Joe Stuntz

 

JOSEPH BODELL STUNTZ

 

Joseph Bodell Stuntz, JR was born on October 22, 1951, within the Coeur d'alene Tribe (contrary to common belief, Joe was not a full blood Sioux)! On October 22, 1951 in Washington State. Based upon the information I have available, he was removed from his biological parents and spent several years in numerous foster care facilities prior to his adoption by white parents at the age of 7.

If my memory is correct, Joe moved to WLHS during our Sophomore year at WLHS. Joe's adoptive family moved into a home I believe, on the South side of Burtsfield School just across from where my mother still lives. If I recall, Joe's mother and father worked at Purdue. Although Joe did not speak with me much about what was happening on the Pine Ridge reservation, I sincerely believe he knew.

If many of us will recall, Joe seemed introverted in every aspect of his social life. Although Joe and I did frequently socialize together, it was on a vary few rare occasions that Joe did confide in me that he was unhappy at home, and very much wanted to join in on the preservation of indigenous people the Sioux Nation. In addition, he more than ever wanted to become a traditional native American; learning the language, culture, and purpose of a society (The Sioux) he knew very little about. Just after graduating from high school, Joe's adoptive parents moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the proceeding years after leaving West Lafayette, Joe and I only spoke three times. The first call was a casual conversation about what he was doing, what I was doing, who and who in our class was doing what and living where. The second phone call was dominated by the activity going at Wounded Knee; the number of State Troopers, National Guard, worry, and most of all wanted to go to Wounded Knee to show his support for the traditionals and help in any way he could. Although Joe was from a different tribe than the Sioux, he was warmly greeted on the rez.

The third and final phone call I got from Joe was that the entire area was a "tinder box" ready to ignite at any moment. I remember him telling me that the undiminished area of occupation in and around Wounded Knee (Chankpe Opi) was similar to an armed siege. He told me of old white farmers giving them cattle to slaughter and eat, and how the old women who knew every square inch of the area would smuggle guns, ammunition, and food and cigarettes to the Indians almost every night; about the Huey Gun Ships that were ever-present flying over at low altitudes to frighten the Indian defenders.

Not long after "stand down" happened whereby every one backed off, holstered their weapons, discontinued hostilities on both sides, and chose leaders of each camp to come together and structure a reasonable solution to the siege at Wounded knee. In all there were approximately 1300 FBI, State Police, goon squads, and a handful of TV reporters.

"Stand Down" (as it was called) occurred on Friday, May 8,1973. All armed participants either laid down their arms or kept them pointed away from the other hostile forces. A large number of Indians were detained or arrested on several charges. In the 6 years prior to the siege at Wounded Knee, over 854 Native Americans were found murdered; some with gunshot wounds to their heads, others their throats slashed, and still others disappeared!

THE OGLALA INCIDENT

Even after "Stand Down", the environment on the Pine Ridge Reservation was still highly volatile. Although the FBI maintained a relative quiet posture, scores of heavily armed FBI agents and field commanders remained in the Pine Ridge highly suspecting that there was more going on than would meet the eye. In fact, many who were both whites and Indians postulated that the FBI clearly wanted the tensions to fully escalate again. Many illegal search and seizures took place, with the FBI wanting any information of armed encampments or AIM"S follower's hidden within the hills.

During the morning of June 26, two rookie FBI field agents were ordered to search and seize any Indians, weapons, and property from a specific cabin. The two unsuspecting FBI Agents moved in on the cabin without any form of stealth. What happened upon the arrival of the agents, was inevitable. A gun-fight erupted, and when the fire fight had ended, two FBI agents and a Native American Indian by the name of Joe Stuntz were dead! To this day, many on both sides believe the storming of Joe's cabin was a unknowing suicide mission for the agents, because of the fact the Agents’ backups, an ambulance and the FBI field supervisor arrived at the shooting scene just minutes after the attack! The FBI Command Center was 12 miles away on "cork-screw" gravel roads.

