[Important Comment: First, the deaths of two FBI agents at Oglala was for sure not a nothing!  The loss of any human being is never  "a nothing!"  In fact, it's a tragedy that breaks my own heart.  That also goes for the forty two Pine Ridge residents who also lost their lives during the "Reign of Terror."  It's the reason I've spent so much time putting this all together: my hopes for seeing things better in the future.  A sad thing is that throughout the history of humanity, a profound number of innocent people have been hurt and killed.  Yet, once they're gone - they're not coming back.  It is still necessary to stop/prevent continuing harm to the living.  I personally hold that at such a time vengeance per se can do no good.  Therefore it makes no sense whatsoever to complain that this FBI agent or that one broke the law by convicting an innocent man.  I am truly sorry if law enforcement personnel die.  I very greatly regret that two FBI agents did.  But as President Obama famously (or infamously) said, "let's look forward and not look back."  (Don't get me started on that one.)  I will evade any/all discussion of criminal prosecution for war criminals no longer in power!  My main point is:  It's high time to STOP punishing an innocent man for crimes he didn't commit.  Please explain: when can it be time to punish an innocent man for crimes he didn't commit?]

Three weeks prior to the shoot-out FBI inspectors from its Minneapolis regional headquarters prepared a memo entitled "Law Enforcement On Pine Ridge Indian Reservation" which stated "There are pockets of Indian population which consist almost exclusively of American Indian Movement [AIM] members and their supporters on the Reservation.  It is significant in some of these AIM centers the residents have built bunkers which would literally require military assault forces if it were necessary to overcome resistance emanating from the bunkers."  A notation on this memo reads as follows:  According to the Agents it has been determined that the Indians were prepared to use these "bunkers" as a defensive position and it was believed they were constructed in such a fashion as to defend against a frontal assault.  To successfully overcome automatic or semi-automatic fire from such "bunkers" it appeared as though heavy equipment such as an armored-personnel carrier would be required.  The Inspectors observed no other "bunkers" and no "dug ditches."

The "bunkers" in question were observed from a moving automobile for approximately one to two minutes.  The Agents recommended no attempt be made to obtain a closer view as the people residing in the area were AIM members who were known to be unfriendly to the FBI.  [The property in question was Wallace Little's ranch, a couple of miles southeast of the Jumping Bulls', toward Pine Ridge village, and the "bunkers" are the ones referred to in Agent Edward Skelly's radio transmissions on the day of the shoot-out.]  The degree of FBI paranoia about AIM was well demonstrated by the original failure to verify the existence of these "bunkers," by a map found in Agent Coler's car which indicated these (nonexistent) "bunkers" on the Little ranch, and by additional aberrational behavior otherwise inexplicable in mentally healthy adult males.  In the absence of any information about how the shooting actually began, the possibility was emerging that Coler and Williams might have invited their own deaths by nervous and aggressive behavior, beginning with repeated invasions of hostile territory on the Jumping Bull property and ending with failure to retreat after warning shots fired by people who at the start were a considerable distance away.  (Matthiessen, ibid, pp. 210-212.)