In them days, it was just still not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an Indian, you'd be very unfortunate if you got probation - most of them were released immediately.

The title track off Today's Empires Tomorrow's ALeonard Peltiers by Canadian band Propagandhi mentions the Pine Ridge shoot-out along with the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. On February 6 1976 he was arrested and extradited from Canada based on an affidavit signed by Myrtle Poor Bear a local Native American woman. Authorities later identified the driver as Peltier.

Peltier is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary Coleman in Florida. Leonard Peltier (born September 12 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM). In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.