Joseph Bodell Stuntz is buried on the Pine Ridge reservation in a sacred plot. At his burial ceremony, an old holy Man by the name of Leonard Crow Dog gave Joe his Sioux name: Joe Killsright Stuntz.

I hope that my classmates enjoyed reading about some of the life and death of Joe after leaving West Lafayette. I respectfully request that his bio be placed in the bio section of our classmates!

I do not condone the killing of any living creature! However I have and never will judge Joe Stuntz. He was a distinctively gentle man with a manifest destiny to discover his own people, in his own way, and defending a fundamental principal inveterate to the composition of his DNA. I knew Joseph Bodell Killsright Stunts as a noble man!

Wankantaka Joseph Killsright
In memory of Joseph Bodell "Killsright"
Joseph Bodell Stuntz
Killed At the Siege of Oglala

We didn't have an obit for Stuntz, so Steve Roberts wrote this memorial.
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Joe Stuntz Killsright was the only native that was shot in the FBI launched attack against an AIM camp in Oglala. To this day he is honoured for his bravery.
 In February 1973, AIM took over a church in Wounded Knee in a 71-day occupation. During the occupation, Indians began to get brutally murdered by goons, and in many cases there were witnesses. Some murders even occurred with FBI and police standing nearby watching. For the FBI, what started out as job turned into a hateful vendetta after the FBI botched attempted massacre of an AIM camp. This camp had been recently set up to be supportive of the community members who were experiencing harassment from goons. The FBI had intended to wipe out the camp on the same day that tribal president Dickie Wilson illegally signed away the chunk of the Black Hills that the US coveted. Despite the immense show of US mercenary strength, and the vast numbers of various armed government officers at this shootout, 2 FBI agents, and only 1 native (Warrior Joe Stuntz Killsright), lost their lives. An estimated 40 native men, women, and children escaped. After the shoot-out, in extreme rage, the FBI drafted a list of people that they suspected were present at the shoot-out. Immediately, the blame for the death of the 2 agents was pinned to Bob Robideau, Dino Butler, Leonard Peltier and Jimmy Eagle, but they were able to escape. 

Joe Stuntz was almost forgotten, it took 3 phone calls inquiring about the exact cause of Joes’ death, and demands for a death certificate before law enforcement took the time to record his death. No investigation into his death has ever been pursued. 

http://www.grahamdefense.org/200411investigatethefeds.htm

Joseph Killsright "Little Joe" Stuntz

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=43942323

 Birth: Oct. 22, 1951
Lapwai
Nez Perce County
Idaho, USA
Death: Jun. 26, 1975
Oglala
Shannon County
South Dakota, USA
Activist. American Indian Movement (AIM) activist who was killed in a
controversial shootout with F.B.I. agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in
South Dakota, an event known as, "The Incident at Oglala." He was born Joseph
George, a Coeur d'Alene Indian, on the Lapwai Reservation in Idaho. At the age
of seven, he was placed in a government-run indian boarding school in Indiana, where he was later adopted by an older white couple named Stuntz.
Burial:
Little Cemetery
Oglala
Shannon County
South Dakota, USA
Created by: C & N Rasmussen
Record added: Nov 05, 2009
Find A Grave Memorial# 43942323

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Remember Joe Stuntz

courtesy / Remember Leonard Peltier, but also Remember Joe Stuntz, shot and killed by a BIA marksman

Alex Jacobs

Jun 28, 2016

Remember Leonard Peltier, but also Remember Joe Stuntz.

Ninety-nine years and one day after General George A. Custer and 274 of his 7th Cavalry soldiers died in a famous battle, another firefight 200 miles to the east in Pine Ridge, South Dakota still reverberates in modern history. Following an alleged routine and seemingly low priority FBI investigation, 2 agents were shot to death and a Native man, Little Joe Stuntz Killsright was also shot and killed by a BIA marksman after the agents had died. The original firefight was estimated to last 10 minutes, starting around noon, and as more agents and law enforcement arrived, AIM members continued to fire and hold back these reinforcements for several hours before getting away. The two dead agents were recovered around 4:30.

