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February 10, 2025


** Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier Granted Clemency After Decades in Prison
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Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier had his life sentence commuted on Jan 20, 2025, after serving almost half a century in prison. Peltier will be released to home monitoring on February 18, 2025. An 80-year-old member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Peltier’s imprisonment has been at the center of controversy and advocacy by global human rights activists.

The clemency order was celebrated across Indian country and considered a victory by those who had long advocated for his release, including global human rights organizations like Amnesty International and the United Nations.

“It’s finally over – I’m going home,” Peltier said in a statement released by NDN Collective. “I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.”
READ: Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier Granted Clemency After Decades in Prison [Jan. 26, 2025] ([link removed])

Peltier’s conviction stems from a 1975 fatal shootout that took place two years after the 71-day Wounded Knee Occupation, where American Indian Movement (AIM) members occupied the town of Wounded Knee to protest corruption in tribal leadership and to highlight the federal government’s failure to honor treaties. During the time of the fatal shootout, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation had the highest murder rate per capita in the nation. Violence on the reservation was largely fueled by conflict between tribal citizens who supported the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s government and those who did not. The period leading up to the fatal shooting that left two FBI agents dead is widely known and referred to as “The Reign of Terror.” ([link removed])

In the summer of 1975, AIM members camped out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to support and protect elders in the community. On June 26, 1975, a shootout broke out between drivers in two unmarked cars and another vehicle driven by someone associated with the AIM encampment. Two FBI agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler — drivers of the unmarked cars — were killed.

Despite Peltier maintaining his innocence and his defense team claiming the evidence against him had been falsified, he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1977.
READ: After Biden’s Historic Grants of Clemency, Calls to Commute Leonard Peltier Reignite [Dec. 27, 2024] ([link removed])
Leonard Peltier in front of his painting

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