michael Apted in his interview for the Peltier documentary Incident at Oglala.
Robert Ecoffey
I think it was probably pretty difficult for the FBI to come in after this killing because it was two of their own agents that got killed. And, you know, they really wanted to find the people responsible and put them in a difficult situation. But they had to -- had to do it.
VO
The US Commission on Civil Rights criticized the ResMurs investigation as an over-reaction which took on aspects of a vendetta. The accusation was denied by the FBI’s Norman Zigrossi.
Norman Zigrossi
It definitely was not a vendetta. When two of your people, FBI agents, get killed, and you’ve got to go out and investigate it, there’s emotion that runs high. And we tried to control that. We, management of the FBI that was on the scene, because that wouldn’t do anybody any good.
Norman Zigrossi
However, to say that there wasn’t high emotion, to say that we didn’t feel bad, and that you know revenge is not a good word, but to say that we didn’t want to solve that case wouldn’t be true because we did. There was an awful lot of interest, and a lot of dedication; a lot of agents that felt bad because they knew Cohler and Williams. But there certainly was not a vendetta.
Norman Zigrossi
All we could do was go with the facts, you know, we, in management, in the FBI, sensed the emotion and tried to diffuse it, and to get on with our job and do it as best we knew how. You put away the guns and you take out your pencils and you talk to people, and people tell you what happened. And that’s the best you can do.
VO
After lying low for a couple weeks in Porcupine at the ancestral home of the Bear Runners, Leonard Peltier, Dino Butler, Bob Robideau, Jean Roach and the rest of the AIMsters move back to Oglala, figuring it’s the last place the FBI would look for them.
Which sounds crazy all things considered, but Leonard’s group was anything but ordinary. They were on a mission.
Bob Robideau
We decided that the time had come for armed resistance against the oppression on Pine Ridge, and this time it wasn’t going to be no Wounded Knee.
VO
This is a recreation of Bob Robideau’s interview with author Peter Mathiessen.
Bob Robideau
We planned to take over the whole reservation, put in the traditional Oglala leaders, and those leaders agreed. A small group could handle it if it was done right, and we had accumulated about 30 people, which was enough to take out the police station, the courthouse – all the seats of authority. After that, we would set up roadblocks. That was going to happen as soon as we had sufficient arms and equipment.
VO
Back in 1991, Michael Apted asked Peltier about the weeks and months following the shootout. Peter Coyote reads for Leonard in this dramatization of their conversation.
Michael Apted
So you were on the run from June to the following February?
Leonard Peltier
Yeah. But again, as I’ve always, you know, stated before, and I should clarify it here, is that I really wasn't hiding. That was the thing. I mean, I was, but some of the people you can go interview, I’d drive right up to their house, go in the house, sit down, visit ‘em a few days, go downtown shopping.
Michael Apted
But why? Why were you behaving like that?
Leonard Peltier
Because I wasn’t really afraid, ‘cause I know in my heart I wasn’t – I wasn’t guilty of anything.
[MUSIC UP]
Leonard Peltier
I mean, I’d already been hearing reports that we were thugs and terrorists and massacred some people, you know. By that time stories got blown out of proportion that we had supposedly scalped them and mutilated their bodies and stuff. But when you don’t have any guilt in you, you’re not really afraid.
VO
After the break, the FBI makes their move.
ADVOCACY BREAK
This is filmmaker Preston Randolph, and you are listening to Leonard, a podcast series about America’s longest serving political prisoner. Leonard’s conviction and incarceration are an egregious stain on our country and our Constitution. I have worked on Leonard’s case in many different facets for over 12 years, staying in close contact with him the entire time. Leonard has become a close friend and it haunts me every day knowing that he’s still in prison. As a filmmaker my projects are greatly influenced by my experiences fighting for Leonard. My upcoming documentary film ALL WE’VE LOST exposes another wrongful imprisonment case riddled with similar themes of prosecutorial misconduct and interrogation coercion by law enforcement. I have found that what seems so appalling in cases like these happens far more often than we are willing to believe. We must demand change. And it must start with Leonard. To all those listening please continue to share Leonard’s case and expose this injustice to the masses in any way you possibly can. Call your representatives. Call the Secretary of the Interior. Call the Attorney General. And call President Biden. Let’s create a groundswell of noise that shakes the very foundation of the White House with the resounding message: We, the people, demand the immediate release of Leonard Peltier. Thank you for listening to LEONARD.
