O Canada

On February 6th, 1976, a tip led Canadian police to the Mountain Cree Camp School in Alberta where one of America’s Most Wanted was hiding out with a few of his friends – and at least one government operative. Hear how Peltier’s luck finally ran out despite the efforts of his legal team and an international coalition of native peoples that was helmed by his adopted mother, Ethel Peason, an honored member and leader of the Kwagiulth Nation on Vancouver Island.

Transcript

S2 E12: O CANADA

Leonard Peltier
I was in a school house, this classroom. Some Indian kids and I seen ‘em coming. 

[MUSIC UP]

VO
On February 6th, 1976, the Royal Mounted Canadian Police received information about the location of a Native American fugitive who was one of America’s Most Wanted.

The tip led police to the Mountain Cree Camp School in Alberta where Leonard Peltier was hiding out with a few of his friends.  

Emmy winner Peter Coyote reads for Leonard in this recreation of his interview for the Michael Apted documentary “Incident at Oglala.”

Leonard Peltier
I had a weapon. I could have shot it out. But I’m not into harming innocent children or innocent Indian people or any people as far as that goes. 

So I just sat there and read a book. 

While I was watching through the corner of my eye, they come and put a gun in my face. “Don’t move,” you know, and all that stuff. 

And I just kind of looked at him. “What do you want?”
 
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 12, “O Canada.” In this chapter Leonard’s luck finally runs out despite the efforts of his legal team and an international coalition of native peoples.   

In Episode 11, “Not Guilty,” we analyzed the historic trial of Dino Butler and Bob Robideau, detailing how Peltier would have been acquitted with his AIM brothers in Cedar Rapids – if he hadn’t already fled to Canada, a cruel paradox that is part of what makes Peltier’s case so uniquely tragic and tragically unique. 

Of course, it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback because hindsight is 20/20.

At the time, however, Leonard had no way of foreseeing that his friends would win the legal lottery in the summer of 1976. 

That’s why, after the Mounties busted him earlier that February, Leonard applied for Canadian political asylum in a bid to avoid extradition back to the United States where he was wanted on two counts of first degree murder. 

It was a miscalculation that cost him dearly in the end. But how did one of America’s most notorious outlaws escape to Canada, while the whole world was looking for him?
 
Sheron Wyant-Leonard 
I know the stories that were told. I listened. I was very disciplined and not questioning.

VO
That’s author Sheron Wyant-Leonard. Her novel I WILL is a work of historical fiction based on the personal recollections of four members of the American Indian Movement: Leonard Peltier, Dennis Banks, and Dorothy and Herb Powless. 

The book is the product of more than 25 years of interviews and research.

Sheron Wyant-Leonard 
It was important that I didn't go in with a tape recorder or a preset notion of what I wanted to know. Everyone was still very raw. You actually could be in trouble, and it was a realistic concern that you were someone who drove Leonard Peltier to Marlon Brando's house from Denver, Colorado, or you were on that motorhome and got off at the Santa Monica Pier, and someone else got on. They were escaping, and they were under threat. And everything that happens next proves it was a real threat.

VO
In December 1975, the FBI had named Leonard Peltier as one of their 10 Most Wanted, making him an official enemy of the state. 

If you were caught harboring a fugitive of that magnitude, it wouldn’t have ended well. That’s a guarantee. But folks set aside their fears to help Peltier because they believed in him and in the mission of the American Indian Movement. 

Had people known the full extent of the Bureau’s network of informants, they might have been more reluctant to get involved. Because there were stoolies everywhere. And they were keeping Leonard under tabs for Uncle Sam.  

That network of informants was how the Feds learned Peltier was in Brando’s RV cruising up the West Coast with Dennis Banks in the fall of 1975. 

Until the perfect trap was laid, the FBI’s plan was to keep the motorhome under surveillance.

Those were the instructions that were relayed to the Oregon State Police. 

But that strategy went up in smoke when Trooper Ken Griffths pulled over Brando’s RV near the Idaho border just a couple days before Thanksgiving.

Yes, sir. Ol’ Ken fucked things up royally when he misread that fateful FBI teletype. Reading comprehension was never his strong suit, or so he claimed after the fact. 

But maybe that was just a convenient story. A cover. Maybe Ken pulled Leonard over that night in pursuit of a moment of personal glory? 

Regardless of the motivation, the Oregon state trooper’s actions would have a major butterfly effect on one of the most complex cases in American history.

Because Griffith’s gaff enabled Peltier to once more slip the noose. And yet it was Leonard’s escape into Canada that ultimately condemned him to nearly half a century of imprisonment in some of the United States’ darkest dungeons.

Author Sheron Wyant-Leonard asked Peltier how he made it across the border.

Sheron Wyant-Leonard  
I asked him, “Did you take a boat over? Were you on the Puget Sound? How did you get there?” He mentioned that his cousin drove him to the border, and it wasn't quite the border. That there were woods. That he actually crossed over through land. 

And he got to a big barbed wired fence that has the big metal sign, “Go back, go back, you're entering into the Canadian provinces, you cannot come. It's not a checkpoint. Turn back.” And all the threats that go with it. 

So he just kind of climbed up and was sitting up on the post and was smoking a cigarette, looked at the sign, and read it, and said, “F you.” And jumped over the fence <laughs> and went right into Canada.

He just walked in, and walked through that virgin pine, and headed towards the people that he wanted to meet, which I do not know all the connective tissue of how he gets from point A to point B. 

He does end up in the schoolhouse. Frank Blackhorse was there, of course.

VO
We’ll come back to how Leonard ended up in that schoolhouse in Alberta with Frank Blackhorse a little later, because there’s something else you should know first. 

While Peltier was hiding out in Canada, the unthinkable happened back on Pine Ridge. 

On January 27th, 1976, Tribal President Richard Wilson was voted out of office.

In case you need a refresher, Wilson was the Don of Pine Ridge, who ruled with an iron fist during his tenure. 

Wilson’s royal guard and brute squad called themselves the Guardians of the Oglala Nation, or GOONs for short. The paramilitaries were implicated in the killings of dozens of Oglala traditionals in the early to mid 70s.

In response to the violence community elders invited the American Indian Movement to Pine Ridge to provide protection and organize them politically.

Reporter 
It’s really you against AIM, Mr. Wilson?

Dick Wilson
I think it is, yes. I have certain principles that I believe in and they’re not burning, looting and stealing.

Reporter 
But you have been accused of course of taking the law into your own hands? 

Dick Wilson 
Sometimes we find that necessary.

VO
That’s Dick Wilson speaking to a network news reporter in a clip from the documentary “From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock.” 

In those days Wilson could afford to brag about exacting vigilante justice because he still enjoyed the backing of the federal government. 

Peter Coyote
Did you know that on the day of the Jumping Bull shootout Dick Wilson was in Washington signing away the uranium mining rights of the tribe? 

VO
That’s actor, writer, and longtime Peltier advocate, Peter Coyote, talking to us in between takes during our last recording session. 

