In 1975, two FBI agents were killed here at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Leonard Peltier has spent 40 years in prison for the killings, though he has always maintained his innocence. He has never denied being present at the shoot-out, but has spent 40 years trying to prove he did not commit the murders. ANDY CLARK/REUTERS

Singer and activist Joe Troop has made a music video for this event, please watch it here.

ANDY CLARK/REUTERS wrote 2016 in this article

Peltier, an Anishinabe-Lakota American Indian, is best known as a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), an activist movement founded in 1968 during the turmoil of the civil rights era to advocate for Native people in the U.S.

In 1972, Peltier was among AIM activists who marched to Washington, D.C., to present a 20-point proposal for improving U.S.-Indian relations on the eve of election day. The so-called "Trail of Broken Treaties" escalated into a six-day occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. After an end to the occupation was negotiated and the leaders returned home, the FBI considered AIM an extremist organization.

Today, Peltier is serving two consecutive life sentences in USP Coleman, northwest of Orlando. He was convicted of the murder of FBI Agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, who were shot and killed on the Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26, 1975.

Peltier has always maintained his innocence, and his deep respect for human life. He has never denied being present on June 26, but he has spent the past 40 years trying to prove that he did not commit the murders.

The long and complicated case history reveals a pattern of misconduct by the FBI, including the coercion of an alleged eyewitness, suppression of potentially exculpatory evidence, and deep concerns about the agency's political motivation for so zealously pursuing the case.

The U.S. Parole Commission has acknowledged to Peltier the "lack of any direct evidence that you personally participated in the executions of two FBI agents."

The tragic deaths of Agents Coler and Williams at Pine Ridge occurred in a much larger context of political tension between AIM organizers and law enforcement. Months before the shoot-out that led to their deaths, the FBI was already preparing for a major armed confrontation with AIM leaders, as evidenced by a six-page FBI memo dated April 24, 1975, titled: "The Use of Special Agents of the FBI in a Paramilitary Law Enforcement Operation in the Indian Country".

Peltier has devoted his life to improving the lives of some of the most underserved and marginalized people in the United States—his own native people. He told me about his work to establish a halfway home for women leaving the reservation to look for work in the city in the early 1960s, about his prison art program and ongoing commitment to mentoring younger inmates.

Ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms are reported to have approximately a 90 percent mortality rate—a statistic even more chilling for an inmate trapped in the federal prison's medical system, plagued by chronic staff shortages and limited access to care, according to a 2016 Department of Justice report.

We are asking that you sign and send this letter to President Biden for the release of Leonard Peltier. There is already a September 2020 DNC resolution that Rep Ruth Buffalo has been approved and sent to President Biden's desk for his review and consideration.

Additionally is a Walk for Leonard's Freedom underway, scheduled to arrive around the middle of November to Washington DC, ending with a rally.