In this brief statement, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Zigrossi summarized over two centuries of U.S. jurisdiction and 'law enforcement" in Indian Country. From the country's founding through the present, U.S. Indian policy has consistently followed a program to subordinate American Indian nations and expropriate their land and resources. In much the same fashion as Puerto Rico (see Chapter 4), indigenous nations within the United States have been forced to exist - even by federal definition - as outright colonies. 1 When constitutional law and precedent stood in the way of such policy, the executive and judicial branches, in their turn, formulated excuses for ignoring them. A product of convenience and practicality for the federal government, U.S. jurisdiction, especially within reserved Indian territories ("reservations"), "presents a complex and sometimes conflicting morass of treaties, statutes and regulation." 2
The FBI in Indian Country
The entrance of the FBI in law enforcement into Indian Country began in the 1940s - under clear congressional provisos that it should be neither primary nor permanent - as wartime funding cuts rendered staffing levels for Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Special Officers inadequate. 3 Initially, the Bureau offered mere "investigative assistance" to the BIA, but over time all federal offenses came to be investigated by the FBI. By 1953:
... apparently because of FBI leadership, most U.S. Attorneys, and U.S. District Judges, recognized the FBI as having primary investigative jurisdiction for Federal law violations committed in Indian country, notwithstanding the wording of Congressional appropriation acts since FY-1939 and Opinion M. 29669 dated August 1, 1938, issued by the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior [indicating that such responsibilities were included in the duties of BIA Special Officers]. 4
{see proposed legislation, 1952}
The current situation is that:
The BIA has trained criminal investigators on most reservations. These special officers conduct the initial investigation for the majority of serious crimes which occur on Indian reservations. Most U.S. Attorneys however, will not normally accept the findings of a BIA special officer as a basis for making a decision on whether to prosecute. Instead, most U.S. Attorneys require that the FBI conduct an independent investigation, often duplicative of the BIA investigation, prior to authorizing prosecution .... 5All law enforcement on American Indian reservations has been made to revolve around the actions (and inactions) of the FBI. It is undoubtedly significant that while the typical BIA police officer is Indian, FBI agents and U.S. Attorneys are overwhelmingly white. 6
Far from enhancing law enforcement, the FBI impedes it by slow response and insistence upon repeating the investigative work of BIA, often well after the fact. Until this process is completed, no arrests can be made and suspects remain at large. 7,7a Once an offender has been apprehended and charged, there is little chance they will be tried: "Precise statistics are not maintained by Federal law enforcement agencies, but it appears that in excess of 80 percent of major crimes cases, on the average, presented to the United States attorneys are declined for prosecution." 8 Unlike crimes committed off-reservation, there is no other jurisdiction under which the defendant can be tried if the U.S. Attorney declines to prosecute. The effect on many reservations has been that defendants have a better chance of going to jail for a traffic violation - tried in the tribal courts - than for rape or first degree murder. Indian/Indian crimes or crimes perpetrated by non-Indians against Indians ranging from fraud to extreme violence - have received only minimal (if any) attention from police and prosecutors. Only those allegedly criminal acts undertaken by Indians against whites have tended to receive attention, filling the country's prisons with a disproportionately high number of Indians. 9,9a In this sense, it is entirely appropriate to observe that federal police functions in Indian Country are not devoted to law enforcement per se, but rather to maintenance of the status quo represented by Euroamerican domination and profiteering at the expense of American Indian people. The message has been that only those who rock the politico-economic boat risk criminal punishment.
