Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

MARK: We've had a rather hard time with the FBI. They've been very active here in the streets of Rapid City. It came to our attention primarily on August 4th when two of the young legal workers wrote down the license plate of an FBI car, which was involved in a stakeout around our law office.

They were surrounded by a group of FBI agents who arrested them and they were charged with tampering with an automobile, although there were 10 feet from the car writing down the license plate number. And when they got to jail, and we were about to bail them out, and they were just about walking out of the door, the FBI then charged them with a violation of 18 US code 1503, which is a jury tampering statute. Primarily, it has no application whatsoever.

That kept them in jail from Saturday Night until Monday morning. We argued before the city attorney and they dismissed the local charges. We argued before the magistrate and they dismissed the federal charges. So we are left now with an action against the Federal Bureau of Investigation for false arrest and malicious prosecution.

SPEAKER: What gives you the notion that the FBI is bugging your legal headquarters here in Rapid City?

MARK: I think we have a lot of evidence of that. We have seen FBI agents with electronic equipment in their vehicles surrounding the office at various times following the members of the committee. We have examined the telephones in our office. We've examined the telephone lines and wires near our office. We have photographs of the unusual apparatus in the telephone boxes near our office, and we have a rather clear idea about what they're doing.

In addition to this, yesterday, we were able to get testimony from the FBI agents in charge, the resident agent here in Rapid City, the Special Agent in charge from Minneapolis. And we discovered some most remarkable things. There are 54 FBI agents in the state of South Dakota. Generally, there are five, but now there are 54. Of those 54, 48 are stationed here in Rapid City, almost all of them right around our office.

We discovered that while we held our national conference to set strategy for the defense back over the Memorial Day weekend in a motel here, the Imperial 400 Motel, we found out yesterday that the majority of the FBI agents moved into the motel during the time of our conference. And we left there about May 28th and May 29th and moved into premises here on Kansas City street in Rapid City. And we found out that starting in June 1st the majority of the agents in Rapid City moved into the College Motor Inn right next door to us. And then we discovered them on August 4th, and then they moved out on August 5th and August 6th.

There are also some 16 Bureau employees, FBI employees, who are not agents, in the whole state of South Dakota. And we discovered that of the 16 in the whole state, 12 of them lived right next door to us. And these are people who are involved in typing up transcripts and operating radios, et cetera.

We also discovered that during the time that we've-- our office has been here, that the FBI agents in Rapid City have purchased more than $2,000 worth of electronic equipment from the Radio Shack in Rapid City alone, as well as from other electronic shops. But from that one store alone, we have the invoices.

And their explanation when they testified yesterday, they conceded that was true, was that they are buying this equipment to keep their radios in a state of repair. They have seven radios, they said. And they spent $2,000 in one store to keep them repaired. But the material they have bought, we have the invoices. And the material they bought is not the kind of material, which you really need to keep your radio repair, phone jacks, phone plugs, 500-feet of wire, the kind of things that you really don't use for your radio.

SPEAKER: Mark, do you recall in late June when John Dean testified at the Watergate hearings? He made a fleeting reference to the need for taping activities of American Indians. Do you feel that this ties in with the alleged harassment here in Rapid City?

MARK: I'm sure that Dean was talking about what the Federal government's position was about the American Indian Movement and the occupation of Wounded Knee and the necessity to use whatever illegal methods the Federal government feels are required in order to put down this opposition, this liberation movement. And Dean, I think, was clearly revealing what the government was going to do and what they were doing. And we've seen it in the streets of Rapid City.

One of our legal workers, Carolyn Mugar, who is a photographer, was smashed down the steps of the Rapid City Police department by an FBI agent named Maurice Pearson. And we went to the City Police, made a citizen's arrest of that man, went to the city attorney. A warrant has been issued for that man's arrest, and we got testimony yesterday by the Special Agent in charge that as soon as that warrant was issued, they sent that FBI agent back to San Francisco outside of the jurisdiction of Justice in Rapid City.

And two other FBI agents grabbed one of our investigators in a motel lobby and started to push him out of the window-- out of the door. We have another lawyer, Anthony Mueller from Colorado, who took a picture of an FBI agent. That agent, Charles Kempf, went up to him, took the camera, and smashed it into Tony's face in the presence of two other attorneys who were witnesses. They have actually sort of gone mad on the streets of Rapid City.

SPEAKER: What has accounted for this action, especially now in view of the Watergate evidence, which indicates that the Justice Department ought to run a rather low profile with respect to bugging and surveillance of groups, which they feel are a danger to the National security?

MARK: Well, I suppose they were really doing that. They were living all around us. And I suppose tapping our phones from all the evidence we have and engaging in other kinds of electronic and physical surveillance. And it was pretty cool when they were doing that. But when we discovered it and started taking photographs of them and photographs of their cars, they just went mad.

