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Just before the Fed's 6pm deadline to clear out of Wounded Knee, Russell means C's Dennis Banks come flying into the village in a beat up, bright blue sports car. Banks jumped out of the car with his face paint and leather vest and declares triumphantly that the Fed's just back down from the deadline. What's more, the roadblocks are coming down. Means can't really believe it. All he can think is that maybe the Fed's imagine pulling back will rob the occupation of drama, that the news cameras will just lose interest and everyone will leave town. Well, he could tell them right now it will do exactly the opposite. And he is right. Without the roadblocks, Indians from all over the country stream into Wounded Knee. College students from the Pueblo's in New Mexico, Cherokee from Reservations in Oklahoma and fishing rights activists from the tribes of the Pacific Northwest. With them come representatives from seemingly every segment of American counterculture. A large group of gun tooting Vietnam veterans against the war, some of them in wheelchairs, a few black panthers and Chicano and white radicals all within a few days. Now these new recruits are gathered on the hilltop near the T.P. They're joined by the original occupiers, all waiting for means to speak. The Ogalala leadership has just concluded an all day meeting with the decision that will change everything for the occupation. And it's means job to announce it to the occupiers and news crews from around the world. He walks towards the T.P. at the top of the hill and grabs a megaphone. The leadership of the Ogalala Lakota here present at Wounded Knee have declared Wounded Knee an independent country. We are now the independent Ogalala nation. The Ogalala have revived the Treaty of 1868 that granted them their own nation. From this day forward that treaty will be the basis for all negotiations. We will seek recognition by the United Nations and continue to demand a government to government meeting with the White House. Means face turns the stone. He can't resist adding a little flourish for the cameras to make sure the feds take the independent Ogalala nation seriously. Furthermore, if any spy from the United States of America is found within our borders, they will be dealt with as a spy in a time of war and be shot before a firing squad. Means looks out at the crowd. Everyone's in a celebratory mood. The independent Ogalala nation has a nice ring to it. Against all odds the occupation has survived nearly two weeks and gained the world's attention. So why stop there? Why stop anywhere short of full sovereignty and freedom from American rule? They haven't. They won't. American scandal is sponsored by the new ABC drama Alaska Daily. When an indigenous woman goes missing in Alaska, it sparks new questions about other missing and murdered indigenous women. And that's where the thrilling new ABC drama Alaska Daily begins and where it's headed will have you on the edge of your seat. Two time Academy Award winner Hillary Swank stars as Eileen a veteran reporter who joins a team of local journalists working to bring the truth to light from Academy Award winning screenwriter Tom McCarthy Alaska Daily premieres Thursday October 6th on ABC and streams next day on Hulu. If you're into true crime, the Generation Y podcast is essential listening. We started this podcast over 10 years ago to dissect some of the craziest and most notable murders, crimes and conspiracy theories together and we'd love for you to join us. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts. From Wondry, I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American Scandal. In early 1973, Indian activists with the American Indian movement or aim took over the remote South Dakota town on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The federal government responded to the takeover by amassing a force of hundreds of FBI agents, US marshals and police from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The federal personnel are equipped with military hardware from the Army, the Air Force and the National Guard. At first, the government backed off a plan to assault on the village, but now that occupiers have declared themselves the independent Ogola Nation, as far as both sides are concerned, they were at war. This is Episode 3, a nation reborn. Three days after Russell Means announces the independent Ogola Nation to the world's cameras, FBI Special Agent and Charge, Joseph Trimbock enters the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Pine Ridge. The BIA's impromptu federal command center is still a buzz of activity with representatives from all the federal agencies regularly calling superiors in Washington and FBI agents and marshals filing in and out for ammunition between firefights. Tonight, Trimbock is here for a meeting with Wayne Colburn, the director of the US marshals. He's a tough Marine. Was Chief of Police in San Diego before Nixon made him the head of the marshall service. Trimbock's been glad to have him around for the strange combination of military action and law enforcement that Wounded Knee requires. And Trimbock hopes Colburn has some ideas. The Justice Department came up with the idiotic bureaucratic stunt of taking down the roadblocks, saying it would deescalate the situation, but of course, the opposite happened and radicals from all over the country poured into Wounded Knee. When the occupation grew, instead of magically disappearing, the bureaucrats decided they needed roadblocks after all. Now it's the FBI and the marshals job to reestablish the federal perimeter, and on top of everything else, Trimbock's got some bad news. Trimbock finds Colburn already seated at the conference table, closing the door on the den of the command center. The conference room