With the passage of PL-280 in 1953, state and local agencies- also almost entirely white - assumed responsibility for on reservation law enforcement in many instances. 10 The overall effect of these policies has been that the quality of law enforcement in Indian Country has been egregious when measured by the standard of providing for the safety and security of the communities. Law enforcement concerning the most serious crimes is the responsibility of individuals who do not reside in the community and whose attitudes toward Indian people and their customs range from ignorance to hostility and contempt, a la Norman Zigrossi. In the case of state and local jurisdiction under PL-280, law enforcement is provided by reservation-adjacent communities with a reputation for vehement racism aptly summarized by an Itasca County, Minnesota, deputy sheriff. "[I]f all those Indians would just kill each other off, we wouldn't have to go up them [to the reservation]." 11 Slow to respond to complaints lodged by Indians, the police are viewed - justifiably - with suspicion by the community. 12
Rise of the American Indian Movement
The late 1960s saw a resurgence of militant Indian activism focused on resistance to further depredation of Indian lands and resources, recovery of illegally expropriated land, preservation of cultural identity and opposition to racist attacks on Indian people and their culture. During the mid-'60s, a Cherokee college student named Clyde Warrior founded the militant National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) and began publishing a political broadside entitled Americans Before Columbus. 13 Even the typically staid National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) adopted an increasingly forceful tone under the leadership of Lakota law student Vine Deloria, Jr, who before the end of the decade was to write the seminal Custer Died for Your Sins and We Talk, You Listen. 14 It was in this atmosphere that the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis in 1968 by Dennis Banks and George Mitchell (both Anishinabes [Chippewas]). Patterning itself after the Black Panther Party, AIM initially focused itself on urban issues such as combating police harassment of Indian people. During the next two years members such as Clyde Bellecourt (Anishinabe), Russell Means (Oglala Lakota), Herb Powless (Oneida), John Trudell (Santee Dakota) and Joe Locust (Cherokee) changed its emphasis from a local to a national focus and from specifically urban issues to issues of treaty rights and the preservation of traditional Indian culture. 15
In November 1969, national attention was suddenly focused on Indian issues when a coalition of Indian organizations, headed first by Richard Oaks (Mohawk) and later Trudell, and calling itself Indians of All Tribes (IAT), occupied Alcatraz Island. Citing an 1882 federal statute (22 Stat, 181) which provided for the establishment of Indian schools in abandoned federal facilities, the protestors demanded the creation of a Center for Native American Studies and other cultural facilities on the abandoned island. The occupation ended after nineteen months with an assault by a task force of U.S. marshals and the arrest of the occupiers. A prior agreement by the Department of Interior to convert Alcatraz to a national park featuring Indian themes never materialized. However, the massive media attention and resultant public support garnered by the Alcatraz occupation demonstrated its tactical effectiveness. 16 During the next two years, Indians occupied other abandoned military facilities across the country and Pacific Gas and Electric sites on Indian land in northern California. 17 AIM also engaged in a series of high-profile demonstrations - including the occupation of the Mayflower II on Thanksgiving Day 1970 and of Mt. Rushmore on July 4,1971 - which continued to keep Indian issues in the public eye. 18
In January 1972 an Oglala man named Raymond Yellow Thunder was tortured and murdered by two white men, Melvin and Leslie Hare, in the reservation adjacent town of Gordon, Nebraska. When it became clear that local law enforcement agencies intended to take no action against Yellow Thunder's murderers, a force of over 1,000 Indians - mostly from the nearby Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations - headed by AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means, occupied Gordon for three days. 19 The result of the occupation was that Yellow Thunder's assailants were charged and jailed, a police officer suspended, and Gordon's authorities forced to take a stand against discrimination toward Indians. The effect of this action was described by historian Alvin Josephy, Jr.: "Although discrimination continued, AIM's reputation soared among reservation Indians. What tribal leaders had dared not to do to protect their people, AIM had done." 20 According to those FBI documents assembled by the Bureau in its reading room, it was at this juncture that agents were first assigned to keep close tabs on "AIM and related militant Indian nationalist organizations."
