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Kathy Peltier was barely two years old when her father Leonard Peltier was sentenced for the murders of FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler in Fargo, N.D., in 1977. She’s only ever known him as a prisoner. 

“Once I see his face out in the real world, it’ll really be like, wow, it is true. But right now, I’m still in shock,” Kathy told MPR News. 

The last time she spoke with her father was before the COVID-19 lockdown. Peltier has been housed in a maximum security prison in Florida for the past several years. She said calling or writing has also been difficult.  

She, like many others, was surprised at the 

11th hour commutation by former President Joe Biden.

 Kathy Peltier said she received word from NDN Collective, an Indigenous advocacy organization, that there was a chance it could happen.

Then she waited. As the midnight hour approached on Sunday, on inauguration eve, she kept checking her phone. Nothing.

The next morning, around 8:30 a.m., she put her phone down after checking one last time and felt for sure it wasn’t going to happen.

“It felt like Clinton all over again,” she said, referring to the time former President Bill Clinton considered a commutation for Peltier but did not grant one. 

The announcement came later Monday morning.

“I was in shock,” she said when she got the news. She had to go online and check her newsfeed to make sure it wasn’t a ruse. Then she called her niece, who tearfully asked her, “Is grandpa really coming home?”

Biden granted Peltier’s application for clemency just minutes before President-elect Trump took office. The action means Peltier will serve the rest of his sentence on home confinement. At age 80, Peltier has been imprisoned for almost 50 years. 

Peltier was convicted in 1977 for the murders of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams. Peltier was sentenced to two life terms in prison.

Peltier’s daughter Kathy was born in November of 1975 — barely four months after the shootout in Oglala, S.D. The event shaped her life. She told MPR News she was taunted and bullied by fellow classmates on the Navajo reservation where she spent her early childhood years. 

“You know, ‘Your dad is a killer. Your dad needs to be in prison.’” Kathy recounted. She said she ignored those comments because she always believed in her dad’s innocence. 

When she moved off the reservation, she says people treated her differently.

“People were like, ‘You’re Leonard Peltier’s daughter?’” she remembered. She went from being bullied to celebrated. Her teachers and classmates said she was part of living history.

Michael Clark is the president of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. He retired from the Bureau in 2004 after a more than 20-year career. He and other members opposed Biden’s decision to grant Peltier clemency.

Clark said his organization and active agents working for the FBI had no idea this was coming. He said they thought their presentation during Peltier’s July parole board hearing was airtight. He said Biden’s Monday announcement was shocking. “I found out about it in the news,” Clark said. 

Clark maintains that the facts around Peltier’s case have not changed. He characterized it as a well-known case that is something they talked about in the academy. Clark said he’s unmoved by the arguments that Peltier should be released because of his age and ill health. 

“Agents Coler or Williams don’t get to go home and die in their beds,” said Clark.

Clark said the Society and the Bureau would have normally been given a heads up if a commutation was coming, but there were no indications Biden would take the action in the final moments of his presidency. Clark sees the outpouring of joy over Peltier, who gets to see his family, and thinks about the families of the two agents who never get to see their loved ones again.

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The families of agents Coler and Williams continue to express their disappointment. In a March 2022 letter to Biden dated March of 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray included correspondence letters from family members of the two agents who were killed. 

Wray said that Peltier’s crimes have “left a hole in the victim’s surviving family and friends.”

Linda Miller and Susan Gregg, Coler’s sisters, shared a letter with Wray and said that every time there is a renewed push for clemency or a pardon, it brings up a swirl of emotion. 

“Leonard Peltier didn't know the two men he murdered, but because of him, [those] of us who loved them have never really had a chance for closure. We

are subjected to hearing and thinking about him, reliving that time more often than we should. Parole hearings, pardon and clemency requests, books, movies, etc. Nothing has changed regarding this case in the last 47 years,” Coler’s two sisters wrote at the time.

At least one South Dakota politician disagreed with Biden’s decision.

“This commutation was another unfortunate mistake by the Biden Administration, and I asked the White House not to do this,” U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, said in a written statement. 

