Myth Verses Fact of the American Indian Movement…the timelines

 

 TIMELINE:
Notable Events in the History of the American Indian Movement
July, 1968: AIM is founded by Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt and others, as an offshoot of a government-funded anti-poverty program in Minneapolis.

July, 1970: Dennis Banks leads AIM members in a failed fleecing of a Lutheran Church in Sioux Fall, South Dakota. The following year, the same house of worship donates $45,000.
November 24, 1970: Russell Means and Dennis Banks lead a group of raucous followers during the 350th anniversary of Plymouth Colony. Stunned organizers dressed in Pilgrim outfits watch the militants board a replica of the Mayflower and proceed to vandalize it. There are no arrests.
December 16, 1970: The Airlie Center in Warrenton, Virginia, a meeting complex, is the site of a three-day conference on Indian affairs. Intoxicated AIM members cause several thousand dollars worth of damage. No arrests.
May 16, 1971: AIM stages a sit-in at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, resulting in injuries and arrests.
June 6, 1971: Russell Means leads 50 Indians armed with baseball bats and pick handles in a demonstration at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. A week later, AIM stages a sit-in at an abandoned U.S. Army Nike Missile Site near Chicago, Illinois. On July 1, protesters throw stones and Molotov cocktails, injuring three policemen.
September 22, 1971: Russell Means leads approximately 60 rabble rousers against the BIA building in Washington, D.C. The protesters try unsuccessfully to place officials under citizen’s arrest. Twenty-four persons are arrested after thirty-five to forty AIM members scuffle with GSA Security officers.
February 20, 1972: Raymond Yellow Thunder, a fifty-one year old Sioux from Porcupine, is found dead in a truck in Gordon, Nebraska. Yellow Thunder died from a head injury suffered three days earlier while locked in the trunk of a car driven by white out-of-town hoodlums. Three youths are later convicted of manslaughter. AIM members, along with “big city” reporters, descend on the small town of 2500, declare widespread racism, administer atonement, and distort the facts of the case.
March 9, 1972: A year before the Wounded Knee takeover, Russell Means leads 300 Indians to the village following Raymond Yellow Thunder’s funeral. The Trading Post is looted and an estimated $50,000 in Indian artifacts is stolen, thus setting the stage for the larger scale operation of the following year.
April 4, 1972: AIM seizes the BIA jail in Fort Totten, North Dakota.
June 8, 1972: AIM members and sympathizers demonstrate against an Indian dance being performed by Boy Scouts in Topeka, Kansas. Fist fights break out and five AIM members are arrested.
July 2, 1972: Eight AIM members are arrested and charged with inciting a riot and assault after disrupting an All-Indian Pow Wow in Flagstaff, Arizona.
November 1, 1972: AIM members arrive in Washington, D.C. in an ill-fated peace protest, known as the Trail of Broken Treaties. A few days later, the group storms the BIA HQ building after a government snafu is interpreted as a double-cross. AIM members destroy priceless artifacts and Indian land deeds. Total damage is estimated at two million dollars. Government negotiators pay AIM leaders $67,000 as travel money to leave the city. No arrests are made. AIM leaders return to South Dakota and declare war on Rapid City businesses.
November 20, 1972: AIM returns to the Pine Ridge Reservation, where Russell Means clashes with Tribal Chairman Richard Wilson. The Tribal Council authorizes the establishment of a forty-man team to protect reservation buildings. The group is given the name, the “Goons.”
January 21, 1973: AIM member Wesley Bad Heart Bull is stabbed to death during a fight outside a bar in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota. Bad Heart Bull was seen beating another man with a tire chain. AIM leaders vow a day of reckoning.
February 6, 1973: In a filmed entry, AIM members arrive in the small town of Custer, the County seat, to register their complaints with town officials over the Bad Heart Bull death. A riot ensues. Rocks and bottles are thrown and a small building is burned to the ground. No one is seriously injured.