VO
Thirteen days after the firefight in Oglala, Jimmy Eagle, the Lakota man Agents Coler and Williams allegedly pursued onto the Jumping Bull ranch in connection with a stolen pair of cowboy boots, turns himself in in Rapid City where he is held on $25,000 bail.
On July 28th, 1975, Eagle is the first ResMurs suspect to be charged with murder in the first degree. The FBI’s other main suspects are still at large on the neighboring Rosebud Reservation where they’re assisting medicine man Leonard Crow Dog with preparations for the annual Sundance.
Nilak Butler
Leonard Peltier really danced that year. He really sacrificed for our people hard.
VO
That’s Dino Butler’s wife, Nilak, recalling Crow Dog’s sundance that summer, in a dramatization of her conversation with Peter Mathiessen.
Nilak Butler
We were together as a group in that kind of way – in ceremony and in prayer – really strong. That feeling of family was just so tight.
VO
While the AIMsters give thanks to the Creator, Wakan Tanka, for saving their lives, they are being watched.
On August 1st, an FBI informant reports that Leonard Peltier is sundancing at Crow Dog’s Paradise on the Rosebud Reservation with approximately 300 others.
Instead of immediately swooping in on the religious ceremony, the Bureau displays caution and holds off on making any arrests out of fear of provoking another gun battle.
While the Feds bide their time, the AIMsters reach a group decision.
Nilak Butler
It was at that time that Dennis decided to go underground, so we thought we’d all just go together.
Bob Robideau
Dennis had told the court that he’d show up for sentencing the morning after the sun dance, but he decided against it.
VO
Dennis Banks was due back in court in Custer for sentencing following his conviction on charges stemming from the Custer Riot in 1973.
On August 5th, 1975, Dennis skips court and becomes a federal fugitive.
Bob Robideau
They issued a warrant for his arrest, and that same night, I remember there was a big lightning storm, lit up the night sky, and it seemed like some kind of a sign that nobody knew how to read.
VO
One month later, Lakota holy man, Chief Frank Fools Crow travels to Washington, DC, to deliver the opening prayer in the United States Senate at the invitation of South Dakota senators James Abourezk and George McGovern.
Fools Crow was a leader of the traditional faction during the standoff at Wounded Knee in 1973 as well as a nephew of Black Elk, a second cousin to Crazy Horse who fought alongside the war leader in the Battle of Little Bighorn.
On September 5th, 1975, Chief Fools Crow offers the following prayer in Lakota.
Fools Crow
On this day, on this Great Island, that Great Spirit, Grandfather, Upon which I stand, I make this prayer to You. For those of us who are in this house, give us a blessing so that our words and actions be one in unity. And that we be able to listen to each other. And that we understand each other. In so doing, we shall with good heart walk hand in hand to face the future. This is what I want for all of us.
Fools Crow
For this reason, Grandfather, the Great Spirit Father, the Great Spirit, and Grandmother, I make this thanksgiving prayer. You give me this sacred pipe with which I pray to say thank you. So be it. In the presence of the outside, we are thankful with many blessings.
I make my prayer for all people– The children, the women, and the men. I pray that no harm will come to them. And on this Great Island that there be no war, that there be no ill feelings amongst one another. From this day on, may we walk hand in hand. So it be.
VO
While Chief Fools Crow prays, the FBI descends on the Rosebud Res, deploying more than 185 agents in an air-land-and-river operation on Crow Dog’s Paradise and the surrounding properties.
Dino Butler was caught up in the sweep and described it to Michael Apted back in 1990.
Dino Butler
Me and Nilak was in this little cabin out behind Al Running’s place.
VO
Al Running was Leonard Crow Dog’s brother-in-law and neighbor.
Dino Butler
And it was just breaking daylight, and we heard this helicopter. And that’s what woke me up, I heard the helicopter. I jumped up, and I seen all these cars just coming into Al Running’s driveway. So I hollered at Nilak to get up, get dressed, and I said that something’s happening, you know.
So Nilak, you gotta know her to really understand this, but she takes a long time to wake up in the morning. And that morning was no different for her. And by the time she got up and started getting dressed, they were already there and they had us, you know.
So I just walked out in front of them to give Nilak more time to get dressed. Because I know how they are, once they come in they don’t care what – how you’re dressed or anything, you know.
