US vs LEONARD PELTIER TRIAL TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS Case Number CR77-3003

MIRRORED FROM THE LPDC WEB SITE HERE

Section II: The Pine Ridge "Reign of Terror" (Pages 13-27)
   (5) Excerpt from an interview done by Kevin McKiernan with Duane Brewer, a former GOON.

    A:
      There was, during that time after the agents were killed, that there was a lot of hatred for
      them people because of their methods. I mean, they never treated people humanly. It was,
      you know, forceful, you know. You got get somebody, you jerk them out of their car and
      you search them down. I mean, they were, they meant business when they was, after the
      agents got killed. And it teed off a lot of people. Nobody likes getting handled like that,
      you know.
      I had a few run-ins with them and I didn't like the way they treated me either. It's a...
 

    Q:
       DID THE FBI THINK IT WAS OKAY TO ROUGH UP AIM SUPPORTERS? AFTER
       WOUNDED KNEE AND SO FORTH?
    A:
       I imagine they did. Cause they was here, they wasn't pleasant for them being here and
      getting shot at and all of this danger. I think they did. They never did say anything. They
      never did come investigate any of them incidents, you know. And like I said, when they
      came to me and told me that, you know, you better stay home, they're going to kill you.
      Well, I showed them every weapon I had and said, "Let them do it."
 

    Q:
       AND SOME OF THOSE WERE ILLEGAL WEAPONS?
    A:
      I said, "You tell them people that if they shoot at me and miss, then they're all dead cause
      I don't miss." Like I say, I've done a lot of time out practicing with a pistol, with a rifle,
      AR, whatever. That's nothing new to me. I can, I can put the sight down and hit when I
      want to hit.
 

    Q:
       IS IT FAIR TO SAY THAT WHEN THE FBI CAME AND VISITED YOU AND SAW
       THAT KIND OF AMMUNITION AND WEAPONS THAT THEY KNEW THAT SOME
       OF THE PISTOLS YOU DIDN'T HAVE PERMITS FOR?
    A:
      You know, I don't know. I got the feeling that they was hoping that I'd kick the shit out
      of somebody. You know, or have a war.
 

    Q:
       WITH AIM?
    A:
      Sure, you know, "Lay it out for 'em. They're going to kill you Brewer--if you're out by
      yourself or anything." And that was fine, like I said in them days I didn't know what fear
      was. And I kind of, after some of the incidents, I really wanted to have a war. I wanted
      to educate some of them people.
 

    Q:
       WHEN THEY CAME OVER TO YOUR HOUSE, DID YOU HAVE THE FEELING
       WHEN THE FBI WAS AT YOUR HOME, DID YOU HAVE THE FEELING THAT
       THEY WERE WORKING ALONGSIDE YOU, AGAINST AIM?
    A:
      Well, when, you know, they give you all kinds of information and things and then they
      probably didn't give that to the AIM members. You know, it makes you wonder, yeah,
      they probably were giving you a lot more than they were supposed to. Which is good,
      hell, every little bit helps. You know the feeling. Here they were in between, supposedly,
      but they knew the feeling of some of these AIM members. I guess AIM had their people
      who would tell them things.
 

    Q:
       BUT THE FBI WAS WITH THE GOONS?
    A:
      Well, you know, I think that they got along better with them. They probably weren't
      accepted by AIM. AIM, you know, they killed a couple of them so surely they must not
      have liked them.
 

    Q:
       WHAT WAS THE TRIBAL RANGERS?
    A:
      Oh, they were, they took care of the lakes and our buffalo herd. We had a place in Ellen.
      It's called the, it's just the range out there that they used to take non-Indians or anybody
      that paid a certain fee to go out and kill a buffalo. And they'd process the whole body and
      they had a cabin out there they kept them in. For a big, for a certain amount of money,
      they would give them the whole works.
            But they were used in other things, too. I don't know, during Wounded Knee it wasn't
      really very active. There was a ranger corps but Dick Wilson didn't really use them that
      much. You know, for his goon squad or anything. Like I say, the majority of them, he
      never told, "You have to do this." Anybody that was working for him, it was volunteer.
 

    Q:
       BUT THOSE VOLUNTEERS IN THE TRIBAL RANGERS, THE VOLUNTEERS IN
       THE HIGHWAY SAFETY PROGRAM THAT YOU HEADED, YOU GUYS ALL GOT
       FEDERAL FUNDS AND IN YOUR OTHER ROLE, YOU WORKED ON THE GOON
       SQUAD FOR DICK WILSON?
    A:
      We always done our job though. Like I said, we've been audited, we've been audited three
      times and we were cleared of not buying weapons. We had a, you know, our ambulance
      service had 3 shifts so they were working. Our accident investigators were investigating
      accidents. That was paperwork. We was doing our job.