On the morning of June 26, 1975, Special Agent Jack R. Coler, a 28-year-old White male, was on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota with his partner, Special Agent Ronald Williams. A former Los Angeles police officer, Coler had been with the FBI for four years. The two agents were attempting to serve arrest warrants related to a recent robbery and assault. Around 11:50 a.m., Agent Williams radioed that they were following a red and white vehicle.
Soon after, he reported that the occupants of the vehicle had opened fire on them.
A fierce gunfight ensued, with the agents caught in a crossfire. Radio transmissions from the agents grew desperate, indicating they were pinned down and that one of them had been hit. Responding law enforcement officers were also met with gunfire, preventing them from reaching the two agents for several hours. It wasn't until 4:25 p.m. that the bodies of Coler and Williams were discovered beside their vehicles, which were riddled with over 100 bullet holes. Autopsy reports later revealed that Coler had suffered a wound that nearly severed his right arm, and was then shot twice at close range, once in the head and once near the jaw, the second shot proving fatal.
The investigation into the murders, dubbed RESMURS, led to the indictment of four individuals: Leonard Peltier, Robert Robideau, Darrelle Butler, and James Theodore Eagle. The government later dismissed the charges against Eagle. In a trial held in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Robideau and Butler were acquitted of the murders, arguing they had acted in self-defense in a climate of extreme violence on the reservation.
Leonard Peltier, who had an outstanding warrant for attempted murder in Wisconsin at the time of the shootout, fled to Canada following the agents' deaths. He was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in February 1976 and extradited to the United States. In 1977, a jury in Fargo, North Dakota, convicted Peltier of the first-degree murders of both Agent Coler and Agent Williams. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.