So I just stepped out like that, and they told me to lay down on the ground, so I knelt down. And they asked me if anybody else was in the house, and I told ‘em yeah – Nilak.
So I asked her to come out, and she came out and sat down beside me.
There must have been about thirty or forty agents there at Al Running’s place, and there were at least that many more up there at Crow Dog’s, you know. And they were all in fatigues, camied fatigues, and they had their automatic weapons and shotguns.
And there was a – a great big helicopter, and there was a man sitting in – in the middle of the helicopter. The doors were open and he was just sitting there with some kind of gun, just ready for whatever, you know, watching everybody as they came in and tore everything up.
VO
Norman Brown recalled a similar scene to Peter Mathiessen. This is a recreation of part of their conversation.
Norman Brown
These FBI agents came in like they were in Vietnam or something. I was sleeping and somebody called, “Come out with your hands up, this is the FBI.” So we all did. The one who grabbed my hair said, “All right, motherfucker, lay down.” So I laid down and they searched me and they put an M-16 to my head.
Norman Brown
They brought Leonard Crow Dog out and he had nothing on. They wouldn’t let him put on his clothes.
Nilak Butler
I remember Henry Crow Dog, Leonard’s father – he was already an old man then, and he comes over to a bunch of Feds, very quiet, you know, and draws a circle in the dust in front of them and then draws a line right through the middle. This is you with your guns over on this side, he tells them, and this is us over here with our sacred pipe. And then he’s quiet some more while they just stare at him. The circle is turning, he says after a while, and walks away, and all their mouths are just hanging open.
VO
Anna Mae Aquash got caught up in the fray too.
Aquash was a First Nations activist from Canada, who moved to Boston in the 60s and became deeply involved in the American Indian Movement by the end of the decade.
In 1973 our consulting producer Kevin McKiernan met Aquash while covering the Wounded Knee Standoff as a freelance journalist for NPR and the New York Times.
Kevin McKiernan
Well, it turned out that, um, my roommate was Anna Mae Aquash, the woman from the MikMak tribe in Nova Scotia and her fiance. And I say roommate – we slept in the same patch of floor inside a trailer – and so that was only by happenstance that we ended up in the same place.
VO
Kevin was there with his camera when Anna Mae tied the knot during America’s longest standing civil disorder in a native ceremony performed by Wallace Black Elk.
A little over two years later, investigators wanted to know why Anna Mae’s fingerprints had been recovered from the Jumping Bull crime scene. That’s why she was one of the first to be hauled away on September 5th, 1975.
Dino Butler
All the agents that had been working on this case since the shootout, they were at Crow Dog’s. So all those agents that knew us by sight; that’s where they were.
VO
The Bureau sent their best people to Crow Dog’s and the J.V. team to Al Running’s.
Dino Butler
All the agents that were doing that raid at Al Running’s, they weren’t familiar with my picture or who I was or anything like that. When they asked me for ID, I pulled out a driver’s license, I think it was Robert Noble. And I gave it to them. So they arrested me, and they found a .45 on me, and they took that. Put the handcuffs on me, and had me sitting in the back of this car.
VO
After weapons and explosives were discovered at Al Running’s, the more experienced agents converged on the property, and the jig was up.
Dino Butler
As soon as they came in there, well, this one agent was walking by the car, and he looked in at me like that, “That’s Dino Butler. Did he have a gun?” And they say, “Yeah, he had a loaded .45.” And he said, “Well, you should have killed the son of a bitch right there.” He said, “He shouldn’t be sitting in our car.” And then just walked away.
VO
If the FBI’s varsity squad had started at Al Running’s that morning, he might not have lived to tell the tale. Dino Butler recreated from the Apted archives again.
Dino Butler
After everything got all settled around there and they were starting to take me out of these, well, they had me in the handcuffs in the back, and this one agent came walking up, “You guys leaving now?” “Yeah, I’m going – going back to Pierre.” And he said, “Well, only three of you guys are going to get back there, right?” He says, “Yeah.” He says, “Well, don’t leave no marks on the body.”
And then they laughed a little bit, and then we drove out. And I really thought that they were going to kill me. I already accepted that, that I was going to die. It’s – it’s a funny feeling, you know. Ain’t nothing you can do about it except accept it. But when we left Al Running’s that morning I figured that was my last day.
VO
During the two hour drive to the state capital, agents offer to place Dino and his family in the witness relocation program in exchange for his cooperation in the ResMurs investigation. Butler entertains the idea to buy time.