Among the AIM members identified that day of the firefight at the Jumping Bull Compound were Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau, Dino Butler, Norman Charles, Michael Anderson, Frank Blackhorse and Joe Stuntz. To commemorate the day and remember Joe Stuntz, native historian Hank Adams posted this on his Facebook page.

“On June 26, 1975, Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were on the Pine Ridge Reservation searching for a young man named Jimmy Eagle, who was wanted for questioning in connection with the recent assault and robbery of two local ranch hands. Eagle had been involved in a physical altercation with a friend, during which he had stolen a pair of leather cowboy boots.

At approximately 11:50 a.m., Williams and Coler, driving two separate unmarked cars, spotted, reported, and followed a red pick-up truck which matched the description of Eagle’s. Soon after his initial report, Williams radioed into a local dispatch that he and Coler had come under high-powered rifle fire from the occupants of the vehicle and were unable to return fire with their .38 Special revolvers. Williams radioed that they would be killed if reinforcements did not arrive. The FBI, BIA, and the local police spent the afternoon waiting for other law enforcement officers. At 2:30 p.m., a BIA rifleman fatally shot Joe Stuntz, an AIM member who had taken part in the shootout. At 4:31 p.m., authorities recovered the bodies of Williams and Coler from their vehicles.

The following is from the F.B.I’s own website, from the Minneapolis Division, titled, Report for Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. Accounting For Native American Deaths, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. Report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Minneapolis Division. May 2000.

“Joseph Stuntz Killsright (true name Joseph Bedell Stuntz). Allegation: AIM member killed by FBI sniper during Oglala firefight. No investigation.

Finding: Joseph Stuntz Killsright, aka Joseph Bedell Stuntz (TN), was shot and killed 06/26/75, during the RESMURS investigation. Stuntz was seen shooting at FBI SA’s Williams and Coler at Jumping Bull Community and his body was subsequently found alongside the Green house near the edge of the cliff. Stuntz was apparently shot by a law enforcement officer at the scene. When the body of Stuntz was found, he was wearing a SWAT fatigue jacket with “F.B.I.” on the back, belonging to SA Coler, that had apparently been taken from the trunk of SA Coler’s vehicle after SA Coler was murdered.”

For a detailed accounting from the FBI about the Jumping Bull Firefight, deaths of their agents, the subsequent flight and arrest of the AIM suspects, the Cedar Rapids trial of Robideau and Butler, the extradition and trial of Leonard Peltier, go to the FBI website, titled, The RESMURS Case. https://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/about-us/history-1/the-resmurs-case

A commentator on Hank Adams posting suggested reading, Ken Stern’s book, Loud Hawk: The United States versus the American Indian Movement (Univ. of Okla. Press, 1994). There is evidence showing that a bombing at Mt. Rushmore on the following day, June 27, 1975, may have been set up by FBI informants or infiltrators, since there was never any follow up to the incident. The FBI was just about to undergo hearings by the Senator Frank Church committee on domestic spying and the COINTELPRO program targeting the Black Panthers, the anti-war movement and AIM. The timing of the Jumping Bull Compound Firefight which occurred based on the strange low-priority investigation and the non-reporting and non-investigation of the Mt. Rushmore bombing, have led researchers to think that the FBI was trying to influence the Church Committee Hearings with these incidents. Perhaps the FBI did know Leonard Peltier was in Pine Ridge and the agents were sent in on the “cowboy boots theft” but couldn’t be reached in time to help them.