In the light of growing public and reservation support, the AIM leadership met at the home of Brule Lakota spiritual leader Leonard Crow Dog's home - called Crow Dog's Paradise - on the Rosebud Reservation in July of 1972 to plan their next action. From this meeting emerged the concept for The Trail of Broken Treaties. Caravans from reservations across the country would travel to Washington, D.C., arriving immediately before the November presidential elections. AIM hoped that given the timing and attendant press coverage, the Nixon administration might be willing to enter into negotiations to resolve Indian grievances. 21 The Trail began in San Francisco and Seattle in October and gathered support from reservations along its route as it moved eastward. A list of proposed federal actions for redressing grievances and restructuring the relationship between Indian nations and the U.S. - known as the "Twenty Points" - was formulated during a stopover in St. Paul, Minnesota. 22 When the caravan reached Washington, D.C. on November 3, a series of events rapidly led to the Indians seizing the national BIA headquarters and occupying it until November 5. 23 The unplanned confrontation ended when the administration - embarrassed by sensational news reporting - formally agreed to review and respond to the Twenty Points, as well as to non-prosecution of the occupiers and provision of $66,650 in travel expenses for caravan participants to return home. 24
When the government recovered the BIA building, they discovered that a large number of "confidential" documents - primarily concerned with the low-yield leasing of reservation land - had been removed by the occupiers. One of the Trail's leaders, Hank Adams (Assiniboin/Lakota), volunteered to recover the documents and return them in batches, as they were copied and provided to the Indians to whom they pertained. After returning two loads of material, he was set up by an FBI provocateur named Johnny Arellano and arrested by the FBI in the process of returning another. 25 While the government made much in the media of the damage allegedly done to the building by caravan participants:
Later events would indicate that the federal government had a substantial number of agents among the protesters, and some were so militant and destructive that they were awarded special Indian names for their involvement in the protest. It became apparent why the government had been so willing to agree not to prosecute the Indians: The presence of agent-provocateurs and the intensity of their work would have made it extremely difficult for the government to have proven an intent by the real Indian activists to destroy the building. 26It was thus during and immediately following the Trail of Broken Treaties that evidence emerges of the initiation of a counterintelligence program to neutralize AIM and its perceived leadership. An FBI document released to journalist Richard LaCourse under the FOIA reveals a program which closely parallels that directed against RAM in Philadelphia (see Chapter 5). It recommends that "local police put [AIM] leaders under close scrutiny, and arrest them on every possible charge until they could no longer make bail." 27 This tactic was immediately implemented against activists returning home from Washington, D.C. For instance, on November 22 1972, Trail security coordinator Leonard Peltier was attacked in a Milwaukee restaurant by two off-duty policemen; he was beaten severely and then arrested and charged with the attempted murder of one of his assailants. Peltier was eventually acquitted when trial testimony revealed that one of the cops had shown his girlfriend a picture of Peltier and boasted of "help[ing] the FBI get a big one." 28 At about the same time, in South Dakota:
As Russell Means led the Oglala Sioux remnants of the Trail of Broken Treaties through the town of Pine Ridge, the seat of government of the Oglala reservation, he may have noticed a stir of activity around police headquarters. Unknown to Means, tribal president Richard Wilson had secured a court order from the Oglala Sioux tribal court prohibiting Means or any other AIM member from speaking or attending any public meeting ... Since the Oglala Sioux Landowners Association was meeting in Pine Ridge, Means, a member of this group, decided to attend and report what had actually happened in Washington. Before he had a chance to speak his mind, he was arrested by BIA special officer Delmar Eastman for violating this court order ... The arrest was a blatant violation of the First Amendment, for it denied Means freedom of speech on the reservation where he was born and was an enrolled member. 29
Early report showing intensive surveillance of Denver AIM chapter. The "100" coding prefix at bottom of page indicates an "Extremist Matters" investigation.
Early teletype demonstrating distribution of intelligence information on AIM within the international arena. Heavy deletion results from "National Security" classification.