Dino Butler
I kept acting like I was interested, and wanting to know more, you know. So pretty soon we was in Pierre. We went up to the top – top floor there, and we went into a room there. And I just refused to cooperate then because I felt – I felt safe. And they just went from bad to worse then. I mean, they went so far as to draw me over to the window and pushed my head out the window and threatened to drop me if I didn’t cooperate.
This one agent pulled out his gun and stuck it to my head like that, you know. Kind of laughed and put it back in his holster, you know. And that went on for about four or five hours. Finally they just got disgusted with me.
The last thing they told me when they walked out was, “Dino Butler, you’re nothing but a worthless scum bag, and I promise you that someday I am going to shoot you. And I am going to blow your fucking head off.” They turned around and walked out of the room.
They took me out and I seen Annie Mae. She was sitting out there, and she smiled at me and I smiled back at her. And they threw me in the holding tank. Crow Dog and the others that were arrested were there, too. Crow Dog told me, “Not to worry, nephew, everything is going to be alright. Just remain strong.” And he rolled up a cigarette and he says, “I want you to pray with me. I want all my brothers in here to pray with us.” So we all sat down and we prayed.
VO
The Rosebud raid snared Leonard Crow Dog, Anna Mae Aquash, and Dino Butler, among others, but Bob Robideau missed it by minutes. This is how he explained his good fortune.
Bob Robideau
Kamook felt uncomfortable at Al Running’s, just uneasy somehow, and I was always one to respect that kind of feeling.
VO
Kamook being Kamook Nichols, Dennis Banks’s wife at the time.
Bob Robideau
So I moved ten or fifteen miles away, over there near Parmelee, and set up tents back in the hills. Maybe three days later, when me and Bernie visited Dino and Nilak and Anna Mae, they were ready to join us.
In fact, Anna Mae wanted to take off that night. We talked for about twenty minutes, and finally she said she would wait and go with the Butlers in the morning. That was the last time I ever saw her.
Next morning I went into Rosebud, trying to reach Leonard or Dennis on the phone. Then we went by Running’s to pick those people up. And we saw a whole lot of action in there, and Bernie says, “Hey! Those are Feds!” I kept right on driving by, and the farther I went, the faster I drove.
VO
Along for the ride that day were sisters Bernie and Kamook Nichols, as well as Jean Roach, Norman Charles and Mike Anderson, who were among the teenagers in the AIM escape party on June 26th.
As Bob drives, a plan emerges to stay with Kamook’s aunt in Oklahoma until things cool off. But their luck runs out on September 10th due to some gnarly car trouble.
Although the ‘64 Merc is in good shape when they leave Rosebud, back country roads claim the station wagon’s muffler after they hit a deep rut. Robideau tries to MacGyver their problem with a store bought clamp, but complications ensue.
Bob Robideau
Somehow I got her pointed up instead of out. So we’re back on the Kansas Turnpike, headed south again for the Territory, when Baby AIM yells, “Hey, it’s smoking back here!”
Kamook Nichols
Bob was going like 65, and he was trying to stop, and there was Bob and my sister and then myself and Mike and Jean and Norman Charles.
VO
This is a dramatization of Kamook’s interview for Incident at Oglala.
Kamook Nichols
So he pulled off on the side, and before he even stopped I had the door open, and I was ready to jump out. I remember having one boot – I don’t know why – but I had on one boot, and that's how I jumped out the door.
Bob Robideau
I ordered everyone out, then ran back and looked underneath, and just then the first explosion went, blew asphalt into my eyes as I rolled away and landed on my stomach in the ditch. I thought I was gone for sure until I realized that my brain had kept on working.
Kamook Nichols
So I had my oldest daughter, and she was – she was a year old. And when we jumped out, here I started running toward the front of the car, and everybody ran towards the ditch. And then I heard a big explosion, and when I turned the whole top of the car just like someone opening it with a can opener, the whole roof just went straight up in the air.
And then bullets were shooting all over. It was kind of scary. But just before all that happened, here I was carrying my daughter, and for no reason I passed her to my sister, and just as I did, the shrapnel hit me in the arm right where I was carrying her. And it didn’t hurt. I don’t remember it hurting. I think I was more scared because we couldn’t make it stop bleeding. It was like a waterfall. It just kept squirting out.
