By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
On the 40th anniversary of the murder of two FBI agents, Washington State is honoring the art of the two agents’ killer. It is a shameful and dishonorable act that highlights the man who took the lives of two young law enforcement officers and an affront to their families who have for forty years endured resurrection of this killer in the news with little mention of the fallen officers.
Last Thursday I read of a Native American art exhibit being held at the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries headquarters in Tumwater, Washington. Being a fan of Native American art I travelled to the agency to review the artwork. To my dismay in the main rotunda of the state agency’s offices I saw four paintings from Leonard Peltier along with cards reading how to contact Mr. Peltier’s gallery for purchases of his works. I am familiar with his art and these works are consistent with his style of painting.
Leonard Peltier is currently serving two consecutive life sentences for the 1975 murder of FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams at the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Now, we have a situation where a government agency is promoting the art of this convicted cop killer, which is only certain to generate controversy in the Law Enforcement Community along with the families of those who have lost their loved ones. The State of Washington is sponsoring a murderer’s artwork and providing free advertisements toward its purchase. I view this as highly unethical and a strong conflict of interest. The State of Washington should not be in the business of helping convicted cop killers profit while in prison. It is an insult to the families of agents Coler and Williams and those who have served in the profession.
The great irony of this affair is that the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries is the agency charged with paying benefits to police officers injured on the job and to also administer the Washington State Crime Victim’s Compensation Fund.
In 1975 FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were attempting to question a man suspected of a theft at the Pine Ridge Reservation. A brief informational of the murder may be read here. Execution would be a closer representation of how these agents died. Mr. Peltier was later found in Oregon where he allegedly fired on an Oregon law enforcement officer. Officials found Agent Coler’s handgun in Peltier’s vehicle.
A video dedicated to these agents’ service, along with narration from family members may be seen here.
I do take great exception to Washington State’s actions. The Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) not only hosted the exhibition of Mr. Peltier’s paintings, but made announcements on L&I webpages and composed flyers showing its support of the artwork. Moreover, each of the paintings had a card naming the artist and where to purchase his works. In other words L&I is acting as an agent to advertise a convicted murder’s works where he or his agents will receive revenue and sales as an intended result.
Mr. Peltier has become somewhat of a cause célèbre among Hollywood actors and celebrities convinced that he is innocent. Regardless of this, and the fact that he has genuine artistic skill in his own right, I find this rather insulting to the police community. But for a government agency to display his works and solicit ways for him or his agents to gain money during his incarceration violates ethical constraints of government and the spirit of preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes or incarceration.
Labor and Industries should remove Mr. Peltier’s artwork and refrain from freely promoting incarcerated cop killers or economically supporting their ventures.
Here are some of the pictures I took of the display. The first shows the official flyer having a picture of Mr. Peltier within a prison facility.
Note: The information on the black wall is for another artist, not Mr. Peltier.
For information on the exhibit click here. A copy of the department’s handout may be read here.
Those having questions about this display may contact the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, or telephone their switchboard at (360) 902-5800.
Please honor Ron Williams, Jack Coler and their loving families.
By Darren Smith
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation
Photo Credits: Own work, released to the public domain.
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
European settlers killed at least 100 million Native American since they first came to this country. And the US government continues to violate its own treaties, policies, legal obligations and other commitments it has made to Native Americans.
The notion that if no one can say WHO killed those FBI agents, then Peltier must have done it, is about as stupid as it gets.
Government at state and federal levels often profit from prisonerst, and certainly “promote” their work to corporations that go on to employ prisoners at slave wages. For profit prisons do the same every day. But promote art? Who you kiddin for chrissakes?
Too many thin-skinned bully cops with psycopathic tendencies running amok, spoiling the good name and reputation of the vast majority of good police out there. Poor babies can’t take a little heat from a loudmouth like Tarantino, so they have to threaten his life. Bring out the diapers.
phillyT – back up your figures.
Art is speech. And in this case, the artist is most certainly a controversial man. This instance looks to me like a case of political correctness, except this time,those that routinely and loudly condemn political correctness are calling for the imposition of political correctness.
There is also much to be said for bigfatmike’s position.
bam bam frequently calls for better reading skills. I guess he overlooked the author’s clearly posted name.
Justice
Tranquility
Common Defence
Promote General Welfare (roads, utilities, etc.)