There is conflicting evidence and testimony on the red pick up truck, since Peltier had a similar red truck and the FBI may have been tracking him all along; and a weapon used in the firefight, an AR-15, that was tied to Peltier and was burned in a car accident that had conflicting tests results. There is also major differences in evidence and testimony at the two trials, the first in which Robideau and Butler were acquitted and the second when Peltier was found guilty. In addition, the judges involved at different stages of Peltier’s case declined to force the FBI to release hundreds of pages of files due to national security and potential harm to agents. A vocal and vindictive contingent of FBI and law enforcement have consistently waged a media campaign to deny Peltier any hearings, parole or pardon since President Bill Clinton considered a pardon in 2001 among the 450 he did issue up until his final day in office.

Every June 26, remember The Battle of the Greasy Grass, remember Leonard Peltier and remember Joe Stuntz.

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Joe Stuntz and Anna Mae
Honored

Memorial held at Aquash and Stuntz gravesites
by Jean Roach
Indian Country Today
Volume 16 Issue 10
Week of September 2 through 9, 1996

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OGLALA, S.D. -

Over 200 people gathered at the Little Family cemetary to pray and dedicate headstones for Joseph Stuntz and Anna Mae Aquash.People from all over the world including Canada, Mexico, France, the Pine Ridge Reservation and other Lakota communities attended the memorial. The event began with a walk from the site of the 1975 Oglala shoot-out on the land of the Jumping Bull family to the Little Family cemetary about 11 miles east.
At the cemetary numerous community members talked about Mr. Stuntz and Ms. Aquash. A Kit Fox death song from the days of Crazy Horse was sung by elder Russell Loud Hawk.
A Lakota prayer ceremony was conducted by Lakota spiritual leader Wilmer Mesteth who offered spirit food and cedared the headstones.
"This is for those who gave their lives for the people. This is the ceremonial way of life to remember our elders."
Headstones, which read as follows, were placed at the head of each grave:

Joseph Bedell Stuntz, Sr.
Incident at Oglala Warrior
American Indian Movement Patriot
C'oeur D'Alene Tribe
Spokane, Wash.
Oct 22, 1951 - June 26, 1975

and

Anna Mae Pictou (Aquash)
Warrior Woman Wounded Knee 1973
American Indian Movement Patriot
MicMac Tribe
Shubenakadie, Nova Scotia
March 27, 1945 - Feb. 1976 "It has been over 20 years, and the headstones are long overdue for these great warriors," Leonard Peltier said on a prerecorded tape. Mr. Peltier is serving two consecutive life sentences for the deaths of two FBI agents as a result of the 1975 Oglala shoot-out.
"We wanted to make sure Mr. Stuntz and Ms. Aquash were not forgotten for their sacrifices, and the presence of the people today proves they have not been," memorial organizer Edgar Bear Runner said.
Joseph Stuntz was killed during a shoot-out on June 26, 1975, between American Indian Movement members and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Stuntz was living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation along with Mr. Peltier.
"Joe was raised in a non-Indian home, and when he joined the AIM, he became proud of his Indian roots," Mr. Peltier said. "He just wanted to help out his Indian people any way he could."
Anna Mae Aquash was found dead in the Badlands on the Pine Ridge Reservation on Feb 24, 1976. She was a 1973 Wounded Knee participant and was closely associated with Mr. Peltier.
"I remember Anna Mae when she told me she cared about how the people were being treated on the reservation, and she told me 'I want to be buried in Oglala,'" elder Celene Not Help Him said.
The cause of her death has been controversial. A renewed investigation by former US Marshal Robert Ecoffey began in 1994. FBI media contact person Colleen Rowley verified Ms. Aquash's murder investigation is still pending today.

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Note:

Wasichu has reopened the investigation into the Death of Anna Mae...in April, 1996 the U.S. Marshall who was in charge of the "investigation" was relieved of his duties in this investigation. The men in charge are now the U.S Attorney of South Dakota and the FBI. There are some who are of the opinion that this Change-of-Investigation-Command has been prompted by the uncovering of Cointelpro involvement in Anna Mae's death or because indictments are about to be handed down.

