May 8, 1973: A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and American Indian Movement members at Wounded Knee, S.D., ends

Thursday 8 May 2008

Members of the American Indian Movement, a Native American activist organization, barricaded themselves in the Wounded Knee hamlet on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973. Authorities claimed they had 11 hostages, which led to a 71-day standoff with federal agents. In the resulting trials, most of the members were acquitted.

The standoff centered around the movement's allegations of federal and tribal police brutality on the reservation. On June 26, 1975, a gun battle between members and FBI agents resulted in the shooting deaths of two agents. The U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that the Native Americans were partially culpable for the deaths but said the federal government ''overreacted'' during and after the 1973 standoff and therefore created a climate of terror that led to the fatal shoot-out.