Bob Robideau
So I said, “Let’s go.” And waved everybody over the fence into the field, and we started running. We get in there three or four hundred yards, and we see an old man on a farm road who has stopped to look.
Kamook had a bad cut on her arm from flying shrapnel, and as for me, I couldn’t hardly see at all, so I asked the old man to take us to the hospital. Mainly I wanted to put as much distance as possible, and fast, between us and that white car, which was going up in multiple explosions. Small blasts first – that was the ammunition – then a big one when the gas tank blew and rolled the roof back. Then fire everywhere.
[MUSIC UP]
We were really lucky to get out alive. We had told the old man that them first explosions come from aerosol cans, and canned food that had overheated. Well, that was some powerful food that could blow the roof off! He was a nice old man, really wanted to help us, but he was country, you know, and he had been suspicious right from the git-up-and-go, and down the road a ways he pulls over where he sees some friends, and pulls out the key, and somebody telephones for the police.
At the hospital, when they’re searching the others, I’m already on a stretcher, and as I’m going out the door, one cop says, Search him, too. I struggle and yell – you know, a little theater there – demanding my rights all the way to my room. Am I under arrest? No! Then get out of my room! I kept demanding that they either arrest me or get out of my room, and they wouldn’t do either one, and meanwhile I can’t see a goddamn thing. But I hear a phone ring, and one of them answers. Then he says, Okay, you’re under arrest.
VO
From the burned out wreckage of the 64 Merc, police recover a government issued .308 rifle and an AR-15 that the Feds later claim is the weapon that killed Coler and Williams.
The capture plays out dramatically in the papers, which identify Bob’s group as a front-line attack squad bent on assassinating Norman Rockefeller, the sitting Vice-President of the United States, who was traveling in Oklahoma at the time.
It’s a ludicrous story considering that apart from one adult male, the rest of the alleged hit team consists of pregnant women, small children, and high school students.
The press coverage was part of a wider strategy employed by the federal government to use disinformation to sway public opinion in advance of the ResMurs trials.
The FBI had to get their guy. Their reputation depended on it.
Milo Yellow Hair
The one thing that I always remembered about this time and place was always this: that one of those FBI agents told me, “You know, Yellow Hair, we owe you one more,” he said.
VO
Milo Yellow Hair’s recollections of his interrogations by the Feds in the summer of ‘75 highlight the ever-increasing pressure that was mounting on the Bureau.
Milo Yellow Hair
And so that's the only thing that I could think of was that time on that day on June 26th, 1975, that so-called scorecard at the end of the day: Two FBI agents dead and one Joseph Stuntz Kills Right. Is this a reflection of another time and place? I don’t know. But I do happen to believe that the same forces that are working to undermine Indigenous issues and resources are still in play.
VO
After the break, the FBI tries to even the score.
ADVOCACY BREAK
Hi, this is Gavrilah Wells of Amnesty International Group 30 in San Francisco and you’re listening to Leonard: Political Prisoner, the phenomenal and award winning podcast series about Native American elder Leonard Peltier who’s been incarcerated for more than 46 years now. I’ve been aware of Leonard and I’ve been advocating from afar for his freedom since the 80s. I was introduced to the injustices of his case by my mom who was an Amnesty member. Almost five decades later Leonard is still languishing in prison. A few years ago I actually ended up talking to Leonard on the phone when I met a director of the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee tabling at an Amnesty conference. Leonard had just been one of our featured right for rights cases, and I was heartbroken and confounded that Obama didn’t release him that year as so many of us were… So when I heard his voice on the other end of the phone I could not believe I was talking to him and for lack of knowing what else to say I promised to do whatever I can to help him get home safely to his loved ones. Amnesty has been calling on Leonard’s release for decades. Today we urgently call on President Biden to grant him clemency now. So please join us in the name of justice, in the name of human rights and in the name of Indigenous rights; please sign the Amnesty action at Bitly: bit.ly/FREELEONARD or simply go to our twitter page @amnestysf30 and sign the action there. Please let’s do whatever we can to free Leonard now!
Jean Roach
I was picked up in Topeka, Kansas, where our car blew up.
VO
That’s Oglala shootout survivor, Jean Roach. She was along for the ride when the station wagon Bob Robideau was driving exploded on the side of the highway in Kansas in the fall of 1975.