feels tranquil, but Trimbock doesn't. He's just down across from Colburn. Thanks for being here, Wayne. Of course, Joe, how you hold no? Never better. So let's get down to business. To state the obvious, we've got to crack down again and crack down hard. The roadblocks are going back up. And good thing. We've got the armored personnel carriers coming back from the National Guard to a dozen of them. How about the marshals take half and the FBI take the other half? Agreed. We've already started reestablishing our checkpoints, but a lot of new people came in when they were down. We're guessing there are maybe four, or 500 people in the village now. Every goddamn radical in the country is trying to get in there. We've got a lot of new Indians, Black Panthers, and some hippie kids with their marijuana and chairman mal pamphlets. They have no idea what they're getting into here. And it's a goddamn mess is what it is. And I've got Dick Wilson threatening to overrun the place. I've had ranchers whose cattle are being barbecued in the village who are ready to go in there like John Wayne. And you know, I tried to tell them this is exactly what happens when the government shows weakness. We're on the brink of a full scale revolt on reservations across the country. The Navajo marched on a federal building in Phoenix. The Tuscaroras are riding in North Carolina. There's a tribe in Maine that's burning tires on the highway. Meanwhile, we're supposed to shoot to wound. Coldborne shakes his head and disgust. How the hell you supposed to disable a target with an assault rifle without killing him? It's a joke. My agents are saying the new order is shoot to nick them in the head. Coldborne laughs. Well, when Colonel Warner gave us that order, he was thinking like an army officer. I suppose he's used to acceptable loss of life among his soldiers. But in my view, if even one of our men gets hit, it's unacceptable. So it's agreed. We'll ignore the shoot to moon directive and tell our men to follow their training. It is agreed. Don't worry, Joe. With the roadblocks back up, we'll get this back under control. You see me on TV? After I turned away that carful of food at the checkpoint, the reporter asked me if I was going to starve them out of the village. I said, well, I'm sure his hell going to change their lifestyle. Trimbock and Coldborne share a laugh. The two men first met days before they arrived when they knew the fight was coming, but didn't know when or where. They've had some tense exchanges since then. Tossles over turf and chain of command. But Trimbock respects Colburn and thinks it's mutual. One other thing, Wayne, I have some news. I'm being replaced. You're what? A new special agent in charge is on his way to wound it need to take command of the FBI agents here. I'm headed back to Minneapolis. I don't agree with the decision. As much as I want to leave this place, I want every FBI agent in Marshall coming with me. But it comes straight from the top FBI directors orders. Well, we'll be sorry to lose you, Joe. I won't be here in person, but I promise you I'm not done with aim. We've got new powers under some legislation. It was passed a deal with the Black Panther, so we can arrest anyone with his respect of traveling across state lines to participate in a riot. We will. We're ramping up surveillance on aim. Even if we don't get to arrest Dennis Banks and Russell Means here, they'll slip up eventually. Sometimes soon they'll be planning their next criminal adventure with an undercover in the room. We'll catch them and then they'll have their day in court. A March 23rd early in the third week of the occupation, Dennis Banks sits on a frozen hillside, Downslope just far enough to maintain his vantage over wounded knee creek while being protected from government fire. The chance to sit for a moment is a much needed break from his ever growing duties in the independent Ogolala nation. He spends most of his days helping the Ogolala establish a provisional government that deals with everything from housing and public health to defense and security, everything an independent nation needs. Just the other day, representatives of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederation marched untouched past federal roblox on a diplomatic visit. The Iroquois reject US citizenship and issue their own passports that are recognized when they pass between the US and Canada. When the Iroquois recognized the independent Ogolala nation, it was proof that all this sovereignty talk wasn't just a joke. Below him 40 dancers move as it finished trans. Knees bent and crouched forward, ready to spring into the air, high stepping their bare feet in and out of snow drifts and patches of dead winter grass. They're performing the ghost dance, a ritual that's been banned on Pine Ridge since the wounded knee massacre of 1890, where Lakota men, women, children, bled into the snow in this very spot where the dance is now brought back to life. Banks has moved to tears by the sight. The dancers have been here in this valley for four days and nights dancing without rest, barefoot, and freezing. The ghost dance is about turning anguish into hope and emptiness into belief. The song is a sound he's been wanting to hear ever since the bus took him away to boarding school. Song he might have sung himself to feel the silence of his cell and solitary confinement. He's never felt freer than he has in this place, protected as long as the Indians and the bunkers can hold their positions and keep the U.S. marshals at bay. Among the dancers, Banks sees Russell Means. Banks has never been prouder of his friend and what they've accomplished together alongside everyone else here. It's a vision come to life to see representatives of the many tribes here dancing as one and to see all the new young Indians flooding into