Robert Robideau
| Robert Robideau | |
|---|---|
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| Born | November 11, 1946 Portland, Oregon |
| Died | February 17, 2009 (aged 62) Barcelona, Spain |
| Occupation | Painter, activist |
Robert Eugene Robideau (November 11, 1946 – February 17, 2009) was an American Indian activist who was acquitted in the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents in South Dakota.
The second of 12 children, he was born in Portland, Oregon, on November 11, 1946, to William Robideau from the White Earth Reservation who was of Ojibwa, Dakota and French descent, while his mother Yvonne Lavendure was from the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. In Portland, he attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. He graduated from Portland State University, where he earned a degree in cultural anthropology.
Robideau left Portland with his cousin Leonard Peltier and other family members, heading to South Dakota to become members of the American Indian Movement and to participate in its protests against corruption and poverty on tribal reservations. The AIM occupied the reservation town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973, known as the Wounded Knee incident.
On June 25, 1975, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams who had been investigating a case involving stolen cowboy boots followed a car onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and were shot and killed by heavy rifle fire. Leonard Peltier was named by the FBI as a suspect in the case and placed on the agency's List of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. While driving Peltier's station wagon in Kansas several months later, ammunition in the car exploded, seriously injuring Robideau and other AIM members in the car. Robideau was arrested and tried together with Darrelle Dean Butler in a Federal court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for the killings of the FBI agents and was acquitted. Defense attorney Lewis Gurwitz showed the jury a sacred pipe during opening arguments and stated that the pipe would be kept on the defense table during the trial as a sign that the Native American's religion forbids murder.
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