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Native American activist released from prison
FOX 13's Jordan Bowen reports on Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who was released from a Florida prison Tuesday after being behind bars for nearly half a century for killing two FBI Special Agents in a shootout in South Dakota in the 1970s.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A Native American activist spent decades behind bars, but now he is back home.
Leonard Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI Special Agents in South Dakota in the 70s.
Leonard Peltier in the 1970s.
In one of his final acts, President Joe Biden commuted his sentence to home confinement. Peltier was released from a Florida prison Tuesday.
The backstory:
Video from Reuters captured the moment Peltier left a Florida prison after serving nearly 50 years behind bars. His release drew supporters outside the prison, including some of his family members.
"Our relative, Leonard Peltier, has been incarcerated for 50 years in a Draconian system, and I'm from Arizona. We are First Nation people, and we are here to witness this as our relative walks out," one family member told supporters outside the prison Tuesday.
Supporters of Leonard Peltier outside the Florida prison.
Peltier was convicted of killing FBI Special Agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975.
The agents were attempting to arrest a man on a federal warrant in connection with the theft of a pair of cowboy boots.
Dig deeper:
Peltier has maintained his innocence. He was a member of the American Indian Movement and had previously clashed with federal law enforcement over a land occupation dispute.
His supporters feel he was unjustly targeted because of his views and activism.
"In my view, political prisoners are political prisoners because their political positions and activities are directly at odds with the stated and unstated goals of the state itself," Attorney Jenipher Jones said.
Tuesday afternoon, Peltier’s attorneys held a news conference in St. Pete to celebrate his commutation.
Leonard Peltier in the 1970s.
His release sparked outrage from the FBI Agents Association and former FBI director Christopher Wray, who urged President Biden not to commute his sentence, writing in a letter, "Mr. President, I urge you in the strongest terms possible: Do not pardon Leonard Peltier or cut his sentence short."
Coler's family previously said it was "frustrated and very angry after years of fighting to keep Peltier incarcerated."
"Even now, with this commutation, they remain angry and convinced of Leonard's guilt, despite the fact that the evidence of that guilt was primarily manufactured by their agency," Attorney Moira Cohen said.
The Source: FOX 13's Jordan Bowen collected the information in this story.
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