February 23, 1973: Following several death threats, the U.S. Marshals Service places Tribal Chairman Richard Wilson and his family under protective custody and moves them to an undisclosed location.
February 27, 1973: AIM members invade and pillage Wounded Knee village. Eleven residents are taken hostage. The FBI and BIA establish roadblocks around a fifteen-mile perimeter. Two days later, Justice Department lawyers arrive to negotiate with AIM leaders. Militants initiate almost nightly gunfire on the government barriers. The occupation lasts 71 days.
March 11, 1973: Two FBI Special Agents pursue a stolen U-Haul van outside the Wounded Knee village perimeter. SA Curtis Fitzgerald is shot by a militant who fired from the rear of the van. The incident occurred during an agreed ceasefire. Agent Fitzgerald sustains debilitating injury to his hand.
March 26, 1973: U.S. Marshal Lloyd Grimm is struck in his upper right chest by militant gunfire. Grimm is paralyzed from the waist down and later dies from complications. Earlier that day, AIM leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks are seen returning to the village after disappearing for two days.
March 27, 1973: Not far from Wounded Knee, outspoken AIM critic Leo Wilcox is found burned to death in his car.
April 4, 1973: Assistant Attorney General Kent Frizzell, chief negotiator for the government at Wounded Knee, reports some progress in discussions. Frizzell learns that AIM Attorney Ramon Roubideaux and negotiator Hank Adams are honestly seeking a settlement, while AIM attorneys Mark Lane and Kenneth Tilsen merely want further disruption. A tentative accord is announced whereby Russell Means would be bonded out of jail and flown to Washington to attend a White House conference. Once the conference begins, Means agrees to contact his security man at Wounded Knee, Stanley Holder, who will commence immediate disarmament.
April 5, 1973: Russell Means, now in Washington, reneges on the April 4 agreement. The occupation continues.
April 17, 1973: Wounded Knee infiltrator Frank Clear is struck by a stray bullet that had penetrated the wall of a church. He dies eight days later.
April 21 (on or about), 1973: Civil rights activist Ray Robinson is shot during an argument with AIM leaders. He later bleeds to death and is buried just outside the village. Six others are rumored to be buried near Robinson, victims of secret murders behind the barriers.
April 26, 1973: Russell Means gives fund-raising speech at UCLA and is again arrested the next day in Los Angeles.
April 27, 1973: During one of the fiercest gun battles of the occupation, Lakota Buddy Lamont is fatally wounded by government fire.
April 29, 1973: The Wounded Knee Trading Post burns to the ground.
May 5, 1973: The FBI confiscates a large cache of food and supplies destined for the village. The death of Buddy Lamont has a demoralizing effect on the occupiers. Without power, water, or functioning toilets, the militants agree to a truce that will end the occupation.
May 8, 1973: Dispossession is affected. The American flag is raised after a short ceremony near the 1890 mass grave.
February 12, 1974: The Wounded Knee trial of Russell Means and Dennis Banks opens in Saint Paul. Judge Fred Nichol presides over the case. Three months before the trial began, Judge Nichol hosted defendant Banks in his home, so that Banks could meet the judge’s wife. This information is not made public until after the trial ends.
September 12, 1974: The Wounded Knee trial jurors are dismissed to deliberate the case. One of the jurors falls ill and cannot continue.
September 16, 1974: Alleging “government misconduct,” Judge Nichol dismisses all charges against the defendants. A period of violence engulfs the Pine Ridge Reservation.
October 10, 1974: At an AIM encampment near Los Angeles, a taxi driver is murdered. Two AIM members are acquitted of the crime May 24, 1978.
January 2, 1975: AIM occupies an abandoned monastery near Gresham, Wisconsin. The stand-off ends 34 days later. Later that year, part of the monastery is severely damaged by fire.
March 1, 1975: Martin Montileaux is shot in the throat following an argument with Russell Means and Richard Marshall in a men’s room stall at a bar in Scenic, South Dakota. Montileaux later dies from his injury.