wounded knee, realizing for the first time what it means to be Indian. But then all the anger and defiance come back to season because what they've accomplished isn't enough, not nearly. A new negotiator is arriving from Washington, an assistant U.S. Attorney General named Kent of Frizel. Banks wonders what the man will be like but decides it doesn't matter. No matter who he is, it's Banks job to go to that negotiating table and figure out how to make everything they've accomplished here into something permanent and lasting. The independent Ovalala Nation has been reborn. He can't let them kill it in the cradle. The next day, assistant U.S. Attorney General Kent Frizel flies in from Washington for his first day as the government's new lead negotiator, wounded knee. As soon as he arrives, he has to be taken straight to the main FBI checkpoint on wounded knee road. Frizel is in his mid 40s and has a confident war manner that he's already noticed contrasts pretty sharply with the mood of the federal personnel at wounded knee. The marshals, FBI and BIA officials are all jumpy and irritable on a hair trigger. After a full month of fire fights, just about anything will set them off. Frizel sees all these men viewing him with suspicion, sizing him up. They've all lost faith that the suits flying out from Washington are willing to make the tough decisions necessary to end this crisis. Frizel will prove them wrong. He looks out at the tiny village of mile and half distant with the white church on a hill. This is it. The sight of the small war he and the rest of America have been watching for the last month. He thinks wounded knee is a far simpler problem than everyone's made it out to be. The other government negotiators have been tough in all the wrong ways. They treat the aim leadership like common criminals. Frizel will change that. He'll participate in their rituals and all the pomp and circumstance of the new independent ogolala nation. He thinks it's a mistake not to at least pretend to give aim the respect they're so obviously craving. Let's kept them on their guard. Once they let that guard down, he can move in and end this thing for good. The FBI men standing around him will probably think he's soft, but that will change when they see his actions. Because while he's smiling with aim pretending to enjoy negotiating in their silly TP, he'll be bringing an iron fist to every other aspect of the occupation. He'll make it his first order of business to cut off the village's electricity, gas and water. Next he'll empower the marshals and FBI men at the checkpoints to do whatever it takes to make sure no food is getting in. He'll allow some rations of baby food for the younger children, but that's it. He's also going to crack down on the thing that's been aim's only true trump card for the entire operation, the media. The news cameras can't get enough of the young warriors in face paint aiming their rifles at federal personnel and their armored tanks. And a recent poll showed that two thirds of Americans side with the occupation, but as far as for Zell's concern, there is no occupation if there is no one there to see it. Russell means in particular is a brilliant showman, but there won't be anything left of him once the cameras are banned. Without the media, we would need will be relegated back to the history books within a week. The new season of this is actually happening, is available ad free only with one Dree Plus, and if this new season isn't enough, you can listen to more than 120 exclusive episodes available only to Wondry Plus subscribers. Join Wondry Plus on Apple podcasts or on the Wondry app. Late at night on March 30, Dennis Banks peers from a bunker through the Dimm moonlight, hoping to welcome the latest group of backpackers sneaking food and ammunition past the federal perimeter. Its Banks responsibility to organize the supply chain and the work has been getting more dangerous. Locals from Pine Ridge guide volunteers laden with 50 pound packs through ravines as government snipers hide on the hilltops. Marshalls patrol the area with dogs, they know the backpackers are out there, but they never know what route they're going to take. So the feds launch parachute flares that illuminate the entire area with eerie flickering light. The occupiers have trained their ears to hear them whistling through the air before they ignite, and know to hit the deck until the black night returns. As he continues scanning the darkness, waiting, Banks can't help but notice his own hunger. It's been a week since the government stopped allowing food into Wondry Dnieh and the occupation is down to two meals a day. He knows that soon they'll have to cut it to one. The children and elderly among the occupiers are suffering the most, looking thin and suffering coughing fits. Conditions in the village feel more like the 19th century. The occupation now has to haul water from Wondry Dnieh Creek and light fires and oil cans as makeshift heaters in the winter chill. Banks joked on the radio with the feds, telling them that the reservation Indians are plenty used to going without food and electricity. So if anything, they're just making them feel more at home by cutting the power. But despite his efforts to boost morale, Banks fears the conditions inside the independent ogolala nation are becoming almost as dangerous as the military threat outside the borders. If there were an outbreak of tuberculosis, the occupation would collapse entirely. No guns blazing, no cameras rolling, just a bunch of Indians sprawled on the ground hacking their lungs out. Banks hears the familiar sound of a parachute flare whistling skyward and the angry rattle of automatic fire from the Marshall's assault rifles. His heart sinks. This can only mean the feds has spotted the backpackers. But then he hears the unevenly