Jean Roach
Went to jail down there for a while with Bob Robideau and Kamook and Bernie. A couple other people that weren't at the shootout. But we all kind of split up and we were on our way to Oklahoma. But we got stopped there and went to jail. And first I went in as an adult and then I told them I wanted to be in juvenile. Different facility. [laughter]
Jean Roach
So me and Mike were the ones that went to the juvenile place. And I didn't know that he was talking to the Feds. Nobody knew.
VO
The day after they’re pinched, the FBI rolls Mike Anderson, who signs an affidavit declaring that Peltier, Robideau, and Butler were all present on the Jumping Bull ranch when the agents were shot.
After the incident Jean was released by an understanding judge and returned to Rapid City where her life went back to normal for a time.
Jean Roach
So I went home. And we're home for a while. I don't even know how long it was. And then the Feds came and raided our house. And um, basically, they took me and my brother out to jail. He was eleven. They took him out in handcuffs.
VO
Jean’s little brother, Jimmy Zimmerman, was a sixth grader at the time. And yet the FBI marched him out in bracelets that day like a wanted criminal, traumatizing him for life in their quest for revenge.
Jean Roach
I tried to escape from them. Tried to run out the back way, but they just totally upset our house. We had kids there. They were screaming and crying and it was just chaos. You know, they didn't care. They pushed their way in. They never had warrants, you know. I guess they had them later – I never seen one – but they took us down there to the federal courthouse here in Rapid City.
VO
The Bureau took Jean and Jimmy from their mother by force and put them in cages to compel their testimony in front of the ResMurs grand jury. They didn’t care how it looked. The end was justifying the means.
Jean Roach
Took us in holding cells and they told me that we were going to go before the grand jury and here's your lawyer. So I talked to a lawyer. They said if any time we can't go with you into a grand jury hearing, but you can come out after every question that they ask and you can talk to your lawyer. So I'm like OK. But once I got inside there, the prosecutor Sikma – I think his name was – anyway he asked me a question and I tried to talk to my lawyer. He wouldn't do it. And I kept telling him, all these people were sitting there, well, he's violating my rights. And so then I just started lying to them. I told them I wasn't even there. He believed me. They let me go.
VO
The government could’ve locked up Jean for lying to the grand jury that day, but decided against it. Probably because by then the Feds had already gotten what they wanted from Mike Anderson and were targeting others for additional information.
Nineteen days later, on October 5th, the FBI locates Norman Brown in Chinley, Arizona, where he is just a month into his junior year of high school.
This is a recreation of Norman’s conversation with Michael Apted about the experience.
Norman Brown
My mother said, “Navajo police want to talk to you. Come with me.” So I said, “Okay.” So we got in the car, and we went to that trailer. And I walked in. That’s when they grabbed me.
And they showed their badge. J. Gary Adams and Victor Harvey. And there was Chuck Stapleton, the agents. And there was a BIA police officer present, Arthur Newman. And they sat me and my mother in a chair.
Norman Brown
“So you’re Norman Brown, huh?” I said, “Yeah, and this is my mother, Mary Brown.” And he says, “We know you were there at the shootout. We know what kind of a gun you were carrying, where you were shooting. We know what happened. Just tell us.” I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you know, and I gave them that paper, and they just laughed at it. Crumpled it up and threw it in the trash.
VO
The paper Norman is referring to is a letter written by WKLDOC attorney Jack Schwarz stating his right to have an attorney present in the event of police questioning.
Norman Brown
They said that I was going to be charged with two counts of first degree murder. They said that Mike Anderson, and some others – they said even Dino and Bob had told them that I was there and that I was carrying this kind of gun – and I said, “No, that was wrong, I – they wouldn’t,” you know.
So this was going on for a while, and they were asking me what I was doing in South Dakota, and I told them I went to the sundance. And that’s when they started getting down on me, you know. And Victor Harvey took off his jacket, and he had these two chrome .45’s. And he grabbed me by the shirt and says, “We’re tired of fucking around with you, Brown. There’s two men dead and they were cold-bloodedly murdered and we want to know who did it.” I said, “I don’t know who did it.” He said, “We know you know who did it.” I said, “I want a lawyer. I want a – I want a lawyer.”
They didn’t read me my rights. They didn’t say, “You have a right to an attorney.” They didn’t do that. They kept walking around me; my mother was terrified, you know. And – he grabbed me again, up here, and he says, “Listen, one of those agents was my best friend.” He says, “We want to know who murdered him.” And I told him. I said, “Joe was killed too. So how about him?” They just kind of laughed about it, you know.