March 12, 1975: After being confronted by AIM leaders, Douglas Durham announces at a press conference that he is a paid FBI informant. Durham witnessed Banks’s visit to Judge Nichol’s home in Sioux Falls.
March 14, 1975: Judge Nichol recuses himself from hearing Wounded Knee cases.
March 25, 1975: Jeannette Bissonette is shot to death while sitting in a car on property owned by Tribal Chairman Richard Wilson’s brother. Royer Pfersick is attacked by Leonard Crow Dog at Crow Dog’s home on the Rosebud Reservation. Throughout the rest of the year, Pine Ridge and the surrounding areas are besieged by shootings, brawls, and murders.
June 5, 1975: Carter Camp, Stan Holder, and Leonard Crow Dog are found guilty of abducting, confining, and beating four postal inspectors during the Wounded Knee occupation.
June 6-18, 1975: Anna Mae is interrogated by Leonard Peltier at gunpoint at the AIM National Convention in Farmington, New Mexico.
June 23, 1975: On a ranch near Batesland, South Dakota, two youths are threatened, robbed, and beaten by four perpetrators, one of whom is Pine Ridge resident Jimmy Eagle.
June 25, 1975: Teddy Pourier is arrested and charged with participating in the beating. FBI Special Agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler, accompanied by BIA police officer Glen Little Bird and trainee Robert Ecoffey, search the White Clay area for Eagle. After interviewing local residents and observing several young men near the Jumping Bull ranch, the officers decide to resume the search the next day. Upon leaving the area, the officers question three youths seen walking near the road. All three give false names, and are taken into custody. None is identified as Jimmy Eagle.
June 26, 1975: Agents Williams and Coler resume the search for Eagle. They return to the Jumping Bull compound where wanted fugitive Leonard Peltier opens fire on them. Other shooters join in, and soon, both Agents are wounded. Along with Peltier’s cousin, Robert Robideau, and a third man, Dino Butler, Peltier approaches the Agents and finishes them off. Peltier later boasts of shooting Agent Williams in the face at point-blank range. AIM member Joe Stuntz is shot and killed in the pursuit of Peltier and his accomplices. A massive manhunt begins.
July 26, 1975: Banks is convicted on Custer riot charges and sentenced to fifteen years. He flees to California. There, Governor Jerry Brown grants him sanctuary from South Dakota extradition.
August 5, 1975: Crow Dog is sentenced to five years for his role in the Wounded Knee postal inspector incident. He is given a suspended sentence pending good behavior. Carter Camp and Stan Holder fail to appear for sentencing and become fugitives.
September 2, 1975: Crow Dog viciously assaults two Indian men and confines them for hours at his ranch on the Rosebud Reservation.
September 5, 1975: The FBI raids Crow Dog’s ranch. Several people are arrested, including Anna Mae Aquash, for weapons possession. Anna Mae is questioned about her knowledge of the Bissonette killing.
September 10, 1975: A car carrying explosives and driven by Robert Robideau blows up on a highway near Wichita, Kansas. The weapon used to murder Agents Coler and Williams, an AR-15, is recovered from the wreckage.
November 14, 1975: Fugitive Dennis Banks, driving a motor home, along with fugitive Leonard Peltier, Ka-Mook Banks, and Anna Mae Aquash, is pulled over by an Oregon State Trooper. AIM members Russell Redner and Kenneth Loud Hawk are following the motor home in a white station wagon carrying 350 pounds of dynamite. Banks, still behind the wheel of the motor home, opens fire on the officer. Banks speeds away from the scene and abandons the vehicle a short distance away. Peltier escapes on foot. Several illegal weapons and bomb-making materials are recovered from the vehicles. Ka-Mook and Anna Mae, along with Loud Hawk and Redner, are placed under arrest. Anna Mae falls under increasing suspicion that she may have tipped off law enforcement. AIM leaders fear she is cooperating behind bars.