Peter regularly appears in this podcast as the voice of Leonard Peltier to recreate his old interviews, dramatize his writings, and generally help us circumvent the storytelling restrictions imposed on us by the Bureau of Prisons, but in this case Mr. Coyote is speaking for himself.

Peter Coyote
Yeah, you guys know all about that in 1973, right, the highest murder rate in the United States was the Sioux Indian Reservation? Anyway, and the FBI was giving the Goon squad armor piercing bullets and all of that? Yeah. Okay. You guys have done your homework. 

VO
The man who challenged Wilson for the tribal presidency in 1976 was Al Trimble.


Trimble and Wilson had a long simmering beef that started back when Al was working as the Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Pine Ridge. 

Their problems came to a boil in the summer of ‘74 when Trimble’s officers confiscated 300 cases of beer that Wilson’s men were selling illegally at a rodeo on the res.

Arrests were made, and reports filed, but no one was ever prosecuted. Instead, on March 20th, 1975, the Feds did Tricky Dick a solid and fired Mr. Trimble. 

Which was another decision that had significant historical ramifications down the line. Because if Al hadn’t been wrongfully terminated, he would have been the acting Superintendent of the BIA on June 26, 1975. 

Instead, an interim hire, Kendall Cumming, was filling in on that fateful summer’s day. It was Cumming’s negotiations with Edgar Bear Runner that stalled the FBI raid and enabled the AIMsters’ initial escape from the Jumping Bull ranch.

With AIM in complete disarray after the firefight, Wilson’s tribal council officially ceded 1/8th of the reservation’s lands to the Department of the Interior on January 2, 1976. 

That included Sheep Mountain, aka Axis Mundi, the sacred center of the world.

The deal was in clear violation of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which stipulated that any transfer of Lakota territory required the approval of three-quarters of the adult men. 

Years later when the public was finally made aware of the illegal real estate transaction, it was too late to do anything about it, a common refrain in our story.

With Sheep Mountain in the rearview mirror, Tricky Dick must have thought his reelection was in the bank. 

In the end, it wasn’t even close. Wilson lost by a wide margin, and this time there was nothing he could do about it. 

Previously Dick had gotten away with cooking the books when he was opposed by AIM leader Russell Means in 1974.   

In 1976, however, the tribal election was conducted under federal supervision, and the count was out of his control. 

After Wilson lost, the hope of many on Pine Ridge was that El Presidente would surrender power peacefully and go gently in the night.

Those hopes were dashed three days after his defeat when Wilson ordered the invasion of Wanblee, Al Trimble’s hometown and a bastion of traditional support.
 
On January 30, 1976, a posse of Goons, strapped with AR-15’s and sporting military issue bullet proof vests, descended on the quiet hamlet to make mayhem.

Their first target was Guy Dull Knife, the descendant of a great Cheyenne chief. 

After multiple shots were fired into his property, Dull Knife called for help. 

The BIA and FBI sent agents to respond to the incident, but they refused to confront the Goons who had posted up across the street at the house of an ally. 

Instead of breaking up a blood-thirsty mob, the Feds did something far more incredible. They arrested Guy Dull Knife on a warrant for disorderly conduct that was more than a year old.

Hours later, the same Goons who were terrorizing the Dull Knifes chased down a car on the outskirts of Wanblee and pumped it full of lead.

The target: another traditional, the great grandson of legendary Oglala Lakota medicine man Black Elk, attorney Byron DeSersa, who had done work for WKLDOC, the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Offense Committee.

In 1976 our consulting producer and friend, Kevin McKiernan, filed this report for NPR radio about DeSersa’s murder and the assault on Wanblee.

[MUSIC UP]
Kevin McKiernan
About dusk the 28 year old Byron DeSersa and four friends were returning from Potato Creek. A few miles from Wanblee they passed the familiar contingent of Goon squad vehicles. Wilson’s supporters pulled their caravan out behind Desersa, and a high speed chase was on. 
Sitting in the DeSersa back seat was George Batleon.
George Batleon
By the time someone said, “Get down,” I ducked down, and just as I ducked, shots went off real fast. About three or four. Not too sure.

Kevin McKiernan
Coming into your car?
George Batleon
Yeah. As soon as they said get down, I think Byron hit his brakes. 
And that's when Byron started screaming. “Oh Christ man.” He said, “I'm hit.” He said, “I'm hit bad.” And then he was kind of crying like when he said it. 

And by that time we slowed down quite a bit, and the car just rolled off into the side of the road in a ditch. 

These other guys that were in the car, they started running, running up the bank. 

I tried to help him up that bank, but he couldn't make it. He said, “I can't move.” 

So I looked over at his leg and it was almost blown off. 

He said. “Go on or something like that.” So I just took off.
VO
The violence didn’t stop there. Shortly after DeSersa’s death, another AIM sympathizer, Richard Lee Lamont, came under attack in Wanblee. 

Kevin McKiernan asked him about the experience.

Kevin McKiernan 
I understand your house was firebombed? 

Richard Lamont 
There was two of them came from next door when we were standing talking to two policemen there from Pine Ridge when this one threw it.

Kevin McKiernan 
These were Goons?

Richard Lamont 
Yeah, the goons.


Kevin McKiernan 
Well, what did the policeman say to you after the house was firebombed?

Richard Lamont
I told 'em, I said, “What you gonna do about it? You know, if you can't do nothing about it, you know, than I am.” I said, “You know, my little girls could've got burned up.” Cause you know, that was their bedroom, you know, that they hit. And they said, “Are you threatening us?” They said, “We'll take you to jail, you know?” 


VO
Instead of mustering a similar show of force to that which had responded to the shootout in Oglala six months earlier, the Feds tucked their tails and ran. 

The next afternoon the Goons finally left town honking their horns and firing their guns in the air as they made the 90 mile drive back to their base in Pine Ridge Village with an official escort from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

We mention it here for two reasons. 

To illustrate why many believe the Feds and the Goons were working in collaboration. 

And to show that the desperate circumstances on Pine Ridge didn’t just peter out after the Oglala firefight. 

Pine Ridge was still the most dangerous place in America. And the Feds couldn’t care less as long as it was just Indians killing Indians.

As for the shooting of Byron DeSersa, a couple minnows ended up serving two years in jail for his murder. 

The bigger fish, namely Dick Wilson’s son and son-in-law, were acquitted on grounds of self-defense, even though DeSersa and his passengers were unarmed during the driveby.

Meanwhile, in Oakland, California, AIM leader Dennis Banks was arrested in January 1976 on charges stemming from the Oregon RV stop, charges which were ultimately dismissed against all defendants without prejudice. 

If someone had taken a shot at the state troopers that night on the side of the highway, as the police and media had reported, there was no proof of it, a judge concluded.

While all of this was happening, Leonard was hiding out in a cabin just north of the Canadian border. 

The location allowed Peltier to make several trips south to visit his family in nearby North Dakota where he grew up on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

Leonard explained his movements to director Michael Apted back in 1991 from Fort Leavenworth Prison.

