It was, indeed, a great tragedy by any standard.  Although they were very careful to not mention names, the men from the AIM camp suggest that a number of Indians besides themselves and the Littles and the Long Visitors ("Those are the only ones the government was sure of") were present on the Jumping Bull property that morning, and suggest that many of them were also shooting at the agents.  At some point not long after noon, the agent seen crawling through the car passed out from shock and loss of blood, and his partner, less seriously wounded, had thrown his gun down and stripped off his white shirt.  Perhaps he waved it as a flag of surrender; in any case, he, he apparently attempted to use it as a tourniquet on the shattered arm of the downed agent.  In the next few minutes one or more people approached the cars and killed both white men at close range with one or more high-powered rifles.  Perhaps someone panicked, though this seems unlikely; perhaps someone was settling an old score or simply had a murderous impulse, although this seems unlikely, too.  In view of the virulent hostility to AIM, especially in in the lawless atmosphere of Pine Ridge, the Indians present may have feared that anyone involved here would be shot on sight, even if they surrendered.  There was no way they would get to trial.  Even flight would probably be hopeless if anyone could be identified by their victims; their last desperate chance was to finish off the agents, one of whom seemed certain to die anyway of massive hemorrhage.  And so, - perhaps - one or more of these tense men, excited and angry, horrified by so much blood and filled with dread had nerved himself to finish off the white men.  FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were dead.  Whether the killing was sudden, impulsive, solitary, or whether it was done in quick consensus - and whether or not the AIM Indians were involved - it was over quickly, right around noon.  After it was over the AIM people, poorly armed and having no choice but to shoot their way out - took the dead men's arms and ammunition and moved the green car on its flat tires across the hillside and down into the woods just above the camp, where its two radios, still transmitting on the law-enforcement channels, would keep them informed of the certain death that seemed to be coming down on them.  About 1:30 p.m. a shout was heard from down in the woods below the small green cabin.  A big voice called "This is the FBI!" and ordered the Indians to come out with their hands raised.  Joe Killsright and his young brother-in-law broke for the green shack, and one of them got off a warning shot.  It was answered by a burst from several guns at once, and after it ended, Joe Killsright Stuntz lay dead.  (Matthiessen, ibid, pp. 158-160.)

Bob Robideau reminisces, "Shortly after most of us had regrouped in camp, the message that SWAT teams from Denver and Minnesota were on their way and due to arrive in Oglala at five-thirty came through our captured communication system.  Upon hearing this, there no longer was any doubt in any of our minds and hearts that death was stalking us from all sides.  We knew that we were in all probability going to die before the day was gone.  There was no need for words, each one of us knew what was coming.  We were mentally and spiritually prepared. . . . And although each one of us were quietly and calmly going about the camp picking out needed supplies, fear could be seen on each and every one of our weary faces."  Law enforcement was approaching from the north.  What ensued was a long, weary, and tense flight towards the south; expecting death at every turn.  There were plenty hardships, and plenty close calls.  But the Great Spirit was with them the next few days:  They escaped.

The FBI took this very seriously indeed.  The importance attached to this affair which is indicated by the fact that Joseph Trimbach, head of the FBI regional office in Minneapolis, was en route to Rapid City within an hour of the first shots fired.  Trimbach, who had begged Colonel Volney Warner to bring in the Eighty-second Airborne into Wounded Knee two years before, was soon consulting with Governor Richard Kneip about bringing the National Guard into Oglala, and meanwhile radioed for high-explosives, which arrived by Marine jet about 6:55 p.m.  Next day, SAC Trimbach, who had taken command from the Resident Senior Agent George O'Clock in Rapid City, was replaced by Richard G. Held, SAC Chicago, head of the FBI's Internal Security Section and a rising star in FBI counterintelligence.  Held, who remained mostly behind the scenes assigned the logistics of the case to his protégé, Norman Zigrossi.  The Reservation Murders (ResMurs) investigation was concerned only with the killings of the agents.  It did not concern itself with with the dozens of murders committed in the past three years on the reservation, none of which had ever been investigated, let alone solved.  The press was banned from the shooting site for two days.  [NOTE: back in those ancient days, there actually was what we once called an "independent media," before our modern "mainstream media" taught us all so much better!]

According to the FBI's public-relations man, flown in with a planeload of forty to fifty SWATs from Quantico on the first night of the operation, Agents Coler and Williams had been murdered in a "cold-blooded ambush" by a large force of well-trained guerrillas in "sophisticated bunkers" and "fortifications" - but not before Williams had first pleaded for their lives for the sake of his companion's wife and children.  [How the Bureau managed to develop this information about William's last words, in the absence of anyone who could have heard them was never made clear.]  Another FBI spokesman along with state Attorney General Janklow declared that the bodies had been "riddled with bullets" and their cars were also "riddled by machine-gun bullets."  Reports of "bunkers" and "ambush" and "bullet-riddled bodies" carried all the way back east to the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post.  [NOTE: It was far later on that Noam Chomsky remarked "Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media."]  Yet, even with the independent media of the day, this particular PR effort proved quite effective anyway!  Public opinion had been hardened against AIM by the time FBI Director Clarence Kelley clarified matters at a press conference on July 1, at the Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, on the occasion of the agents' funerals ("I'm Clarence Kelley, Director of the FBI, and here with me are three gentlemen who will possibly assist in what will be, I hope, a very fine exchange . . . . ")  Kelley made no mention in this fine exchange of "ambush" and "sophisticated bunkers," since the press had now seen for itself that the "bunkers" were old root cellars and horse shelters, and that there were in fact no fortifications of any kind.  (Matthiessen, ibid, p. 195.)

This publicity campaign, though never "officially" labeled as such by the FBI, held much sway among the Bureau's own agents  "Many if not most of the FBI agents, fired up by the sensational press releases being issued by their own superiors, were in a dangerous,vengeful state of mind,"  reports Peter Matthiessen, on page 195 of his book.  "FBI DEATHS SPARK AGENTS' ANGER" read the headline of a Sunday feature in the Rapid City Journal on June 29.  " 'We'll stay here as long as it takes to round up the people who did this,' said one of the 200 agents combing the wooded hills and ravines of the reservation for the killers.  'It may take a while, but we won't rest until we have them in custody.' "  " 'We lost two guys guys out there, and we're going to pull out all the plugs,' said one local agent."  Bruce Ellison, a young legal volunteer for the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee (WKLDOC) who flew out from the east on June 29, says that so many agents were on his flight from Minneapolis that many civilians had to be taken off; some of the agents, drinking hard, were talking loudly about "ambushes," and one man swore aloud that he would "get 'em."  Clearly, these men had been led to believe they were up against "sophisticated terrorists."  According to Dr. Muldrow of the Civil Rights Commission, the FBI agents were "deeply upset over the 'execution' of their comrades."  Meanwhile, a warm letter of tribute to the amiable Williams appeared in the Rapid City Journal, signed by eleven neighbor families.  Multiple conflicting reports - from multiple conflicting sources followed.  The situation thus became a "carnival of chaos."