Featured 'My father doesn’t know me, I don’t know him': Chauncey Peltier reflects on clemency

[admin]

Chauncey Peltier feared that he would never see his father return home.

For years, he and thousands of others pleaded for the elder Peltier’s release. Presidents spanning five decades ignored — or outright rejected — requests for clemency. As recently as July 2024, Leonard Peltier, now 80 and in failing health, was denied parole.

But in his final moments in office, former President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier — the Native American activist imprisoned for the killing of two FBI agents — to home confinement.

The case has fractured the nation for years in what many have viewed as a prime example of the systematic injustice perpetrated against Native Americans. Indigenous leaders, human rights activists and celebrities have long called for Peltier’s release, citing his claims of innocence and deep flaws in the conviction that has kept him behind bars for nearly five decades.

Law enforcement leaders, however, have staunchly challenged his release. FBI Director Christopher Wray recently voiced vehement opposition to commuting Leonard Peltier’s sentence, pointing to the 22 federal judges who have rejected Peltier’s legal appeals.

But the conviction has also fractured a family, leaving Leonard Peltier’s children to grow up without their father.

And while Leonard Peltier was shuffled between prisons from Wisconsin to Florida, Chauncey Peltier has spent his life in Washington County — fighting for a man he never got the chance to know.

More to a conviction
Chauncey Peltier was only 10 years old when his father was convicted in 1977.

Leonard Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa, was a prominent activist in the American Indian Movement — a group formed to combat police brutality and discrimination against Native Americans.

In 1973, the movement gained national attention when it occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, leading to a 71-day standoff with federal law enforcement.

The aftermath resulted in residual political violence that engulfed the reservation for years — a time of tension when FBI agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler were attempting to arrest a robbery suspect on June 26, 1975.

According to the FBI, Williams and Coler followed a vehicle carrying Leonard Peltier and others before a firefight erupted, leaving both agents wounded before being shot in the head at close range. Joseph Stuntz, a member of the American Indian Movement, was also killed during the gunfire.

Two of Leonard Peltier’s codefendants, Darrelle “Dino” Butler and Bob Robideau, were acquitted on self-defense claims. But Peltier, who had fled to Canada, was extradited and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

But according to his son, the conviction does not tell the full story.

“They always say, ‘Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing two FBI agents,’” Chauncey Peltier said. “But they don’t say that he was convicted on falsified ballistics, tampered evidence and coerced witnesses.”

Multiple flaws in the case would later come to the surface: Myrtle Poor Bear, the prosecution’s primary witness, admitted she was coerced by the FBI through months of threats, later recanting her testimony.

Documents that could have exonerated Leonard Peltier were also withheld during the trial, appeals for the conviction have stated, including a ballistics report that indicated the fatal bullets did not come from Leonard Peltier’s weapon.

For Chauncey Peltier, it was clear: When Butler and Robideau were acquitted, someone still had to pay.

“I think when everybody else got acquitted for the shootout, the FBI was so frustrated that somebody had to pay for this,” he said. “And Leonard was their scapegoat.”

The weight of a name
Chauncey was born in Hillsboro and raised in Banks, spending most of his life in the Tualatin Valley.

Money was tight growing up; he took his first job at 14, washing dishes at Pine Lodge, a Chinese restaurant that once stood on Baseline Street in Cornelius. To buy clothes, he picked strawberries in the fields. While attending Banks High School, he was working part-time as a janitor.

Like his father before him, Chauncey Peltier eventually became a hod carrier, working construction for nearly three decades. But as he tried to find a sense of normalcy growing up, the clouding reputation of his last name followed him everywhere.

The harassment started early. At 10 years old, while his father was being tried in Canada, Chauncey Peltier was selling newspapers outside the courthouse when two men in suits began trailing him. Inside, one of them — who identified himself as a law enforcement officer — grabbed his arm, twisted it and whispered, “I’m gonna make sure your murderer dad never gets free,” Chauncey Peltier recounts.

Living in Washington County, Chauncey Peltier recalled times of people walking away from him upon learning his name, while others showed up outside his front door. Police encounters were worse — while in custody, he recalled waking up once to an officer kicking him in the head at a police station.

“He was asking me how my cop-killing dad was doing,” Chauncey Peltier said.

There have also been moments when people stood by him, Chauncey Peltier said. Reflecting on his struggle with alcohol addiction, he recalls a judge who showed him grace in court after learning of his father’s identity, following a false assault accusation by someone who had attacked him.

“I started changing my lifestyle, and better things started coming … I always look back and think about how that judge changed my life, being Leonard's son.”

Connecting through separation
Not being with his father has placed an undeniable strain on Chauncey Peltier and his siblings. The barriers of prison walls kept them apart, shaping a relationship defined more by distance than by familiarity.

Yet, in that separation, Chauncey Peltier found a way to connect.

For decades, he fought to bring his father’s name to the public — leading the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, rallying for clemency and selling his father’s artwork to fund his advocacy.

Leonard Peltier’s paintings, created while incarcerated, became more than just images; they were tangible pieces of him, glimpses of the life he dreamed of beyond prison walls. Chauncey Peltier still holds many of them as physical reminders of the father he never truly knew.

Now, after years of speaking his father’s name in courtrooms and rallies, Chauncey Peltier is preparing for a different kind of moment — one he has fought for his entire life.

Leonard Peltier is set to return to his home in North Dakota on Feb. 18 to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Once the dust settles, Chauncey Peltier said, he plans to finally reunite with his father in March.

“My father doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him, but we still have that connection,” he said. “It’s not his fault.”

https://www.hillsboronewstimes.com/news ... a78d8.html