Leonard Peltier
Well, that wasn’t the first time I was in Canada now. Since June, I’d been going back and forth. I’ve went across all my life to Canada. I have first cousins there. My grandmother is from Canada. On my father’s side. 

There’s a lot of people, associates, that we have. Canadian AIM was a very large organization in Canada. So we had all those connections, right? 

And the first place I was staying in was right on the border. My security there was – the bus driver, a lot of the people in the community, Indian people.

VO
Among Leonard’s associates was Chicano activist Roque Duenas.

Roque and Leonard had been friends since the Fort Lawton occupation in 1970 when Native Americans seized control of an abandoned military outpost outside of Seattle.

Like Alcatraz, Fort Lawton had been deemed surplus to federal requirements, and it should have reverted to Native American control.  

But the United States wasn’t interested in the nuances of treaty law and ordered the removal of the activists.  

Roque, Leonard and twelve others were arrested by the military police who beat the snot out of them. Twice. Once at Fort Lawton, and a second time in their cells for good measure.

Roque Duenas recalled how Leonard refused to leave the jail until all of his associates were accounted for in this dramatization of his interview for Peter Mathiessen’s book In The Spirit of Crazy Horse.

Roque Duenas
When they marched us out of the stockade, they done it two at a time, and one guy who had given the MPs hell never showed up. Some of the brothers seen what was coming down, but it was Leonard who took responsibility right away and made sure that all of us stuck together. He decided that we all would stay right there, refuse to leave, until that last guy was released. Leonard was always taking action like that.

VO
Prior to the occupation Leonard was part owner of an auto body shop in Seattle. 

The second floor of the building served as an informal crash pad for alcoholics and ex-cons looking for work. 

Author Sheron Wyant-Leonard.

Sheron Wyant-Leonard 
Something that I found to be a through line with Leonard Peltier was that he was hesitant. He wasn't anxious to, like, leave home, or to turn his business over. 

And I think I sent you a copy of the article with the Seattle Times where he’s interviewed in 1969. 

They opened the article with Leonard Peltier, the businessman. 

And it went on to describe this wonderful business that he built from the ground up with his partner Howard, and how well they were thriving. 


VO
Leonard didn’t turn up at Fort Lawton because he was down-on-his-luck with nothing better to do. He was a young entrepreneur with a thriving business on the line. And yet he gave it all up to be a part of the movement. That’s how important it was to him. 

Roque Duenas again. 

Roque Duenas
Leonard was already a leader. But he was pretty quiet around the action at Fort Lawton. It was the first time he had been involved in that kind of confrontation – it was the first for most of us, I guess. And we were still kind of in awe of what we had gotten ourselves into.

VO
16 years later, the old friends were hiding from the law in a cozy cabin in the Canadian wilderness. Eventually they were joined by a third man, Frank Blackhorse. 

Roque Duenas
Blackhorse wanted to help out with security. Trouble is, he just talks too much. Wherever he goes, he draws the heat. Unidentified cars started to show up, drive past, you know, and people were warning us. 

So one night we took off out of there, and the very next day the Mounties come in with tear gas and riot guns, shot the place to pieces and asked questions later. 

There was a young guy who lived there, and it was just lucky he was over at his grandma’s that night, or he might have been blown away. 

VO
Roque and Leonard observed the raid from a safe distance. This is how Peltier recalled the scene to Michael Apted. 

Leonard Peltier
The first house I was at, the FBI, and RCMP’s, and everybody destroyed that home. They shot that home completely up. We were sitting in the hills watching it. 

The cars came from the border side. They hollered once through the microphone, “Come on out of there!” 

There was nobody in there, so they didn’t get no answer, so they shot the house, blowed the doors off, windows. 

Well, seeing that, I figured I was dead if they catch me anyway. So right there is about the time I really went underground.

VO
The level of violence used in the assault underscores how much pressure the Canadians were under to deliver Peltier. 

It also shows just how afraid the Canadians were of native people. 

They were afraid because a wave of Indigenous activism was sweeping across their country. 

The Dene, Cree, and Leonard’s band, the Ojibwa, were all protesting the pollution of their lands and waters by big corporations.

The last thing Canada needed was an American Indian symbol of colonial resistance hanging around, riling up folks even more.

Which is what was happening. Even Leonard admitted so.  

Leonard Peltier
I would have to say that my presence in Vancouver is providing a focus for Canadian Indians to organize around. It is exposing for native people here the conditions of Indians in the U.S.. Maybe this is down the road for Canadians, too. 

VO
This is a dramatization of a print interview for a November 1976 edition of the Vancouver Sun. 

The piece puts Leonard’s revolutionary politics and radical worldview on full display, which must have set off alarm bells in Ottawa, the Canadian capital.

His interviewer, freelance journalist Suzanne Fournier, was the only reporter permitted to talk to Peltier during his incarceration in Canada.

Among other questions, Fournier asked Leonard for his take on FBI informer Douglas Durham’s recent testimony before a U.S. congressional committee.

In D.C., Mr. Durham testified that the American Indian Movement was a dangerous organization with close ties to communism. 

The C word. Well the other c word. 

That’s when you know Washington is panicking.

Leonard Peltier
<Chuckles> As far as our links with communism are concerned, I will not be so hypocritical as to condemn another form of government, such as the communistic one that has never done my people any wrong. 

The enemy that I see is the capitalist system. They’re the ones that have committed great genocide among my people, and they’re the ones that have broken every treaty, every promise. Have massacred millions of native people. 

So far as communism goes, I have nothing against Communism. But I’m not a Communist. I’m an Indian.

VO
In the same interview Leonard was also asked if the American Indian Movement would get involved in the fight against a proposed transnational oil pipeline. 

Leonard Peltier 
First of all, we as native people don’t recognize the border lines. 

We are all brothers and sisters. 

Canadian natives are having the same problems that we are having in the U.S., which are land, treaty rights, basic human rights.

The culture, the way of life of the native people is in very deep jeopardy of being destroyed. 

The beautiful land that they have there won’t be the same after the pipeline goes through. 

The battle is for control of the land. 

It used to be useless land. That’s why it was left to us. 

But now we have quantities of oil, coal, grazing lands, forests, natural gas and others. 

We believe this is one of the reasons why the government has put such an oppression on us: 

To steal what little we have left, to give us a few thousand dollars apiece, and then rip out the billions of dollars that are in the land.

We’re trying to get control of all this. We’re not trying to deny it to anybody, but we want to be able to make the living off it. We want to be able to make the high profits off it. 

We want to be able to direct where that money is going to go, and where that money is going to be spent. We want to make sure that the land is put back the way it was. 

What will the native people get out of it? That’s the question I see they’re asking.

VO
An indigenous alliance that threatened the monetization of billions of dollars worth of natural resources by multinational corporations was probably the wasichu’s worst fear. 

Right up there with an open border and Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime show.

But before Canada could deport Peltier, they had to find him. 

After his near bust by the border, Leonard ventured deeper into Indian Country. 

