Tune in to Native Bidaské as Native News Online editor Levi Rickert talks with Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians) who is celebrating his 81st birthday today. Released a federal prison this past February after almost five decades, it is his first birthday away from prison.
In 1977, he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the deaths of two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota — a case that has since become one of the most controversial in American legal history.
On his last day in office, President Joe Biden granted Peltier a presidential commutation. Peltier was released on February 18 from a federal prison in Florida and flown to North Dakota. He is confined to his home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.
The interview deals with more than Peltier’s birthday. He speaks about the need for Native people to keep the fight to preserve tribal sovereignty and other issues impacting Native Americans today.
