Incident at Oglala

Incident at Oglala is a 1992 American documentary film directed by Michael Apted and narrated by Robert Redford. The film documents the deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on June 26, 1975. Also killed in the multiple fire was Native American Joe Stuntz, a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), whose death prompted no legal action.

It examines the legal case surrounding the subsequent trials of Robert Robideau and Dino Butler, and later the separate trial of Leonard Peltier, who had to be extradited from Canada. Robideau and Butler were acquitted at their trial, but Peltier was convicted of murder in 1977. (Peltier's supporters, including the International Indian Treaty Council, maintain that he is innocent of the crimes.) The film also discusses tribal chairman Dick Wilson.

Background

There were many unsolved murders and drive-by shootings on the reservation, caused by a culture clash between traditional and Americanized Sioux. The American Indian Movement (AIM) was invited to the reservation to help assert traditional values. It was headquartered at Calvin Jumping Bull's property on the southern edge of Oglala. The "incident at Oglala" was precipitated by the FBI investigation of a pair of stolen boots. Jimmy Eagle, one of the AIM teenagers, was thought to have taken a pair of boots after a fight, and two FBI agents, wanting to talk to him about it, pursued a vehicle they thought he was driving into the AIM camp, leading to a shootout which left both dead.

Accolades

Apted was nominated for the Critics Award in 1992 for the film.

See also

• Thunderheart
• Wounded Knee incident

References

External links

• Incident at Oglala at IMDb
• Incident at Oglala at AllMovie
• Incident at Oglala at Rotten Tomatoes
• Incident at Oglala at Miramax Films
• Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
• Written Statement from the International Indian Treaty Council to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, January 2002 Archived 2017-01-08 at the Wayback Machine