Roque Duenas. 

Roque Duenas
In Canada, you know, the white people live mostly near the border, but the Indians move all around up north. 

So from the cabin we moved north to Kamloops country. Eventually we had to leave there, too; they were all around us, we could feel ‘em. 

Finally we moved him over the mountains to Alberta – to Smallboy’s camp – way out in the bush. 

VO
Robert Smallboy was Chief of the Ermineskin Cree Nation. 

In 1968 Smallboy established a makeshift community in the wilderness of the Kootenay Plains near the Rocky Mountains in response to deteriorating social conditions at home on the Cree reserve.


Substance abuse and suicide were skyrocketing, and the Chief believed these problems could be remedied by a return to a simpler life based on traditional values.

Initially, the Canadian Federal Government viewed the camp as an illegal occupation. But Smallboy argued the territory was sacred Indian land, and he was permitted to stay.

Following the détente, the Chief opened the Mountain Cree Camp School, a center for learning about Cree spiritual life for children and adults. 

Peltier was studying in one of their mobile classrooms, with children playing outside, when the Mounties came for him in the opening of this episode. 

If Leonard was this crazy cop killer like the FBI claims, you’d expect him to take out as many badges as possible in a blaze of gunfire on that cold day in February 1976.

But that’s not what happened. When the Mounties swooped down on him, brandishing weapons, Peltier did the exact opposite of what you’d expect from one of America’s Most Wanted: He surrendered without incident. 

Instead of shooting anyone, running for it or screaming bloody murder, Leonard read a book and tried his best to stay calm. 

The police were more than a tad jumpy, and in the chaos and confusion of the bust, it wouldn’t’ve taken much to set off another firefight. 


Leonard Peltier
I could see the way they were. The guys were nervous. And there was children in there.
So there was a possibility, if I would have said anything, it would have caused him to shoot me, and it might have been a chain reaction. Because there was some AIM brothers out there, too. And there could have been a big bloody mess there. 

So I tried to keep real calm. And, you know, I felt sad. Felt, oh, man! I don’t know what’s going to happen. I know that when you’re arrested for things like this the normal procedure is you get a very good beating first of all, so I expected that. Expected to be treated the way I’ve been treated. 

VO
Leonard expected to catch a beat-down because that’s what had always happened before, beginning with the Fort Lawton occupation. 

But Peltier was spared by a sympathetic arresting officer, who placed him in an unmarked car with Frank Blackhorse.

When we spoke with filmmaker Kevin McKiernan in May 2023, he recalled meeting Leonard and Frank under extreme circumstances in Wisconsin just a few months after the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. 

Kevin McKiernan 
A group of Menominee Indians in central Wisconsin had taken over the abandoned Alexian Brothers Novitiate near the little settlement of Gresham. 

And they were trying to really emulate what had happened at Wounded Knee, but they didn't have the leadership, and they didn't really have the issues. They were all in their early twenties, and it was a much different situation. 

So I went in there with Chris Westerman. Chris Westerman was carrying his baby and a rifle. 

VO
Chris Westerman being the older brother of musician, political activist, and actor, Floyd Red Crow Westerman.

Kevin McKiernan 
We went in there. Very, very cold, below zero at night, and we made it in there. 

Russell Means was part of the group, AIM leader. 

And when we got in there, I think a lot of us realized it had been a mistake. 

My welcome was that I was arrested and put in a locked room for about 24 hours. And that was because these guys, unlike those at Wounded Knee, did not understand or believe in the press. 

And then they came down the next day. Chris Westerman and others had vouched for me. And now everybody wanted to congratulate me and I'd become a good guy, <laughs>. So all this was really off. 

So I was allowed to do my interviews. Did five straight days on “All Things Considered” with them when I got out. 

But I wanted to get out. Russell Means wanted to get out. Chris wanted to get out. We all wanted to get out.

So there was a group of about ten of us who left about eleven at night. 

Somebody had made arrangements for us to be picked up on a county road. 

And so we were coming out, and when we got near the county road, a bunch of klieg lights that had been mounted on the back of a flatbed trailer lit the place up like noon day.

And some cops on loudspeakers said, “Put your hands in the air. We can see all you guys. You're all going to be arrested.” Blah, blah, blah. And so everybody just broke. 

So I just ran. I followed a couple of guys, just ran as fast as I could. The snow was deep, it was still cold. And then finally we got to a resting place where we thought we could sit down. 

And one of the guys introduced himself as Leonard Peltier. And I had never met or even heard of Leonard Peltier at that time. 


The other guy I recognized for the first time as being this Blackhorse guy, but, at that time, he was just somebody running away like me. 

And the tipoff had come, we think, from Douglas Durham, who was the FBI operative. He was the one who manned the radio inside the novitiate where the warriors were. 

So the end of the story was that Blackhorse and Leonard and I just had a talk, and we said, “Let's just all go our separate ways because we'll increase the chances that more of us will escape.” 

Anyway, we all went our separate ways. And that was the second time I met Blackhorse. I never ran into him again thankfully.

VO
Attorney Mike Kuzma believes Blackhorse may be one of the keys to understanding what happened on June 26, 1975, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 

Mike Kuzma
You know, if you look at the case, I'm pretty fascinated by it. I don't think Leonard shares my enthusiasm, but if you look at Leonard's arrest in Canada in 1976, he's arrested with Frank Blackhorse, who was also wanted by the FBI. He was wanted for shooting an agent at Wounded Knee in 1973. The FBI had WANTED posters. They wanted to talk to him about the deaths of Agents Coler and Williams. 

VO
Like Leonard, Frank Blackhorse was a suspect in the ongoing ResMurs investigation and one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted. 

Mike Kuzma
Frank Blackhorse gets arrested with Leonard, but yet is never extradited back to the States. He's never tried even though it's undisputed he shot Special Agent Curtis Fitzgerald at Wounded Knee. 

Then it turns out this guy, using the name Frank Blackhorse, was masquerading as a Native American. His actual name was Frank DeLuca. And, to this very day, he's a free man in Western Canada. 
Could you imagine if any of us wounded an FBI agent, we're now sought in connection with the deaths of two others, and the government knows where we are, and they make no attempts to bring us back? 
I have no doubt this guy was an FBI informant. There's no way he would've gotten away with that if he was for real. 
And some documents we secured under FOIA show that Blackhorse led the authorities to Leonard's location.
VO
FOIA or The Freedom of Information Act, gives any person the right to request access to unreleased documents controlled by the U.S. government. 
Mr. Kuzma, who is an expert in the arena, has obtained hundreds of pages of declassified FBI documents through this process.

As for Mr. Blackhorse, his story would seem pretty incredible if it wasn’t already so familiar. 

Like Doug Durham, Frank Blackhorse wasn’t a real Native American. He was just playing one for the FBI. 
DeLuca is Blackhorse. Blackhorse is DeLuca. DeLuca is Italian!

Kevin McKiernan 
You know, if I were to think about all the people I met in Wounded Knee, I would have a hard time mentioning even a handful of people who didn't like me. 

