Leonard Peltier Essay
The existence of martyrs has a profound effect on the people who know them, and on those who feel them to be symbols of grand injustices. A martyr is all it may take to radicalize a movement and to push otherwise peaceful people into violence. A martyr in the making is a man named Leonard Peltier. He is known to the MTV generation as the subject of a Rage Against the Machine video. But to Native Americans, Peltier has long stood as symbol that there is no equitable treatment of American Indians in the American judicial system. Peltier, a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, is serving his eighteenth year in a Levenworth, Kansas, federal prison for murdering two FBI agents. He and his ...
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killed along with one Native American. Within a half an hour the farm where the fight had taken place was overrun with 200 FBI agents and federal police. The gunmen fled into the reservation. Convinced that he would not receive a fair trial in the United States, Peltier hid in Canada. In order to extradite him, the FBI produced an affidavit from Myrtle Pooh Bear, who had supposedly witnessed the killing. She later said that she was not at Pine Ridge the day of shooting, and that she was coerced into writing the false affidavit. Furthermore, according to FBI documents released under
The Freedom of Information Act, the FBI had withheld from the defense the fact that none of the bullets, which had killed the officers, could be traced to Peltier's gun. This key fact would have proved his innocence, but because of the suppression of this evidence Peltier was found guilty of double homicide.
Peltier's case has drawn national attention, and responses to the situation demonstrate that ...
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winding its way across 20 states and 3,800 miles, the walk ended in a Senate caucus room. The group had come to address members of Congress about a number of Native American rights issues: the ecological damage caused by nuclear waste on Indian lands, the use of racial stereotypes in sports team logos, the infringement of hunting rights, treatment of sacred sites to which Native Americans have been denied access, and discrimination against Native American prisoners. The walkers also intended to present petitions representing five hundred thousand names to liaisons from the White House. Only two Senators showed up, each for half an hour, and no White House representative ever appeared. ...
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Leonard Peltier Essay. (2005, July 25). Retrieved November 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Leonard-Peltier-Essay/30618
"Leonard Peltier Essay." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 25 Jul. 2005. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Leonard-Peltier-Essay/30618>
"Leonard Peltier Essay." Essayworld.com. July 25, 2005. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Leonard-Peltier-Essay/30618.
"Leonard Peltier Essay." Essayworld.com. July 25, 2005. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Leonard-Peltier-Essay/30618.
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