And they just basically told me I wasn’t going to walk the earth again. They said, “We’re going to do everything in our power. We’ll see you rot in jail.”
Says, “You’re not going to see your mother again, you’re not going to see your family.”
“Mrs. Brown, You’re not going to see your son again. He’s going to jail. We’re taking him right now.”
So they handcuffed me, and they were taking me out, and my mother, she started crying. And like my whole life flashed before me in two or three seconds. My mother, she – she raised me, she took care of me, her words, just her love for me, you know, it just flashed before me. And to see her, you know, crying and terrorized! And she was begging me. She says, “Talk to them, tell them! Talk to them! Say something to them!”
So then I looked up at the agents, and they were smiling, you know. And they – they knew they had me right there. So I just said, “All right, okay.” So they sat me back down.
They showed me pictures. They asked me who was carrying what, and I just described the weapons everybody had. And they kept coming to a point where: “Who killed the agents? We know you know who killed them! We know you saw Leonard, Bob and Dino. These are the ones that killed! These are the ones that are cold-blooded murderers! These are the ones that did it!”
They kept going on and on and on, and they kept reminding me that I was going to prison, that I was going to jail, that I had two counts of first degree murder against me.
So, I sort of went along with them, you know. It’s wrong because it wasn’t true.
Michael Apted
What did you tell them?
Norman Brown
Basically what they were telling me to say. I couldn’t just get up and leave and we’ll see you later. I couldn’t do that. I was forced there. There was no way out for me.
Michael Apted
So what they told you to sign wasn’t true.
Norman Brown
Like I said, I had no choice. When you have agents of the most powerful government in the world threatening your life and your family, what would you do?
VO
The lies that Norman Brown was bullied into co-signing were served up as sacrosanct government evidence to the ResMurs grand jury when they should’ve been certified 100% fresh by Rotten Tomatoes.
Together with the statements made by Mike Anderson, Brown’s affidavits would comprise the secret sauce for the circumstantial case being cooked up by the government.
Out in California Anna Mae Aquash reunites with Leonard, Dennis and Kamook after being briefly detained upon arrival at LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport.
The AIMsters rendez-vous on Mulholland Drive at the home of actor Marlon Brando, who chips in $10,000 and loans them his RV so they can caravan up the coast.
Brando was an avid supporter of the American Indian Movement, who appeared regularly at trials involving AIM members.
In 1973 when Marlon won the Academy Award for his role as Vito Corleone in the Godfather, the A-lister asked Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse the Oscar on his behalf.
ACADEMY
Accepting the award for Marlon Brando in the Godfather, Ms. Sacheen Littlefeather.
VO
After Littlefeather rebuffs the statuette presented by Roger Moore, the first Native American to stand onstage at the Academy Awards ceremony delivers these remarks.
Sacheen Littlefeather
My name is Sacheen Littlefeather. I'm Apache. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening and he has asked me to tell you that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry, [CLAPS / BOOS] and on television, in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee. I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will in the future our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.
VO
Two and a half years after one of the most infamous moments at the Academy Awards, the Portland, Oregon office of the FBI receives information that Leonard Peltier and Dennis Banks are traveling eastward in a motorhome owned by Marlon Brando.
According to two informants, the RV is part of a convoy of vehicles destined for South Dakota to bust Dino Butler out of the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City.
On November 14th, 1975, Oregon state trooper Ken Griffiths stops the caravan on Interstate 80 near the Idaho border.
With his shotgun drawn, Griffiths approaches the RV and orders out the occupants. The first to emerge is Leonard Peltier, followed by two women and a small child. Kamook Nichols recalls the scene.
Kamook Nichols
When they stopped their motorhome up on the interstate, I was asleep at the time.
I don’t remember who was driving, but they said, “It’s the cops.” And I had my little girl with me and – and this Highway Patrol guy was banging on the side of the motor home, saying, “Everybody get out!”
So – opened the door. Annie Mae got out, and then I got out, and this cop was hollering at us. He was like real scared. And when we got out, Kenny and Russell were already behind us.
VO
Kamook is referring to Russ Redner and Kenny Loudhawk who were driving in a station wagon that was stopped behind the motorhome by a second cop.
Loudhawk was one of the Lakota horsemen who had rescued the AIMsters from capture on June 26th and led them to safety.