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Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party - by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall  - gets into the killing in context
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FACTS

THE SHOOTOUT

On June 26, 1975, two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—Mr. Jack Coler and Mr. Ron Williams—entered private property on the Pine Ridge reservation, the Jumping Bull Ranch. They drove unmarked vehicles, wore plain clothes, and neglected to identify themselves as law enforcement officers. They allegedly sought to arrest a young Indian man, Jimmy Eagle, for the theft of a pair of cowboy boots. They believed, the government contends, that they had seen Eagle in a red pick up truck that they then followed onto the Jumping Bull property. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were camping on the property at the time. They had been invited there by the Jumping Bull elders, who sought protection from the extreme violence on the reservation at that time. Many non-AIM persons were present as well.

Map of the Jumping Bull property

For unknown reasons, a shoot-out began. A family with small children was trapped in the cross fire. Throughout the ranch, people screamed that they were under attack and many of the men present hurried to return fire.

THE COST

When the skirmish ended, the two FBI agents were dead. The U.S. government claims they had been wounded and then shot through their heads at close range.

Joe Stuntz

A young Native American named Joe Stuntz (above) also lay dead, shot through the head by a sniper bullet. His killing has never been investigated. The more than 30 men, women, and children present on the ranch were then quickly surrounded by over 150 FBI agents, Special Weapons and Tactics (or SWAT) team members, Bureau of Indian Affairs police, and local vigilantes. They barely escaped through a hail of bullets.

THE AFTERMATH

The FBI immediately began its investigation into the shoot-out, the so-called RESMURS investigation, and launched the biggest manhunt of its history.

Angry agents shot up the Jumping Bull home, leaving bullet riddled family portraits in their wake. In the days following the shoot-out, FBI agents in SWAT gear and carrying assault rifles also terrorized other Pine Ridge residents through a series of warrantless no-knock assaults on their homes.

Continuing with its long tradition of manipulating the media—placing articles in the popular press that put the Bureau in a positive light and interfering in the publication of “dissident” writings by persons such as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.—the FBI immediately set about disseminating gross inaccuracies about this case. Agents Coler and Williams, the FBI claimed, had been murdered in “a cold-blooded ambush” by a large force of trained guerillas in “sophisticated bunkers” and “fortifications,” but not before Williams had first pleaded for their lives for the sake of Coler’s wife and children. How the Bureau developed this information about Williams’ last words in the absence of anyone who could have heard them was unclear. Other reports indicated that the agents’ bodies had been “riddled with bullets.” Then FBI director Clarence Kelley was forced to retract these statements when reporters—who had been barred from the Jumping Bull property for two days following the shoot-out—began to discover the truth.*

SELECTIVE PROSECUTION

The FBI very quickly focused its investigation on prominent AIM members known to be present during the shoot-out—Leonard Peltier, in particular. The investigation became a race to develop a case against him.

Investigators imposed their desires on the evidence, taking bits and pieces and fashioning them in such a way so as to support their case. In short order, indictments were issued against Leonard Peltier, as well as his two friends and colleagues Dino Butler and Bob Robideu, who also had been present throughout the incident. Charges against a fourth man, Jimmy Eagle (a non-AIM member), were later dropped. (Prosecutors admitted during Peltier’s trial that Jimmy Eagle had not even been on the reservation on the day of the shoot-out. However, FBI documents later revealed that the government decided to dismiss charges against Eagle so that “the full prosecutive weight of the Federal Government could be directed against Leonard Peltier.”).

Despite the presence of so many other individuals on the Jumping Bull property during the shoot-out, no other individuals were given any serious scrutiny during the RESMURS investigation—even those who claimed participation in the shoot-out and bragged about being responsible for the agents’ deaths. No other persons were charged for the shooting deaths of the FBI agents.

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Incident at Oglala - a movie on the killing of Joe Stuntz - narrated by Robert Redford