But I remember Frank Blackhorse as being a young, very wiry guy who was always armed. Very mean. 

I took a couple of pictures of him ,and then I just stayed away from him. There was something about him that was off.
VO
That’s Kevin McKiernan recalling his first encounter with Frank Blackhorse after the freelance reporter snuck behind government lines to cover the Wounded Knee standoff for NPR radio.


Kevin McKiernan 
Easter weekend, 1973, he did something that I've never forgotten. 

And that is he built a large wooden cross and hung a self-made mannequin of a blue-jump-suited Marshall. 

And he put it out there as if they were gonna crucify these guys. And this was something that the Marshalls could see through their binoculars.

[MUSIC UP]

VO
That sort of blatant provocation gives credence to the theory that Blackhorse had infiltrated the American Indian Movement to create turmoil.   

It also feels eerily like something Kash Jackson, the weirdo from our Washington, D.C., trip, would have done.

Regardless, Kevin McKiernan believes Blackhorse was behind another incident of foul play at Wounded Knee.

Kevin McKiernan 
During the cease fire, when people were walking around thinking they were safe, I believe that Frank Blackhorse was the one who shot and paralyzed U.S. Marshall Lloyd Grim, who was paralyzed for the rest of his life, because he was walking around outside his armored personnel carrier. So that really convinced me that this guy was off.

VO
If Kevin is right, that means Blackhorse aka DeLuca shot not one, but two Feds at Wounded Knee: FBI Agent Curtis Fitzgerald and U.S. Marshall Lloyd Grim.
Details like that fuel the fire of another theory, namely, that Blackhorse was an agent provocateur engaged in a false flag operation gone wrong on June 26, 1975.
John Trudell
The government had an operative. Not an informant or a snitch. An operative. 
VO
That’s former AIM chairman John Trudell talking to KBOO Radio in Portland, Oregon.
John Trudell
An operative is someone they put amongst you to help direct activities. And the way it appears to me is that the operative manipulated both sides against each other on the firefight thing as part of a larger plan, but the plan went wrong, and the agents got killed.  
VO
Although Trudell doesn’t name him here specifically, Blackhorse’s history of violence makes him a potential suspect in the killings of Ron Williams and Jack Coler.

Maybe he was their executioner. Or maybe he didn’t pull the trigger but knows who did. 
The only thing we know for sure is that attorney Mike Kuzma uncovered a November 1975 FBI teletype that cited Blackhorse as a quote “reliable source.” 
But there are thousands of pages of files related to the Peltier case that the Bureau still refuses to release. 
Kuzma believes the Feds may be withholding these records to cover up their involvement in the firefight. 
We’d ask Mr. Blackhorse to do an interview for the podcast if we could find him, but no one knows what happened to him. 
That’s because after the Mounties booked Frank Blackhorse for marijuana possession they let him walk. 
Despite being one of America’s Most Wanted, Frank strolled out of the police station later that same day and disappeared without a trace like Keyser Sose at the end of “The Usual Suspects.” 

After the break we introduce another unsung heroine into this crazy fucking caper, Leonard’s adopted mom, Ethel Pearson.

ADVOCACY BREAK

This is Paul Becker, and you’re listening to LEONARD, a podcast series about one of America’s longest serving political prisoners. For twenty years, I have directed and choreographed some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. 
In that time I thought I had heard it all. Until I discovered this story about Leonard right here on this podcast. The details of the case, including his illegal extradition from my home country Canada, are hard to believe, but I am hopeful that justice will ultimately be served, so that Mr. Peltier may die a free man surrounded by his family and friends. 
Your voice matters. To let the President know you’re thinking about Leonard, leave a brief message on the White House Comment line at (202) 456-1111. 
Let’s reconcile the past with the future and move this nation forward to a more equitable union. Free Leonard. 

VO
After his capture at Smallboy’s camp on February 6th, 1976, Leonard Peltier was transported to Vancouver, British Columbia. 

There Leonard came to the attention of Ethel Pearson, an honored member and leader of the Kwagiulth Nation on Vancouver Island. 

Pearson spearheaded the fight for Peltier’s political asylum in Canada after becoming his adopted mother. 

Author Sheron Wyant-Leonard. 

Sheron Wyant-Leonard 
Ethel Pearson was in her kitchen, she was cooking dinner. Her daughter Donna drove up in her car, and the way she could hear the car speed up into the property, she knew somebody was in trouble. 

So she immediately turned the gas off on the stove, checked her purse for her money or ID or keys – whatever needed to be in there. And met Donna practically at the door. 

And Donna said, “Mama, you gotta come and help this Indian. They're beating him up bad.”

VO
Donna didn’t think her mom would be permitted to see Leonard, but this wasn’t Ethel’s maiden visit to the pen. 

At Oakalla the guards knew Ms. Pierson by sight due to her frequent visits to the prison, and so she was waved in almost immediately.

Sheron Wyant-Leonard 
Leonard looked like he was black and blue, like over an eye, that he was hurt. So the first thing she did was lean in towards him and say, “Are you okay son? Are you hurt?” 

And Leonard responded, “I'm okay, mama. I'm fine. How are you? Are you okay? They give you any trouble?” And it went from there.

One of the things that she said – I thought it was also again very powerful – she said, “Please make note. I did not go to help Leonard Peltier that day because he was Leonard Peltier. He wasn't Leonard Peltier yet.” 

And she meant that big symbol that he was becoming. She said, “He was just another Indian tied to the floor. And I will always go and help.” 

VO
According to traditional protocol, all 52 chiefs of Kwagiulth Nation had to sign off on Leonard’s adoption to make it legitimate. 

It wasn’t easy, but Ethel made it happen.

Their unanimity highlights the almost universal sympathy for Peltier north of the border. 

It’s hard to get 52 people to agree on anything, but they agreed on Leonard.   

Upon the chiefs’ approval, a ceremonial potlatch was held where Leonard was given his Kwagiulth name: Gwarth-ee-lass, meaning "He who draws the people to him.”

But Leonard’s adoption was more than an act of charity. It was a deft piece of diplomacy that nearly short-circuited Canada’s plan to extradite Peltier to the United States.

After all, Leonard wasn’t technically a foreign national anymore. And that made the calculus of their decision all the more complicated.

As the authorities wrestled with the math, Leonard was kept in solitary confinement at Oakalla Prison where conditions were deplorable. 

Sheron Wyant-Leonard
Oakalla sounded like just a horror picture. It was old and decaying. 

And Leonard told a story. He said one particular night the guards were kind of laughing at the fact his light bulb was going out. 

It was flickering right before a light bulb's gonna go. 

So Leonard asked them, “Please change my light bulb before you leave.” And they were like, “We'll get around to it when we get to it.” 

And of course, the light bulb popped out. 

He said, the minute it did, he was holding a tin cup of milk, and roaches were everywhere, and he had to put his hand over the milk to keep 'em from going in the milk, and try to sip his milk with those roaches going over his hand. 