Documents released through the FOIA, such as the accompanying January 12, 1973 report from the Denver field office, show that the Bureau was compiling detailed profiles of AIM members and leaders as part of an "Extremist Matters" investigation. As is demonstrated in the accompanying January 10 teletype, almost entirely deleted under a national security classification, the Bureau was (for reasons which have never been specified) keeping the U.S. embassy in Ottawa apprised of AIM activities. On January 14, Russell Means and several other AIM members were arrested on fabricated charges in Scottsbluff, Nebraska while participating in a Chicano-Indian Unity Conference with the Denver-based Crusade for justice. That night, Means' cell door was unlocked, a gun was placed in his cell and he was told by the police to "make a break for it." As the AIM leader later put it, "They wanted to off me during an escape attempt." When a complaint was filed on the incident, police claimed that Means had not been "properly searched" when he was booked and that the weapon was found in his cell. The accompanying January 15, 1973 teletype from the Omaha ASAC to the director proves the Bureau was well aware of the situation, but - in a manner reminiscent of the FBI's handling of police abuses against SNCC and other civil rights activists in Mississippi during the early '60s local agents did absolutely nothing to intervene. Bureau records also show the unity conference was heavily surveilled and infiltrated. 30
During the meeting in Scottsbluff, AIM received word that a 20-year-old Oglala, Wesley Bad Heart Bull, had been brutally stabbed to death by a white man, Darld Schmitz, in the reservation-adjacent town of Buffalo Gap, South Dakota. When Schmitz was charged with only the relatively minor offense of second degree manslaughter, AIM national coordinator Dennis Banks arranged a meeting with Custer County state's attorney Hobart Gates to discuss upgrading the charge to murder. Banks issued a call for Indians to assemble at the county courthouse in Custer to demonstrate support during the February 6 meeting. Two days prior to the event, however, a mysterious caller - believed to have have been an agent assigned to the Rapid City (South Dakota) resident agency - engaged in a COINTELPROstyle telephone conversation with Rapid City journal reporter Lyn Gladstone claiming the action had been "canceled due to bad weather," an untruth which appeared in the paper on February 5. 31
Teletype concerning police attempt to murder Russell Means.
As a result - and in sharp contrast to the massive turnout in Gordon concerning the Yellow Thunder case only a few months before - only about 200 AIM members and supporters turned out to caravan to Custer. 32 Once there, they were confronted by an equal number of riot-equipped local police and county deputies, a state riot squad, representatives of the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation and the FBI. 33 Although county officials had agreed to an open meeting with the Indian community, they now insisted they would meet with only Banks, Means and Utah AIM leader Dave Hill (Choctaw); although the courthouse was a public building, the remainder of the group was not allowed inside, and was forced to remain outdoors in a heavy blizzard. The AIM leaders found prosecutor Gates to be adamantly against upgrading the charges. After insisting that justice was already being done, he declared the meeting at an end and told the AIM delegation to leave. When they refused, police attempted to forcibly evict them and a melee broke out which quickly spread to the crowd waiting outside as riot police attacked them with clubs and tear gas. The courthouse and nearby chamber of commerce building were set ablaze by teargas cannisters and 27 Indians were arrested on charges such as "incitement to riot." Among those beaten by police and arrested was Sarah Bad Heart Bull, the victim's mother. She ultimately served five months in jail on charges resulting from the Custer police assault, while her son's murderer never served a day. 34
The violence and perversion of justice directed at the AIM group in Custer did not result from happenstance or mere "overreaction" on the part of local officials. As shown in the accompanying excerpt from a January 31, 1973 teletype sent to FBI headquarters by Minneapolis SAC Joseph Trimbach, the Rapid City office was by this point actively coordinating the activities of state and local police, state's attorneys in western South Dakota, and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), with regard to "AIM activities." The excerpted teletype also demonstrates that local police - with full knowledge of the FBI - had stonewalled U.S. Justice Department Community Relations Service representatives who were attempting to defuse the situation because the latter "appeared to favor AIM's cause." By early 1973 the Bureau had, with the enthusiastic cooperation of area police, set out to effect the physical repression of AIM while deliberately squelching attempts from both governmental and dissident quarters - to achieve peaceful resolution of the racial/political conflicts around Pine Ridge, and elsewhere in Indian Country.