Justice, as capital punishment for murder, was provided in 3 months time in 1865.
April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
July 7, 1865 the Lincoln assassination conspirators were executed.
The parameters of the Preamble, including swift justice, were written to stand in perpetuity, as do the Ten Commandments.
__________
Wiki –
The trial lasted for about seven weeks, with 366 witnesses testifying. Louis Weichmann, released from custody, was a key witness. All of the defendants were found guilty on June 30. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were sentenced to death by hanging; Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O’Laughlen were sentenced to life in prison. Mudd escaped execution by a single vote, the tribunal having voted 5–4 against hanging him.[citation needed] Edmund Spangler was sentenced to imprisonment for six years. Oddly, after sentencing Mary Surratt to hang, five of the jurors signed a letter recommending clemency, but Johnson refused to stop the execution. (Johnson later claimed he never saw the letter.[13]:227)
Surratt, Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt were hanged in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary on July 7, 1865.[6]:362, 365 The executions were supervised by Union general Winfield Scott Hancock. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States government.[57] O’Laughlen died in prison of yellow fever in 1867. Mudd, Arnold, and Spangler were pardoned in February 1869 by President Johnson.[6]:367 Spangler, who died in 1875, insisted for the rest of his life that he had no connection to the plot beyond being the man Booth asked to hold his horse.
I don’t know anything about the Leonard person but from the comments it sounds like his conviction might have been based on false evidence which could be catagorized as “direct evidence” and yet the only reliable evidene would have been circumstantial evidence. There is a federal doctrine in criminal cases which gets ignored and this blog needs to explore it. It is ignored in state courts in particular because there are state court judges on supreme courts who do not want to embrace the “Reconstruction Amendments” to your Constitution, i.e. the 13th, 14th and 15th. There is a 14th Amendment doctrine in which criminal convictions must be set aside if there is no direct evidence and it is called “Sufficiency of evidence in a circumstantial evidence case”. The lead U.S. Supreme Court case is Jackson v. Virginia.
Some state court appellate judges are against this doctrine because these judges are still Confederates at heart. After the Civil War such judges called themselves UnReconstructed. That was the term they liked so as to repudiate the Reconstruction Amendments and these are the guys who liked Jim Crow.
There is a case being discussed in Missouri right now. I hear about it in bars in Saint Louis. It is State v. Donald Nash and is in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on an appeal from a denial of habeas. That court might do the right thing here. Otherwise Missouri will remain UnReconstructed.
This is a good topic for this blog. The Leonard P story opens it up for discussion but might open a can of worms. So it would be good to focus on the topic of Sufficiency of Evidence in a Circumstantial Evidence Case. Two opinions in a Missouri case can highlight this for you. In the case of State vs. Samuel Freeman the SD Court of Appeals of Missouri issued an opinon by Judge Lynch which sets forth the Jackson v. Virginia doctrine fairly well and that court said Freeman was a free man. But the Missouri Supreme Court reversed and said that Freeman rots in hell. The high court of MO ignored the whole doctrine of Jackson v. Virginia and adopted a doctrine of “I know it when I see it”. You can google those cases and find them. These were discussed on this blog about a year ago. Then I heard about the Nash case and it reminded me of the topic. You Americans need to “Live Free or Die.”
If a dumb liberal is a “libtard” then I guess a dumb conservative is a “contard”. I am going to use that word on the blog. I would define Dick Cheney as a contard. Not Jeb. I would call Cruz a contard. Or a retard. I guess if you are from Texas it would be a redundancy to call you a Texas retard. There are lots of retarded people out there and most would not like to be associated with liberals or conservatives. Most are down the middle in political outlook.
BarkinDog – for a liberal you are not very PC.
You failed to spray lye on it as you walked by.
Olly,
I got hot steamy stories from Ft. Bragg, NC. Officers drink and gamble all night.
Get trouble call at 01:00am. I know helicopter pilot in officers tent was drinking and gambling.
Going by chopper to site. Chopper pilot lands to take a pee. Then arrive at site and meet NCO in charge. Chopper takes off.
NCO in charge is a well built very good looking black female, I’m a white guy. I checked the telecom systems and can’t find any problems.
NCO says I’m the problem, locks door, blocks exit and says “life isn’t all peaches and cream”.
Olly, exactly.
They perfected these show trials in Russi and China and have begun using them in universities, the military, and corporate life.
