Indian activist dies in Spain
Thursday, February 19, 2009 11:13 AM PST
PORTLAND (AP) — Robert Robideau, an American Indian activist who was acquitted of killing two FBI agents in a 1975 shootout in South Dakota, has died. He was 61. Robideau had been living in Barcelona, Spain, where authorities said that his death Tuesday may have been related to seizures caused by shrapnel left in his head from an accidental explosion.
Robideau, a Portland native, was the cousin of Leonard Peltier and a member of the American Indian Movement who had occupied the reservation town of Wounded Knee, S.D., for 71 days in 1973, two years before the shootout.
The Oregonian said that Robideau left for South Dakota in the early 1970s with several family members, including Peltier, to join AIM and its protests against poverty and corruption on tribal reservations. In June 1975, two FBI agents followed a man wanted in the theft of a pair of cowboy boots onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The agents soon came under heavy rifle fire and were killed.
The FBI identified Peltier as a suspect in the shooting and placed him on their most wanted list.