And oh wow. I just listened to that story, and I thought who could not think of that as torture.

VO
Such cruel and unusual punishments might have cracked a lesser man. But not Peltier. 

Leonard found a way to be productive, even in the hole, where he dedicated his time to studying English and writing poetry.

Reporter Suzanne Fournier asked Peltier about his treatment in Oakalla Prison when she interviewed him for the Vancouver Sun. 

Leonard Peltier
I’m not being treated like the other prisoners, that’s for sure. 

As you can see, I have handcuffs on here while I’m talking to you. Anytime I leave my cell I’m being handcuffed, and one or two guards with me. 

I didn’t get any exercise outside from the time I got here in February until my lawyers started taking legal action against the prison in June. 

Now I sometimes get half an hour in the afternoon.

The warden tells my lawyer I’m a model prisoner, but then he also told them that he was going on information given to him by the FBI that I was a security risk. That AIM was going to come from the U.S. and bust me out. 

Even my own baby son is a security risk. I can’t touch him, or hold him once a month like other prisoners can with their families.

VO
Canada thought Leonard was some kind of Native American El Chapo because that’s what the Feds were telling them. 

In advance of the extradition trial in Vancouver, the FBI warned locals to expect armed escape raids and terrorist attacks just as they had done before the Butler-Robideau trial in Cedar Rapids. 

And like they had done in Iowa, the American Indian Movement responded by establishing a peaceful camp in Vancouver to reassure the Canadians of their good intentions and moral fiber. 

One of the main organizers was Steve Robideau, Bob’s cousin. Steve recalled AIM’s outreach efforts in British Columbia in this recreation of his interview for Peter Matheissen’s book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

Steve Robideau 
We had skins laying all over the place, man. We held ceremonies, using the pipe. We had sweats every day, and we discussed Canadian problems with the people. 

We really pulled the Indians of Canada together, which is one reason the authorities came down so hard on us. 

VO
Steve and Leonard had grown close after Peltier relocated to the West Coast following the proposed termination of the Turtle Mountain Reservation by the federal government. 

Steve Robideau
I was born just one week after Leonard at the Red Lake Center for Unwed Mothers in Minnesota. 

My grandmother raised me in Grand Forks, and I was sent to the government boarding school at Turtle Mountain, but I didn’t really know Leonard well until he showed up in Oakland with Bob Robideau’s family. 

It was Bob’s father, Bill, who taught all of us about machine work and carpentry. 

And later me and Leonard worked as welders in shipyards up in Portland. 

Leonard always had girls, and money in his pocket, because he’s a real good worker, and people like him. 

He was just Leonard. He’s always been who is, and he’s always been good-hearted. 

VO
Because Leonard was so well liked, Steve didn’t have much difficulty filling the courtroom with allies. 

Among them were some of AIM’s most senior leaders including John Trudell, Russell Means, and Vernon Bellecourt. 

Leonard spoke about their support to the Vancouver Sun.

Leonard Peltier
Vernon Bellecourt always comes to trials of AIM people. 

He knows, and the others do, too, that the trials are just one stage in the war. 

That criminal charges are a way of punishing us and attempting to silence us for our political beliefs.

This costs us time, and money, and energy, but we have to fight it that way because that’s one way the government tries to oppress us. 

Russell Means has had twenty-two charges and only been convicted once. 

After Wounded Knee, there were a thousand indictments, but less than a dozen convictions. Most were thrown out for government misconduct. 

And it’s not only us. It happens to Blacks, Chicanos, and now the Puerto Ricans.

We stand together because we are brothers and sisters. I would do the same for them.

VO
When the extradition hearing finally got underway, Leonard Peltier, a man who had not been convicted of a single violent felony in his life, was shackled hand and foot for the entirety of the proceedings like a super dangerous psycho killer.

Every morning Peltier made the short commute from his cell to the court in irons. And every morning Peltier’s supporters were alerted to his arrival by the scraping and clanging of his chains like he was the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol.

But Leonard wasn’t the only one subject to unjustifiable treatment in Canada. His supporters were being abused too. Steve Robideau again.

Steve Robideau
Every day we had a big march down to the court. At the court, they had strip searches every day, yanking off medicine bags, pushing people around. And the people were polite; there was no need for that. 

VO
The Vancouver Sun wrote that quote, “Entrants to the courtroom are being spread-eagled against the wall and frisked in what surely must be one of the most remarkable occasions in the history of this country’s legal process. Is this a Canadian courtroom? It is, in fact, a Canadian courtroom asked to rule on the internal politics of another country.”

The governments’ close collaboration on Peltier was reminiscent of their efforts to corral Sitting Bull whose nomadic existence and religious beliefs threatened the Manifest Destiny of the white man in the 19th century. 

Sitting Bull, who was Chief of the Hunkpapa, one of the seven tribal bands of the Lakota, became a marked man following his involvement in the Battle of Greasy Grass. 

That was where Sitting Bull’s warriors combined with Crazy Horse’s forces to surprise and kill Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and more than 200 troops from the U.S. 7th Cavalry on June 25, 1876.

In response to this humiliating defeat, the Army was ordered to track down the perpetrators and relocate them by force to prisoner of war camps aka reservations.

But Sitting Bull read the writing on the wall and evaded capture by crossing over the northern border into Grandmother’s Country.

Grandmother’s Country being the nickname given to Canada by the Chief in a playful nod to Queen Victoria.  

For a while the Hunkpapa flourished in the Great White North. Until the buffalo became scarce, and there wasn’t enough food to go around.

Today Canadians may be world famous for their good manners, but in the 1800s no such courtesy was extended to the Lakota.

When Sitting Bull appealed for rations, Canada rejected his call for help and quickly sent word of the Chief’s predicament to Washington, D.C..  

Shortly thereafter, Yankee agents arrived in the Hunkpapa’s Canadian camp promising food and riches to all who relocated to American reservations.

Following a mass exodus, Sitting Bull surrendered to the United States, and by 1890, just two weeks before the Wounded Knee massacre, the Lakota Chief was dead, killed by police for allegedly resisting arrest on the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas.

Almost 100 years later, Leonard Peltier was in a similar predicament. 

Like Sitting Bull, he wanted to stay in Canada because he was a political boogie man in the U.S. 

According to Peltier’s lawyers, if he were returned to America, his life would be in danger. For proof they pointed to Bob Robideau and Dino Butler. 

Leonard Peltier
Dino and Bobby were beaten in their cells twice very severely, and their lives were threatened. I mentioned that I have seen affidavits that law enforcement officials have sworn to kill me, whether I am guilty or not. 

VO
To undermine his asylum claim, prosecutor Paul Halprin argued that Leonard would pose a danger to society if permitted to stay in Canada.

Although Mr. Halprin was technically a prosecutor for the Canadian Department of Justice, he was representing the United States in Peltier’s extradition.

To support the allegation, Halprin cited an outstanding attempted murder charge against Peltier in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

That’s where Leonard was involved in an altercation with an off-duty cop who was hurling churlish remarks in his direction at a diner in November 1972.