December 10, 1975: Anna Mae is taken from the Denver home of Troy Lynn Yellowwood by John Graham and Arlo Looking Cloud and put in the back of Theda Clark’s red Pinto hatchback. Several witnesses observe that Anna Mae is bound and carried against her will.
December 11, 1975: Anna Mae is taken to the offices of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Offense Committee in Rapid City. She is interrogated by Lorlie DeCora-Means and Madonna Gilbert, members of the Means clan. WKLDOC lawyer Bruce Ellison is said to be taking part in the questioning. Ted Means, Clyde Bellecourt, Tom Poor Bear, and legal aides Candy Hamilton, Kathy James, and Toby and Lucky Hollander are present. Hamilton later testifies that earlier in the day, Ellison had told Thelma Rios-Conroy that Anna Mae was being held at the WKLDOC office. According to News From Indian Country sources, Ellison is said to have encouraged the idea that Anna Mae was an informant. Anna Mae is moved to two residences owned by Thelma Rios-Conroy, where she is allegedly raped and assaulted by John Graham.
December 12, 1975: Anna Mae is again put in the back of the Pinto. Theda Clark, Arlo Looking Cloud, and John Graham drive her to the Rosebud Reservation home of Bill Means. AIM members Ted Means, David Hill, and Clyde Bellecourt are present and confer. Russell Means, on trial in Sioux Falls, is rumored to be staying at a home in Wanblee, South Dakota. Anna Mae is taken to the home of Vine Richard “Dick” and Cleo Marshall in Allen, South Dakota. Dick Marshall, Russell Means’s friend and bodyguard, is given a note that tells him to “take care of this baggage.” Cleo refuses to keep Anna Mae. Dick Marshall allegedly gives the murder weapon to Arlo. Later that night, Clark, Looking Cloud, and Graham drive Anna Mae to a remote part of the reservation near Wanblee. Looking Cloud and Graham force Anna Mae out of the car and drag her to a Cliff. Graham allegedly shoots her in the head.
December 15, 1975: Russell Means is convicted in Sioux Falls in connection with his role in the Custer riot but is free on bond.
January 6, 1976: Dennis Banks is arrested for several alleged offenses and bonds out of jail.
February 6, 1976: Leonard Peltier is arrested in Hinton, Alberta, Canada.
February 24, 1976: The body of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash is found by a rancher. The coroner, Dr. O. Brown, declares the cause of death to be exposure. Dennis Banks phones his wife, Ka-Mook, and informs her Anna Mae has been found.
March 2, 1976: The yet unidentified body of Anna Mae is buried at the Holy Rosary Mission.
March 3, 1976: The FBI Latent Fingerprint Division identifies the victim as Anna Mae Pictou Aquash.
March 8, 1976: FBI ASAC Norman Zigrossi asks for exhumation of the body. The same day, WKLDOC attorney Bruce Ellison also files for exhumation. Ellison appears at the FBI office inquiring about the autopsy.
March 10, 1976: A second autopsy reveals a bullet wound in the back of the head. Death is ruled a homicide.
March 14, 1976: Anna Mae is buried at an Oglala grave site. AIM leaders are no-shows at her wake and funeral.
March 18, 1976: First Federal Grand Jury convenes in Pierre, South Dakota. WKLDOC attorney Bruce Ellison claims attorney/client privilege.
May 12, 1976: Federal Judge Robert C. Belloni dismisses, with prejudice, all charges against the Oregon defendants in the motor home arrest. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the “with prejudice” aspect of the dismissal. The government later appeals, and the charges are reinstated.
May 17, 1976: WKLDOC attorney Ken Tilsen mails Anna Mae’s wallet back to her sisters in Nova Scotia with a letter that says the wallet came to him “through a circuitous route.”