And yesterday on the witness stand, the FBI agents were asked if they were upset when someone took their picture. And each of the agents said in pretty similar language to what the others said, yes, I really furious. I was really angry about it. And then one of us one of the attorneys would ask the agents if they thought there was anything illegal about taking the picture of an FBI agent. And in each case, the agent would say, well, maybe. It's possible. We're not sure.

And in fact, we found out that on August 6th when we made these citizen's arrests, that the director of the FBI in the area, the Special Agent in charge, went to the city attorney here in Rapid City, Mr. Woodson, and asked him if we could be arrested, if the lawyers and legal workers of our committee could be arrested on the charge of taking pictures of FBI agents on the public streets of Rapid City. And he laughed and said, there's no such crime. And he said, are you sure? Isn't there some way we can get them for taking our pictures? Agents don't like to have their pictures taken. They don't like to be hunted. They like to do the hunting.

SPEAKER: What was the climate like in the courtroom yesterday in Deadwood, South Dakota?

MARK: Well, we were all searched as we went in there. It's interesting because it's the Civil action. And there were no defendants present. And there was no demonstration. Just a couple of lawyers and a couple of legal workers on our side. And we were all searched then with an electronic device and had to take the keys out of our pockets and change out of our pocket to pass that.

And as we went inside and started the arguments before Judge Bogue, 13 FBI agents marched, literally marched in. It sounded like they were in hobnail boots and the judge looked up a little bit annoyed. And then I pointed out to the court that since I'd seen several of these agents go mad and perform illegal acts on the streets of Rapid City, that I felt a little funny about arguing with these 13 guys, some of whom were armed thugs, I believed, sitting behind my back.

And I asked that they surrender their weapons. And the judge said that he had anticipated that I would probably make that motion, and that he had arranged in advance that all of their guns be surrendered and placed in a safe. And I've been making that motion with officers who sometimes are a little irrational. For some 20 years over the years in New York and in Mississippi, wherever I've tried cases, this is the first time it's ever been granted when I made it. They made it, in fact, granted in advance of my making it.

And I don't know if it's ever happened before, but I shouldn't be surprised if it's the first time that law enforcement officials were forced to remove their weapons before going to court. Now Judge Bogue is not a flaming radical. He's a very conservative man. He was sufficiently sensitive to the outrageous conduct of the FBI agents in the streets of Rapid City last month, so that he was afraid, I think, that something was going to take place in his own courtroom. And so he ordered them to remove their weapons.

SPEAKER: In view of everything that you've said concerning the events of the FBI over the summer, and since the time of Wounded Knee last spring, do you share the view of Russell Means and Dennis Banks that there is some government conspiracy at work, perhaps even reaching into the shooting earlier last week of Clyde Bellecourt?

MARK: Well, I don't know very much about the shooting of Clyde Bellecourt. And that which I know about it, I don't feel at liberty to discuss. In terms of a government conspiracy, meaning an agreement by two or more persons in the government to use every means possible, including and particularly relying upon illegal means to prosecute and convict the Indians who were in Wounded Knee, sure, there's no question there is such a conspiracy.

SPEAKER: Would you tie this in as well with the tribal council on the Pine Ridge Reservation with respect to the eviction order that your committee was served a couple of days ago?

MARK: Yeah, because that eviction order goes back to the fact that a little girl was shot in the eye by goons working for Dickie Wilson and association with him, the tribal chairman. We know who the goons. Whoever fired the shots, these were the leaders of the goon squad. They fired at a house where there has never been a weapon.

I investigated that immediately. And when I went over, one of the goons, Woody Richards, had a rifle and pointed at me and told me he was going to shoot me if I continued my investigation. And he was at the house from which the shots were fired which went into the car which blinded that little girl, Mary Ann Littlebear.

In a short period of time, within hours, we took 20 statements. We secured a great deal of evidence. The bullets, which were fired, we removed them from the vehicles. The FBI had been there and took no statements, uncovered no evidence. We took photographs of the house with the holes in it, the cars with the bullet holes in it.

I picked up shells from the house from which the shots had been fired, shotgun shells and long 22 seconds and Magnums and 22s. And I have that evidence. And we left and gave the evidence to Russell Means, who held a press conference and talked about the investigation, which had been conducted by this committee, and wanted to know why the FBI conducted no investigation at all into this attempted murder of a nine-year-old girl.

Almost immediately thereafter, the Federal government through the BIA police on the reservation moved to remove all of the investigators from the reservation and barring them from the whole wound in the area. Obviously, we had embarrassed the FBI. And we had conducted the investigation that the FBI had refused to conduct.