On the morning of June 26, 1975, Special Agent Jack R. Coler, a 28-year-old White male and former Los Angeles police officer who had been with the FBI four years, was on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota with Special Agent Ronald Williams to serve arrest warrants in a recent robbery and assault. Around 11:50 a.m. the agents reported following a red and white vehicle; shortly after, the occupants opened fire. A fierce gunfight left the agents pinned down and calling for help. Responding officers were also met with gunfire and could not reach them for hours.

At 4:25 p.m. the bodies of Coler and Williams were found beside their vehicles, which had been struck by over 100 bullets. Coler suffered a wound that nearly severed his right arm and was then shot twice at close range, once in the head and once near the jaw; the jaw shot proved fatal. The ensuing investigation, RESMURS, produced indictments against Leonard Peltier, Robert Robideau, Darrelle Butler, and James Theodore Eagle; charges against Eagle were later dismissed. Robideau and Butler were tried in Cedar Rapids and acquitted after arguing self-defense. Peltier fled to Canada, was arrested in February 1976, extradited, and in 1977 was convicted in Fargo of first-degree murder and given two consecutive life terms.

Are there witnesses, records, or local details about that day on Pine Ridge that could shed more light on what happened?