CUT & PASTE
The leftists here miss the point entirely, as usual, and intentionally.
The US government should not be acting as an art agent for convicts.
True, but the point everyone is trying to make (and you are trying to ignore) is that the FBI shouldn’t withhold evidence to convict innocent people. They shouldn’t be setting people up and then busting them for a crime that the FBI has planned.
But again, you are right they shouldn’t be promoting a convict…even a innocent one…
KCF,
This Air Force Sgt. faces up to 110 years for the following:
“A Washington Times examination shows that, over a 14-month span, the women’s accusations, in total, amount to three kisses and six touches, plus a series of reported inappropriate comments of a sexual nature. If the married Sgt. Allmon did what the women said, he was tastelessly hitting on them.”
“I want you to understand how women can destroy a man,” said Ms. Roper. “It was out and out vindictiveness set up to destroy a man who didn’t do what they wanted. A group of young women who are brand new in the military and because they didn’t get their way they set out to destroy a man of 19 years in the Air Force.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/5/aaron-allmon-case-makes-minot-air-force-base-groun/
When they began putting women on ships, us senior enlisted learned that you never should meet with a female subordinate behind a closed door lest you expose yourself to a false claim of sexual harassment or assault. The military culture learned very quickly that the chain of command would defend the accuser (without any evidence) or face the likelihood your own career would be in jeopardy.
We are living in very dangerous times; the rule of law is on life-support and what is supposed to pass for justice today is merely social justice run amok.
Hey Karl, you missed my question @ the 10:21am post.
In an amicable matter, I asked if you know Lenny didn’t do it, then who did it? Why divert topic to Red Army and fat meat? Simple question is, who pulled the trigger of an AR-15 in Pine Ridge, SD 1975?
The law allows for the punishment of offenders, not the persecution? Persecution? Some persecution. This cop-killing murderer gets three squares a day, a roof over his head, full medical and, above all, all the prison sex his heart desires. A better life than he could’ve ever hoped for on the ole reservation. This waste of space and oxygen should’ve been made to take a dirt nap years ago.
bam bam – prison is a lot better than living on Pine Ridge.
“They lie but they are…”
They lie by they are awfully innumerate, so they lie poorly.
Their innumeracy also explains the horrible and repeated economic failures of communism and socialism.
The 200 million is the estimated deaths of citizens by their own communist governments in the 20th century.
Hence the number is a convenient bar they know they must meet, so they simply fabricate their claim.
Their are no such numbers, heck there weren’t even 200 million people on the continent at the time.
SJWs always lie, that’s the source of the number.
Your numbers are grossly exaggerated for the slave trade and Indian deaths, and their causes.
And Russia first allied with Germany, as you conveniently forget.
SJWs always lie. Always.
Unlike bam bam , I wasn’t there to see everything that happened. And the last thing this thread reads is another puerile rant. So I will just go on record as agreeing with bigfatmike and Oxa.
The left uses the Leninist method as seen in the Stalin show trials and Mao struggle sessions, so false confessions and fake trials are what they expect.
That is, whenever they complain of unfair trials they are projecting their plans, as evidenced by the rise in college fake-rape claims resulting in expulsions of undesirables.
Are there any undisputed facts in this case or in this story? Are two FBI agents dead? Who killed them? Is an individual convicted of two murders selling artwork outside of prison? Who’s selling it for him? Who is getting the proceeds of the sales? Should anyone in prison, (guilty or innocent) have the privilege to profit from the crime they are convicted of committing?
Wonders never cease. The libtards, ever supportive of anyone or anything which serves to erode the evil establishment and its laws, proudly, defiantly and consistently align themselves with cop killers. CONSISTENTLY. Not the first time–and, surely, it won’t be the last. It would be interesting if this were the only occasion that this ungodly alliance has occurred, where it could be explained away as just a fluke. Really, folks, donate your brains to science so they can be studied to determine what abnormality is associated with this derangement. Had the victim or the victims of these murders been some dirtbag from the streets–aka the Michael Browns of our respective communities–and the one who pulled the trigger, someone from law enforcement, these same lying, duplicitous mental patients would be screaming for the officer’s hide, even BEFORE all the facts were released. At least be honest. Stop feigning some deep-seated interest in all that is honest, true and just by alleging that there was some conspiracy to frame this maniac.