Wounded Knee
The smoke and tear gas had barely cleared from the streets of Custer when the next round of confrontation between AIM and the federal government began. This time the locus of activity centered on Pine Ridge itself, and concerned a struggle between the "progressive" administration of the Oglala Sioux tribal president, Dick Wilson - who had already imposed an illegal ban on AIM members speaking or participating in meetings within what he apparently considered to be his private domain - and grassroots Indians on the reservation. Wilson, who had already held an office and been accused of having used the position to embezzle tribal funds, had been ushered into office with substantial government support in 1972. 35 Almost immediately, he had been bestowed with a $62,000 BIA grant for purposes of establishing a "tribal ranger group" - essentially his own private army - an entity which designated itself as "Guardians of the OgIala Nation" (GOONs or GOON Squad). 36 The Indian bureau also allowed him to hire his relatives into the limited number of jobs available through the tribal government, as well as to divert the virtual entirety of the tribal budget into support for his immediate followers rather than the Oglala Lakota people as a whole. 37 When traditionalist Oglalas complained, Wilson dispatched his GOONs. When victims attempted to seek the protection of the BIA police, they quickly discovered that perhaps a third of its roster - including its head, Delmar Eastman (Crow), and his second-in-command, Duane Brewer (OgIala) - were doubling as GOON leaders or members. 38 For their part, BIA officials - who had set the whole thing up -consistently turned aside requests for assistance from the traditionals as being "purely internal tribal matters," beyond the scope of BIA authority.
Exerpt from a January 31, 1973 teletype falsely suggesting AIM was equipping itself with automatic weapons and delineating FBI collaboration with South Dakota police in preparing for AIM's arrival in Custer.
By mid-year, the quid pro quo attending federal support to the regime emerged. In exchange for being allowed to run Pine Ridge as a personal fiefdom, Wilson was to sign over title to the northwestern one-eighth of the reservation - an area known as the Sheep Mountain Gunnery Range - to the National Park Service (which, like the BIA, is part of the Department of Interior). 39 Thus faced not only with Wilson's continued financial malfeasance and outright terrorizing of opponents, but with a significant loss of their already truncated landbase as well, the traditionals attempted to avail themselves of their legal right to impeach the corrupt official. The BIA responded by naming Wilson to serve as chair of his own impeachment proceedings, and the Justice Department dispatched a 65-member U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group (SOG) to Pine Ridge, to "maintain order." 40 Under such circumstances, Wilson was able to maintain his position when he finally allowed the impeachment vote to be taken on the afternoon of February 23, 1973. The same evening, he proclaimed a reservation-wide ban on any further political meetings. 41
On February 24, more than 200 people - including most of the traditional Oglala chiefs - defied the meeting ban to assemble at the Calico Hall (north of Pine Ridge village). They vowed to continue meeting until "something was done about Dickie Wilson." At their request, Russell Means traveled from Rapid City to meet with the Calico Hall group; he then attempted to meet with Dick Wilson to discuss the traditionals' grievances. 42 The meeting was aborted when Means was attacked in the parking lot outside tribal headquarters by several of Wilson's GOONs. 43 When Justice Department Community Relations official John Terronez (incorrectly referred to in the excerpted January 31 teletype as Torrez) attempted to go through the marshals to arrange a parlay between the traditionals and Wilson, the head of the SOG unit, Reese Kash, instructed his subordinates to "inform Mr. Terronez that CP [Command Post] was unable to contact me." 44
Attempts at negotiation having failed, the Calico Hall group decided on the evening of February 27 to join forces with AIM and caravan to the hamlet of Wounded Knee, about 15 miles east of Pine Ridge village. They intended to remain overnight in a local church and hold a press conference at this symbolic location the following morning. 45 They had agreed to release a statement demanding congressional hearings on the actions of the Wilson government, as well as treaty rights and BIA abuses generally. Ted Means and other AIM representatives were assigned to notify the media and coordinate transportation of reporters from Rapid City to the press conference site. However, at dawn on the 28th, those assembled at Wounded Knee found the roads to the hamlet blockaded by GOONs later reinforced by marshals service SOG teams and FBI personnel. 46 By 10 p.m., Minneapolis SAC Joseph Trimbach had flown in to assume personal command of the GOONs/BIA police, while Wayne Colburn, director of the U.S. Marshals Service, had arrived to assume control over his now reinforced SOG unit. Colonel Volney Warner of the 82nd Airborne Division and 6th Army Colonel Jack Potter-operating directly under General Alexander Haig, military liaison in the Nixon White House - had also been dispatched from the Pentagon as "advisors" coordinating an illegal (under provisions of the Posse Comitatus Act; 18 USCS § 1385) flow of military personnel, weapons and equipment to those besieging Wounded Knee. 47 As Rex Weyler has noted:
Documents later subpoenaed from the Pentagon revealed that Colonel Potter directed the employment of 17 APCs [armored personnel carriers], 130,000 rounds of M-16 ammunition, 41,000 rounds of M-40 high explosive, as well as helicopters, Phantom jets, and personnel. Military officers, supply sergeants, maintenance technicians, chemical officers, and medical teams remained on duty throughout the 71 day siege, all working in civilian clothes [to conceal their unconstitutional involvement in this "civil disorderl"]. 48
By 3 a.m. on March 1, the colonels were meeting secretly with Trimbach and Colburn, as well as Colonel Vic Jackson of the California-based Civil Disorder Management School (CDMS), at nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. 49 Jackson, a specialist in irregular warfare, seems likely to have been brought in to implement of one of two "domestic counterinsurgency scenarios" code-named "Garden Plot" and "Cable Splicer," which CDMS had been created to perfect. 50 By March 3, F-4 Phantom jets were making regular low-level reconnaissance runs over the hamlet, and the outright military nature of the federal buildup had otherwise become obvious. AIM proposed a mutual withdrawal of forces and negotiations, but the government, expressing a clear intent to settle the confrontation by force, declined this offer. 51 On March 5, Dick Wilson - with federal officials present - held a press conference to declare "open season" on AIM members on Pine Ridge, declaring "AIM will die at Wounded Knee." 52 For their part, those inside the hamlet announced their intention to remain where they were until such time as Wilson was removed from office, the GOONs disbanded, and the massive federal presence withdrawn.
Attempts at negotiation during the next few days were consistently rebuffed by government hardliners and, on March 8, AIM was warned that women and children should leave the defensive perimeter. 53 That evening an APC fired on an AIM patrol, wounding two men. 54 This was followed by a firefight on March 9 during which thousands of rounds of automatic weapons fire were poured into the hamlet by federal forces. AIM responded by firing a single magazine of ammunition from their only automatic weapon, a Chinese AK-47 brought home by a returning Vietnam veteran. This led to the circulation of disinformation in the media by FBI "public relations specialists" that the defenders were firing on federal positions with an M-60 machinegun. 55
On the morning of March 11, the government temporarily lifted the siege (over protests by the FBI), apparently hoping its show of force had intimidated AIM into surrendering. Instead, more than 100 supporters streamed into Wounded Knee, bringing with them supplies and weapons. 56 The traditionals also utilized the opportunity to proclaim themselves an "Independent Oglala Nation" (ION), with rights specifically defined within the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, entirely separate from the IRA government headed by Dick Wilson. SAC Trimbach, along with several of his men disguised as "postal inspectors," then attempted to enter the hamlet to survey its defenses; detained at the perimeter by AIM security personnel, they were told to leave or be arrested by the ION. 57 His ploy to end the cease fire with a provocation successfully completed, Trimbach immediately used this incident as a basis for reestablishing his portion of the siege lines; faced with a fait accompli, the marshals shortly followed suit. 58 The Minneapolis SAC was reinforced in this course of action by veteran COINTELPRO specialist Richard G. Held, who had been sent to Pine Ridge from his position as SAC in Chicago (where he was even then orchestrating the cover up of the Bureau's role in the Hampton-Clark assassinations; see Chapter 5) to "consult" on the sorts of operations the FBI should undertake against AIM. 59 Trimbach's move was entirely consistent with a string of "reports" Held was at the time sending to headquarters asserting that other law enforcement agencies were not sufficiently tough in dealing with the "insurgents" - a bit of outright counterinsurgency vernacular which stuck, as is evidenced in the accompanying October 31, 1973 predication for investigation - stressing that all police personnel on the reservation should have been placed under direct Bureau control from the outset, and protesting a Justice Department prohibition on "shoot-to-kill" techniques on the siege line. 60 Given that the BIA police (and, by extension, the GOONs) had all along come under command of the FBI, these remarks could only have been directed at the U.S. Marshals Service.