After fists were exchanged, the fuzz showed up, and things took a turn. 

They took a turn because when the police searched Leonard, they found something, and that something was just the excuse they were looking for. 

Sheron Wyant-Leonard
So Leonard just remembers it as this scuffle. This person staring him down, and being rude, and pushing for a fight, and a fight happening. 

But Leonard had a broken Beretta pistol in his coat. It falls out of the pocket, and then it becomes charges that he attempted to shoot this police officer. 

VO
The Feds didn’t care that the gun found on Leonard had a broken chamber and couldn’t shoot. 

So he languished in jail for five months, waiting for AIM to make bail, which is how he ended up missing the Wounded Knee occupation in 1973. 

We bring up the Milwaukee incident here because it was wrongly used to portray Leonard as a violent criminal to the magistrate presiding over his hearing in Vancouver in 1976.

Technically, the charge shouldn’t have been used against him in Canada because it had never been ruled upon by a jury in the U.S.  

Especially since Leonard was ultimately exonerated of all charges stemming from the commotion after the case finally went to trial in Wisconsin in 1978. 

Emmy winner Peter Coyote dropped some relevant knowledge on our asses when we spoke in November 2022. 

Peter Coyote
When I met Leonard, he was the bodyguard for Robert Free, who was in charge of all the elders when they occupied the Department of Justice in Washington.

VO
Peter is referring to the occupation of the BIA headquarters in 1972. 

In November of that year Native American protesters held the federal building for five days as they demanded a meeting with President Nixon to discuss treaty violations.

The meeting would never come to fruition. Instead, the Feds offered the Native Americans money to go home.

Peter Coyote
It was Robert, they gave the suitcase with 60,000 bucks in it, and he got all the old men home, everybody home. And so Robert was a Digger at 14 years old. He was in my little Haight-Ashbury gang. 

VO
The Diggers were a radical community-action group of activists and street theater actors based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.

Peter was one of the founders of the anarchist improv troupe, an experience that he recounts in his compelling autobiography, Sleeping Where I Fall, a must-read for anyone interested in learning more about Coyote’s colorful life.

Peter Coyote
Uh, I actually remember buying them guns and false IDs for Wounded Knee.


Rory
Wow. That's – that's incredible. I, I hadn't, I hadn't known that detail about the Diggers and all and that connection. That's, yeah. That's awesome.

Peter Coyote
He goes way back and we've been friends really for 60 years. Okay. You ready Steven?

Stephen 
Yes.

Peter Coyote 
So I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna try this, just a paragraph or something. Uh,

Stephen 
Just a paragraph or something to make sure we're not peaking.

VO
Leonard was the bodyguard for the money man, Robert Free. That’s how he ended up on the Bureau’s radar.

The melee in Milwaukee was intended to be payback for Peltier’s involvement in the BIA occupation. 

But by the time it was proven to be a setup in a court of law, it was already too late. 

That’s because by then Leonard had already been given two consecutive life sentences by a judge in Fargo, North Dakota.

Which was only possible, because he’d already been extradited from Canada on the basis, at least partially, of this bogus attempted murder charge.    

That’s why we consider it “strike one” against Peltier’s bid for political asylum. 

Strike two came in the form of surprise physical evidence, namely a .223 shell casing that supposedly originated from the killer’s rifle. 

According to the head of the FBI Firearms Division, Cortland Cunningham, a ballistics test matched the shell to an AR-15 that had been linked to Peltier by witnesses. 

But here’s where it gets fishy. This vital piece of evidence that was reportedly found in the open trunk of Agent Jack Coler’s car had somehow been overlooked by the Bureau in their initial search of the crime scene on June 26. 

It’s hard to believe that the FBI forensics team wouldn’t thoroughly check the murder scene of their slain colleagues in the aftermath of such a well publicized tragedy, but that was the Bureau’s story, and they were sticking to it – for the time being.

Strike three was the eyewitness testimony of Myrtle Poorbear.
 
In two affidavits dated February 23rd and March 31st, 1976, Poorbear declared that she was a witness to the killings of Coler and Williams in Oglala, South Dakota.

According to her version of events, Myrtle pleaded for Leonard to take mercy on the agents before he pushed her away and shot them at close range. 

This of course all came as a shock to Peltier who had never met Poorbear. 

Leonard shared his frustrations in this dramatization of his interview for “Incident at Oglala.” 


Leonard Peltier
When they first brought me the evidence, my lawyer brought the discovery to me, they sat down with me, they says, “Well, Leonard, I got some bad news for you.” 

I says, “Yeah? Let’s hear it.” 

And he says, “Well, your girlfriend’s testifying against you.” 

I said, “My girlfriend? She wasn’t even there!” 

I says, “If my girlfriend’s making that statement, she’s lying! She wasn’t even there.” 

I had sent her away about two weeks before that, right?

He says, “Well, do you know a girl named Myrtle Poorbear?” 

Myrtle Poorbear! I don't know who the hell Myrtle Poorbear is! Right? 

I felt real relieved then. I went, phew, Jesus, wow! Maybe it’s somebody I know, right? 

But then I tried to explain it to them, I said, “Hey, I don’t even know this – this woman!” I said, “This is fabricated.”

I mean, if you read what she writes, and read the affidavits that were submitted to the courts, you can see that she didn’t write ‘em. 

She’s not very well educated, and the affidavits that were presented were written by the hand of someone with some education.


I’ve learned since then from her family, that she’s – she had rheumatic fever when she was around nine years old or something, and her mind never matured. 

But when I sit down and think about it, you know, I feel sorry for her. 

I wrote to her after I was in prison asking her why she had done this to me, and she, you know, said that she was forced. 

And she really felt fear of her life, and her children, and everything else. And that she didn’t really mean to do it.

VO
The FBI went to such extremes because the Canadian prosecutor Paul Halprin hadn’t been satisfied with the evidence he had seen up to that point. 

A week later, Poorbear was the Feds’ ace in the hole.

Leonard Peltier
They had to have more than what they had, what they first presented. And so they had to create an eyewitness. 

We know that there was a big conspiracy. That the prosecutor made numerous trips to Rapid City, and so they conspired, and sat together, and created these affidavits.

VO
This isn’t Leonard extrapolating here. 

In July of 1988 in a Supreme Court hearing in Canada, the government conceded that fraud had been committed. 

Filmmaker Kevin McKiernan spoke to us about the men behind the phony Poorbear affidavits.

Kevin McKiernan 
So there were a couple of agents, Bill Wood and David Price, who went about making this happen. 

VO
David Price being the former partner of the deceased Ron Williams. 

Kevin McKiernan
They visited a school principal in Allen, South Dakota, which was a small hamlet on the reservation, and asked about different students. 

And they heard about a young woman whose name was Myrtle Poorbear, who had gone to the school. 

And she was a troubled young single mother, who had a couple of kids. 

And this occurred to David Price and Bill Wood, the FBI agents, that this is a person they could work with. 

