Peltier Is Home; It's About Damned Time!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

More than forty-nine years of captivity came to an end yesterday for Chippewa Native American activist Leonard Peltier when he was released from the Coleman Federal Corrections Complex in Sumter, Florida, and put on a plane to fly home to his family and loved ones in North Dakota.   Peltier was convicted of "aiding and abetting" in the murder of federal (FBI) officers in 1977 following a shootout at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  

Peltier, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence in the murders of the two armed government agents, and was never convicted of their actual murders, had sought a pardon or commutation of his sentence from eight Presidents, and was finally allowed to go home by President Biden.  The commutation was announced by the White House on the morning of January 20th, Biden's last day in office, and the prisoner was freed to get on the plane and fly home yesterday, February 18th, twenty-nine days after the presidential action.

Biden commuted Peltier's sentence to "home confinement."

Peltier, who has been regarded by many as this nation's most prominent political prisoner, has been supported in his appeals for clemency by international religious and political leaders, as well a host of prominent celebrities from around the globe.   In January, 120 tribal leaders in the United States called on Biden to grant clemency to Peltier.

But members of law enforcement have been steadfast in their opposition to Peltier's release, and one of those urging President Biden not to commute the Native American's prison sentence was Christopher Wray, who served as head of the FBI under Trump and Biden.  South Dakota's lone representative in Congress, Republican Dusty Johnson, also criticized the move by the President.

Leonard Peltier landed at Devil's Lake, North Dakota, yesterday afternoon and was taken in a 90-minute caravan to the entrance of the Turtle Mountain Reservation at Belcourt, North Dakota, where he will live out the remainder of his days surrounded by friends and family, and have the ability to step outside and breathe fresh air whenever he desires.  More than eighty vehicles were lined along the highway near Belcourt when Peltier's caravan arrived, and many supporters were standing beside those parked cars carrying homemade signs that greeted the happy traveler when he arrived.   The newly freed man held his fist out of the SUV window in which he was a passenger, and told members of the crowd who were standing in frigid 20-degree weather, "Thank you very much.  I'm home.  I've come home."

Leonard Peltier who is elderly, frail, and in declining health, takes pride in the fact that he survived and his spirit was never broken.  (He had also survived time in one of those horrific residential Indian schools when he was a child,)

The aging activist has returned.  He has finally outlasted the vengeance of his government.  As one of the homemade signs that greeted him upon his arrival in his North Dakota community yesterday said, "It's About Damned Time!"

Amen to that.