Probably the most immediate result of Held's and Trimbach's renewed siege was the precipitation of a firefight on the afternoon of March 12, in which SA Curtis Fitzpatrick was wounded slightly, in the wrist. Bureau propagandists seized the opportunity to engage in an incredible bit of theatrics, arranging for Fitzpatrick to be "med-evacked" by military helicopter to Ellsworth Air Force Base, where a full complement of media personnel had been assembled to see him arrive with his head swathed in bandages. 61 Simultaneously, an active campaign to "develop informants" and infiltrate provocateurs within Wounded Knee was under way. Among the former was Leroy Little Ghost, (Hunkpapa Lakota) from the Fort Totten Reservation in North Dakota, who was recruited with the guarantee of $2,000-20,000 (depending on how well he did) in cash for his services. 62 Among the latter were Gi and Jill Shafer, withdrawn by the Bureau from running the bogus "Red Star Collective" in the South to serve as volunteer "medics" within the besieged hamlet. 63 Another provocateur sent into Wounded Knee by the FBI during this period was Douglass Durham - a former CIA operative, police officer, affiliate of organized crime in the Midwest and suspected murderer - who posed as a "part-Minneconjou Lakota" (at other times "part-Chippewa") and reporter for the radical Iowa periodical Pax Today. 64 The Bureau was also, as the accompanying excerpt from a teletype concerning KIXI radio reporter Clarence McDaniels makes clear, using media personnel as intelligence agents, both with and without their knowledge.
Predication for an investigation of the American Indian Movement. Note adoption of the vernacular of counterinsurgency warfare.
Meanwhile, the policy conflict between the FBI (and its BIA police/GOON surrogates) on one side and the U.S. Marshals Service and military on the other was sharpening. As the FBI's role in the siege increased under Richard Held's tutelage, so did the intensity of firefights and GOON depredations. Beginning on March 13, federal forces directed fire from heavy .50 caliber machineguns into the AIM positions, greatly increasing the probability of lethal injury to those inside. The following month was characterized by alternating periods of negotiation, favored by the army and the marshals - which the FBI and GOONs did their best to subvert - and raging gun battles when the latter held sway. Several defenders were severely wounded in a firefight on March 17, and on March 23 some 20,000 more rounds were fired into Wounded Knee in a 24-hour period. 65 During the latter, the government forces suffered their only serious casualty when a marshal, Lloyd Grimm, was struck in the torso by a .30 caliber slug (probably fired by a GOON) and paralyzed. 66 Apparently with the intent of denying even biased first-hand coverage of the events, and in anticipation of another escalation in hostilities, the FBI banned further media access to the Wounded Knee area; on the day Grimm was hit, the Bureau announced that reporters who continued to report from inside the AIM/ION perimeter would face federal indictments when the siege ended. 67 At about the same time, the Bureau announced that anyone found attempting to bring supplies into Wounded Knee would be arrested on charges such as "conspiracy to abet a riot in progress." 68
Excerpt from teletype describing manipulation of news content and use of suppressed stories of reporter Clarence McDaniels as intelligence source, apparently without his knowledge.