And they did, using a number of pressures, including she was going to lose her children. 

And she then came up with a series of affidavits that progressively got stronger. The first affidavit is, “Well, I heard that Leonard Peltier did it.” And so on. And then finally the third affidavit was, “I was Leonard Peltier's girlfriend, and I saw him commit the murder.” 

Now, the Canadian authorities had a very strong reason to extradite him.


VO
This story fell apart after the Butler-Robideau defense team located her first affidavit during discovery in Cedar Rapids in June 1976. 

The problem for Leonard was that in May 1976 Myrtle’s cockamamie tale still held water. And prosecuting attorney Halprin leveraged every bit of it to his advantage.

Instead of sharing Poorbear’s full account with the defense, the contradicting affidavit was hidden from them. 

The strategy was a clear violation of ethical trial procedure, but it was a necessity because the case against Peltier was essentially one big fucked up magic trick. 

If the defense were given adequate time to prepare, they would spot the tell. 

So prosecutors opted to launch a surprise attack at double speed to ensure no one would notice the smell.


On June 18, 1976, the court announced it had reached a decision. Steve Robideau.

Steve Robideau 
Everybody tried to get into the room that day. 

First we walked in with the drum – they forced us out. 

Then we walked in without it, but a cop grabbed the medicine bag of a guy named Big Bear, who blew it and threw a punch at him. 

I intervened, but it took me a little while to straighten that out. 

Finally, things calmed down again, and we got the people settled.

When the judge came in and asked Leonard to stand for the verdict, we all stood because the Indian people were being sentenced, too. 

Well, the judge got mad. “When I tell a defendant to stand, I don’t mean everybody! Now clear the court!” 

So people groaned and began singing the AIM song. Nobody was in a big hurry to leave. 

When we didn't move fast enough, we got pushed and shoved through the narrow exit in the rear of the gallery by cops. So a fist flew, and they sailed into us. 

They were slugging our women with sticks, same as the men. 

[AIM SONG PLAYS IN BG]

VO
After clearing the court, the judge declared that sufficient grounds for extradition had been presented.

The finding was immediately appealed by Peltier’s attorneys, but it was all for naught. 

New evidence regarding Myrtle Poorbear was deemed inadmissible, and in October 1976, the Supreme Court upheld the magistrate’s ruling.  

With his legal remedies exhausted, Peltier’s fate was left in the hands of the Minister of Justice, Ron Basford. 

As soon as Mr. Basford signed the extradition order on his desk, Leonard would be immediately expelled to the United States.

As he awaited the inevitable, Peltier gave that remarkable print interview to the Vancouver Sun, which we have been dramatizing with the help of Peter Coyote.

Leonard Peltier
The FBI is down to its last suspect – me. 

They want to make some Indian person pay. And they have shown they’ll use any methods to nail someone.

My defense people have been stopped at the border, turned back because the FBI told the Canadians they are wanted for crimes. Those were lies. 

Defense people have been harassed on the streets of Vancouver by the police, told to get out of town. Had their doors kicked in.

The FBI was sitting in the courtroom taking notes on the Pine Ridge people who were testifying on my behalf about conditions down there. 

My friend Edgar Bear Runner even told the judge he was afraid to talk after seeing an FBI agent who had been armed at Pine Ridge right there in the Vancouver courtroom.

VO
Edgar walked unarmed into the Oglala firefight wearing a Remember Wounded Knee t-shirt, so if he was afraid to talk, shit must have been pretty scary. 


This feels kinda like that scene in The Godfather Part II where Vincenzo Pentagli travels all the way from Italy to dissuade his brother Frank from testifying against the family before Congress. 

Except here it wasn’t the mafia doing the intimidating. It was the FBI.

The Bureau was doing everything in its power to get Leonard Petlier back to America because he was their last chance saloon. 

Their one shot at saving their reputation after so many public humiliations.

Ultimately, however, it was the not guilty verdict in the Butler-Robideau trial that sealed Leonard’s fate more than anything. 

That’s because the Cedar Rapids jury’s shock acquittals in July 1976 rendered Leonard’s position that he couldn’t get a fair trial in the United States untenable.

Peltier made this point to Michael Apted when he was interviewed more than thirty years ago. 

Leonard Peltier
I think what harmed me the most was when Bob and Dino got acquitted. Because now they were given the argument, “See, we told you. We don’t – you know, we don’t frame these Indians. They get fair trials.” 

And that’s what the Minister of Justice and everything else was saying as they were signing my extradition. 

The Minister of Justice was a neighbor to my – my adopted mother from Canada. She had known him ever since he was a little young man, right? 

She had spoken with him numerous times, and he had responded to her that, well, the acquittal of my codefendants proved that I was going to get a fair trial in the United States, right? 

And that he had been assured by the American officials that I would get a fair trial. 

VO
Leonard’s ensuing trial in Fargo, North Dakota, was anything but fair as we’ll explore in the final two episodes of this season. 

But the Cedar Rapids verdict gave Canada an out, and they jumped on it.

Leonard Peltier
Reading the extradition law, and reading everything behind it, I thought I had a good chance, you know. 

I thought if this government is really concerned about international treaty laws, then I should be allowed to stay here, because it is– everything’s legitimate, right? 

Well, when you read the law, and look at it, it’s a lot different than how it is interpreted by the judges and stuff. 

Of course it wasn’t a success, but the attorneys that I had there fought very, very hard. 

They did as good a job as they could considering all the power that they had to fight. So I have no complaints about ‘em. They’re good people. And they fought very, very hard.

And there was a couple of times during the extradition that we had ‘em. 

And what they had done then is that the government would call a recess for two or three days to be able to go back and recreate some more evidence and bring it in. 

We had ‘em a couple of times.


VO
Despite the best efforts of Peltier’s legal team, Minister Basford gave an early Christmas present to the FBI when he signed the extradition order returning Leonard to the United States on December 16th, 1976.

On his final perp walk in Canada, Leonard was photographed in atypical garb for an international fugitive. 

If you watch the old film on YouTube, you’ll notice that Leonard isn’t bracing against the wind in a thin orange jumpsuit. 

Instead, he’s bundled up in a tribal patterned sweater that was knit especially for him by the one and only Ethel Pearson.

[MUSIC UP]

While his adopted mother’s act of kindness braced him against the bitter cold, by then it was impossible for Leonard to ignore the dark clouds on the horizon.  


Leonard Peltier
They landed a helicopter, a military helicopter in the prison yard, brought me to the airport, took me in an Air Force jet straight to Rapid City. 

I knew then that my chances of getting a fair trial was near zero. 

I felt that I was in a world of trouble. 


This episode is dedicated to Vivienne Westwood. The legendary fashion designer, who dressed the Sex Pistols, was a long-time supporter of Leonard along with her former partner, Malcolm McLaren.



ROLL 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: Jason Grasl and Tanner Azzinnaro.

Thanks to Bobby Halvorson for the original music we’re using throughout this series. And thanks to Mike Cassintini 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, 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!