June 7, 1976: The trial of Robert Robideau and Dean Butler opens in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The pair are charged with aiding and abetting the murders of Agents Coler and Williams. Testimony brought out during the trial casts doubt on the assumption that Anna Mae Aquash was an FBI informant. On July 16, the jury returns verdicts of not guilty.
August 6, 1976: Russell Means is acquitted of murdering Martin Mountileaux. Richard Marshall is convicted in April. Marshall later confesses to the crime and serves 24 years in prison. He is paroled in 2000.
December 16, 1976: Under extradition to the U.S., Leonard Peltier is transferred from Vancouver to Rapid City.
March 4, 1977: Leonard Peltier goes on trial for the murder of Agents Coler and William in Fargo, North Dakota.
April 18, 1977: Peltier is found guilty of two counts of aiding and abetting murder in the first degree and is sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
April 10, 1979: Peltier arrives at Lompoc Prison, California, after being transferred from Marion Federal Penitentiary in Illinois.
July 20, 1979: Peltier escapes from Lompoc. A young inmate, 20-year-old Dallas Thundershield, is shot and killed during the escape.
July 25, 1979: Leonard Peltier is captured in the hills of Santa Maria, California. Eventually, he is transferred to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
February 4, 1980: Leonard Peltier is sentenced to seven additional years, over his two consecutive life terms, for escaping from prison and carrying a weapon.
August 6, 1980: Judge James A. Redden, ruling in favor of the government, refuses to dismiss charges against Redner, Loud Hawk, and Banks in the Oregon motor home stop.
June 30, 1980: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Black Hills of South Dakota were illegally taken from the Lakota people. The decision calls for a cash settlement, an amount as of June, 2007, exceeding three quarters of a billion dollars (with accrued interest) in unclaimed restitution.
July 29, 1982: In a written opinion for the Ninth Circuit, Judge Stephen Reinhardt rejects the appeals of Banks, Loud Hawk, and Redner to have the Oregon charges dismissed.
Early 1983: Peter Matthiessen releases his book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. It is roundly proclaimed as an authentic and thoroughly researched history of the American Indian Movement that also vindicates Leonard Peltier.
May 21, 1983: Judge Redden again dismisses firearms charges against the Oregon motor home defendants. Again, the government appeals.
October 8, 1984: Dennis Banks comes out of hiding to face arrest and arraignment for his role in the Custer riot. Judge Redden sentences Banks to five years non-reporting probation.
February 17, 1990: Author Peter Matthiessen meets Peltier’s alibi, the hooded Mr. X. Matthiessen is completely taken in by the ruse, later exposed by Dino Butler. After prevailing in a defamation suit by Bill Janklow and David Price, Matthiessen releases a second edition of his book in 1991 which includes an Epilogue, several revisions, and the interview with Mr. X.
April 18, 1991: In a letter to Senator Daniel Inouye, Judge Gerald Heaney argues that releasing Leonard Peltier from prison would promote a “healing” process.
September 22, 1991: CBS’s 60 Minutes airs the video of Matthiessen interviewing Mr. X, a man who, even behind a close-fitting cloth over his face, bears a resemblance to AIM member David Hill.
November 3, 1999: Russell Means and Ward Churchill conduct a news conference in Denver in which they accuse the FBI of involvement in the Aquash murder. Means admits that Aquash was taken to his brother’s (Bill Means) house, on the night she was murdered.
February 6, 2004: Arlo Looking Cloud is found guilty of aiding and abetting in the first-degree murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. He is sentenced to life in prison. In 2008, he is rumored to have testified before a grand jury.
June 26, 2007: The Supreme Court of British Columbia orders the extradition of John Graham Patton to the United States to stand trial for the murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. The trial is scheduled for October 6, 2008 but is postponed after the indictment in ruled insufficient. The trial is rescheduled for February 23, 2009.
August 20, 2008: Vine Richard Marshall is indicted for aiding and abetting the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. He is scheduled to stand trial with Graham February 23, 2009.