On April 6, AIM, ION and government moderates mustered another serious attempt to avoid further bloodshed, reaching a cease-fire agreement and the basis for a negotiated settlement. 69 The agreement was, however, violated by the government within 72 hours of its signing and the siege continued. 70 Consequently, on April 17, the government fired more than 4,000 rounds into the village, much of it .50 caliber armor-piercing munitions. Frank Clearwater (Apache) from North Carolina, was fatally wounded in the back of the head by one of these heavy slugs as he lay sleeping in the hamlet church; he died on April 25. Five other AIM members were wounded less seriously. 71
The FBI's "turf battle" with the "soft" elements of the federal government rapidly came to a head. On April 23, Chief U.S. Marshal Colburn and federal negotiator Kent Frizzell (a solicitor general in the Justice Department) were detained at a GOON roadblock and a gun pointed at Frizzell's head. By his own account, Frizzell was saved only after Colburn leveled a weapon at the GOON and said, "Go ahead and shoot Frizzell, but when you do, you're dead." 72 The pair were then released. Later the same day, a furious. Colburn returned with several of his men, disarmed and arrested eleven GOONs, and dismantled the roadblock - However, "that same night... mom of Wilsons people put it up again. The FBI, still supporting the vigilantes, had [obtained the release of those arrested and] supplied them with automatic weapons." 73 The GOONs were being armed by the FBI with fully automatic M-16 assault rifles, apparently limitless quantifies of ammunition, and state-of-the-art radio communications gear. When Colbum again attempted to dismantle the roadblock:
FBI [operations consultant] Richard [G.] Held arrived by helicopter to inform the marshals that word had come from a high Washington source to let the roadblock stand ... As a result the marshals were forced to allow several of Wilson's people to be stationed at the roadblock and to participate in ... patrols around the village. 74On the evening of April 26, the marshals reported that they were taking automatic weapons fire from behind their position, undoubtedly from GOON patrols. The same "party or parties unknown" was also pumping bullets into the AIM/ION positions in front of the marshals, a matter which caused return fire from AIM security. The marshals were thus caught in a crossfire. 75 At dawn on the 27th, the marshals, unnerved at being fired on all night from both sides, fired tear gas cannisters from M-79 grenade launchers into the AIM/ION bunkers. They followed up with some 20,000 rounds of small arms ammunition. AIM member Buddy Lamont (Oglala), driven from a bunker by the gas, was hit by automatic weapons fire and bled to death before medics, pinned down by the ban-age, could reach him. 76
When the siege finally ended through a negotiated settlement on May 7, 1973, the AIM casualty count stood at two dead and fourteen seriously wounded. An additional eight-to-twelve individuals had been "disappeared" by the GOONs. They were in all likelihood murdered and - like an untold number of black civil rights workers in swamps of Mississippi and Louisiana - their bodies secretly buried somewhere in the remote vastness of the reservation. 77
Wounded Knee marked the beginning rather than culmination of the FBIs campaign against AIM and its allies on Pine Ridge. As the military advisers and Colburn's marshals were withdrawn the FBI was now free of their scrutiny. The Bureau beefed up its Rapid City resident agency (within which area of responsibility the reservation falls) to fill in behind them. Although Richard G. Held returned to his post in Chicago, the tactical groundwork he had laid during the siege - a matter partially illuminated in the accompanying report, "The Use of Special Agents in Paramilitary Law Enforcement Operations in the Indian Country," which he wrote at the time but which was not generally disseminated until April 24, 1975 (under the signature of J.E. OConnell) - supported counterinsurgency war on Pine Ridge over the next three years.
Blood of the Land: The government and Corporate War Against the American Indian Movement, Rex Weyler,p.80
Excerpted from Paul Wolf's Web site Here