Kamook Nichols
This cop, he said, “Get down there in the ditch!” And so we went and laid down in the ditch by those guys. I had my little girl. But the cop. He had this big shotgun, and he was pointing it at us.
VO
While Oregon state trooper Ken Griffiths yells and waves his gun around, a lone shot rings into the air, [GUN SHOT] diverting the law man’s attention.
Kamook Nichols
And then the motor home takes off. And Leonard took off, and – and he just started shooting at him [GUN SHOT], shooting at the motorhome, shooting, like wildly shooting all over [GUN SHOTS].
VO
As the cop sprays out rounds, Peltier jumps a right-of-way fence along the highway and vanishes into the night. Shortly afterward, Brando’s RV is found empty, engine still running, about two miles east on Highway 80.
From the vehicles police report finding seven boxes of dynamite, nine hand grenades, and fourteen firearms, including the service revolver of Jack Coler, which is hidden in a paper bag, allegedly bearing Peltier’s thumbprint.
When Michael Apted asked about the ill-fated caravan, Leonard explained why they were actually heading to South Dakota. It wasn’t to break out Dino Butler. There was a larger purpose.
Leonard Peltier
See, that terrorism still hadn’t stopped in South Dakota. And we were going back again. Because we had another plea made to us, and we had a lot of weapons in the vehicle. I mean, just that amount of weaponry was going to get us 10 to 15 years in prison. As we all know, that's what Dennis and them had faced. I think it was something like 70 or 80 years. And sure, I made a run.
VO
While Leonard makes a run for it in Oregon, he takes a round in the shoulder.
Now wounded, bleeding and desperate, Peltier borrows a ‘71 Ford Ranchero from a nearby house and abandons it outside of Portland. There a relative takes Leonard to a local doctor who stops the bleeding but can’t do more without taking him to a hospital.
In the interim, Redner and Loudhawk are booked for illegal possession of weapons; Kamook Nichols is returned to Kansas for violating her probation; and Anna Mae Aquash is flown to South Dakota for trial on the Rosebud charges.
In Pierre, Aquash rejects the FBI’s offer of leniency on prior charges in exchange for cooperation with the ResMurs investigation. After the pre-trial hearing on November 24th, Anna Mae disappears during the night.
On November 25th, the ResMurs grand jury in Rapid City indicts Dino Butler, Bob Robideau and Leonard Peltier on two counts of first-degree murder. Only one of those men is not in custody at the time. And he is heading due north to Canada without delay.
News and Notes
Half a century after she was booed for declining Marlon Brando’s Oscar, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather for her mistreatment at the 1973 ceremony.
On September 17th, 2022, Littlefeather was the guest of honor at an evening of healing and Indigenous celebration at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. Producer Bird Running Water interviewed Sacheen as part of the program.
Bird Running Water
You know of course we look at you standing on the stage and giving actually one of the first political speeches ever given on the stage.
Sacheen Littlefeather
I was representing all Indigenous voices out there. All Indigenous people. Because we had never been heard in that way before. [APPLAUSE] And if I had to pay the price of admission then that was okay because those doors had to be open like Yosemite Sam. [LAUGHTER] Somebody had to do it.
VO
On October 2nd, 2022, Sacheen Littlefeather passed away at the age of 75.
CREDITS
This podcast is produced, written, and edited on Tongva land by Rory Owen Delaney and Andrew Fuller. Kevin McKiernan serves as our consulting producer.
Thanks to Peter Coyote and the rest of our cast: Elizabeth Saydah, Carolina Hoyos, Darrell Dennis, Courage the Actor, Ohitikah Win Beautiful Bald Eagle, Jason Grasl,
Bob Banvani, Chuck Banner, Tanner Azzinnaro and Ed Robinson.
Thanks to Bobby Halvorson for the original music we’re using throughout this series. And thanks to Mike Cassentini at The Network Studios for their engineering assistance, and to Peter Lauridsen and Sycamore Sound for their audio mixing.
Thanks to Maya Meinert and Emily Deutsch, for helping support us while we do what, we hope, is important work.
And thanks, most of all, to Leonard Peltier. To get involved and help Leonard, go to whoisleonardpeltier.info or find us on social media @leonard_pod on Twitter and Instagram, or facebook.com/leonardpodcast.
This podcast is a production of Man Bites Dog Films LLC. Free Leonard Peltier!