“More than twenty federal judges and Biden’s own FBI Director agree — Peltier’s convictions and sentence must stand. The denials of parole are further evidence that pardoning Peltier’s sentence is simply a bad decision. Protecting Americans and law enforcement officers should be of utmost importance.”

Indigenous people who had followed Peltier’s case for years, had a range of reactions to Biden’s decision.

The news of executive clemency for Peltier was met with disappointment from the family members of slain AIM activist Annie Mae Pictou Aquash. 

Aquash was an activist with the American Indian Movement in the early 1970s after coming to the U.S. from Canada. She disappeared in December of 1975. Her body was recovered in March of 1976 in the town of Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

A recent four-part documentary “Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae” by Yvonne Russo examined the events surrounding Aquash’s murder.

The slain activist’s daughter, Denise Pictou Maloney, alleged to APTN News interviewers Peltier had threatened her mother with a gun and that Peltier accused Aquash of informing on the American Indian Movement for the FBI prior to her death.

Pictou Maloney expressed disappointment in relation to those who celebrated Peltier’s commutation on her social media page.

“This was not an act of justice. Leonard Peltier was not pardoned and he was not freed. He will still serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest,” wrote Pictou Maloney.

Aquash’s murder went unsolved for nearly two decades. In early 2003, AIM activists Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham were indicted for her murder. They were later convicted in separate trials and sentenced to life in prison. 

Peltier had never been indicted or charged in relation to Aquash’s death.

In the years since Annie Mae Pictou Aquash’s death, the Mi’kmaq activist has become a symbol of the movement seeking resolution for Indigenous people who have gone missing and those who have been murdered.

Others who have followed Peltier’s bid for clemency over the years were surprised by the news.

Reid Raymond, a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, was a Minneapolis-based reporter who covered Peltier’s trial for a community-based Native American news service. He’s now an attorney and a founding member of the Minnesota American Indian Bar Association. 

 Monday that Biden’s action doesn’t absolve Peltier’s guilt but allows Peltier to be released from prison. He said he was surprised Biden took the action “in the face of the opposition that's been put forward by law enforcement.”

He suggested Biden’s action was compassionate, as Peltier has been in poor health for several years.

“There’s nothing to be gained by having him die in prison,” Raymond said.

Kevin Sharp, one of the attorneys who worked on Peltier’s case for five years, said that the shootout and incarceration are symbolic of wider problems in Indian Country. He believes there was support for clemency in the Biden White House due to the media attention put on boarding schools and their treatment of Native Americans over the last few years. 

“That starts to bring in a bigger story of the mistreatment, the unequal treatment, the broken treaties and the broken promises with the Indigenous people,” Sharp said.

In early November, Biden became the first president to formally apologize for the abuse and trauma inflicted on generations of children at Native American boarding schools.

“And I think all of that really resonated with this President, who has done more to help Indian Country than any president before.”

The news of Biden’s commutation did resonate with Minnesota’s Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation, a tribal nation in northwestern Minnesota, expressed her gratitude to Biden on Instagram Monday afternoon.

“I have seen your compassion many times, most recently in Arizona, where I was honored to bring my daughter to watch you make a historic apology for the government’s role in federal Indian boarding schools,” wrote Flanagan. 

“Today, you are releasing one of the oldest survivors of those boarding schools, an 80-year-old man in poor health, to spend his final days with his family,”

Biden’s decision to lessen Peltier’s sentence was also welcomed by members of the American Indian Movement.

Lakota activist and longtime AIM member Bill Means said his first reaction to Peltier’s commutation was “complete disbelief.” 

Means joined the American Indian Movement during the 

 in South Dakota, the 71-day stand-off between AIM and federal law enforcement in 1973.

Means said he and others started advocating for Peltier in the late 1970s.

“I was part of the international team that went to the United Nations. And we ended up talking to people like Amnesty International and other various governments around the world,” he said.

After hearing the news, Means said he had to take a moment to let Peltier’s clemency sink in.

“All those years of marching, of being supportive of various activities for Leonard Peltier,” said Means. “Once I soaked it in, I thought of all the people involved that it took to get him out.”

Correction (Jan. 24, 2025): A previous version of this story incorrectly stated how many parts are in “Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae.” The above version is updated.

Allison Herrera

Author

Melissa Olson

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Courtesy of MIGIZI

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