paced pops from the occupier's hunting rifles in a distant bunker as they fire and reload. Banks knows the men often have to leave their bunkers and run forward to get an effective range for their rifles. It's a huge risk, so it pulls out the radio to check in on them. Just then, he sees movement to his left. It's the backpackers, six of them tonight, along with their ogolala guide, lurching the last of the way under their heavy packs. The occupation will be able to hold out a little longer. A few days later, Kevin McKeeernan, sneaks a glance from the trailer he's been hiding behind as an armored personnel carrier roams out of you. He's in his late 20s with an intense gaze in an ample mustache, a reporter with Minnesota public radio, and the last member of the media inside the village of Wounded Knee. This is his very first assignment. So far, he'd say he's doing pretty well. While the FBI and Marshalls ran all the big news networks out of town, McKeeernan managed to sneak through with his tapered quarter, a still camera, and even a film camera to capture footage of the occupation. He's just 600 miles from his home in Minneapolis, but he may as well be in another country. Wounded Knee is a place of armed conflict, disease, hunger, conditions he never thought he'd see on American soil. The armor personnel carrier moves out of sight, and McKeeernan goes back behind his trailer. The occupation leaders have allowed him to live in this bullet riddled hunk of metal with an A member named Anna May A. Quash and her fiance. They plan to become the first couple married inside the independent Oglala Nation. But McKeeernan can't wrap his head around the intensity of violence compared with the glimpses of what might be a peaceful life inside Wounded Knee. Men share the last of their tobacco, old women swap stories, and keep their grandchildren confined to the trailers when the bullets whizz passed. One of Anna May's friends at Wounded Knee is eight months pregnant, and could give birth at any day. The rest of the country needs to see this side of Wounded Knee. So while he's here, he's going to do his best to document everything. It won't be easy. Even though he's here as a journalist, he's dodging bullets along with everyone else in the occupation. The other day, he was going out to get footage from one of the bunkers when the feds opened up with their assault rifles. He dropped to the ground and kept crawling for the bunker. The Indians had already given him some advice. If you hear bullets whizzing overhead, then they're at least a yard above you. If they're cracking, then they're right on top of you. Luckily, these bullets were only whizzing, but that didn't give him much reassurance. McKeeernan knows that once the feds find him, there's a good chance they won't let him in his film out of Wounded Knee. They'll view him as an enemy just like everyone else in the village. That's why he's found this hiding spot behind the trailer. He's been prepping for the past few days. He loads the footage he's shot so far into a steel canister, throws it in a hole four feet deep and covers it lightly with dirt. When the canister is covered, he takes some old rusted car parts he found and uses them to fill in the rest of the hole. Then he covers the last of it back up with more dirt. With the feds sweep with metal detector, he'll think they just found a pile of junk. Meanwhile, he keeps adding films to the canister every day. McKeeernan has heard that talks with a new negotiator have gone better than expected. He hopes that's true, but whatever happens next between the Indians and the government, he'll be around to document it. And if he doesn't make it out of Wounded Knee, that record will survive. On the evening of April 4, 37 days into the occupation, Russell means enters the trading post, a building they've refashioned into a sort of town hall. Tonight's meeting of the occupation leadership promises to be eventful, and they've invited anyone who wants to attend. The building is already packed as means walks to his place near the front of the room. He smiles at the strange sight of the trading post crowded with people wearing their winter coats. Even without heaver electricity, and with everyone down to one meal a day, the occupation shows no signs of breaking. Means is struck by the hopeful mood among the crowd. The local Ogolala Civil Rights activist Ellen Moves Camp stands at the front of the room ready to bring the meeting to order. Means recalls her forcefulness at the original meeting, where it was first decided they would go to Wounded Knee. Now Wounded Knee has become the independent Ogolala Nation. It's fitting that Moves Camp should take the center stage. It's a promising day for the independent Ogolala Nation. As leaders of a new nation, we have decided to negotiate with the United States in good faith. We haven't gotten everything we wanted, but they've agreed to the most important points. We've known from the beginning that if we don't win our treaty rights, we haven't accomplished anything. Our new nation will just disappear and will all be arrested. With our treaty rights, the independent Ogolala Nation will live on. We will have one back what was stolen from us. I'm proud to tell you that the government has agreed to hold congressional hearings on our rights as an independent nation under the 1868 treaty. Means looks at all the smiling faces. Their breath visible from the cold. Moves Camp continues. We've also gotten the government to agree to investigations of Dick Wilson and his civil rights violations, violence, and intimidation against the Ogolala on Pine Ridge. Finally, they've agreed to a meeting between the independent Ogolala Nation and the White House. The Ogolala will meet government to government with the United States. Means holds his breath. What Moves Camp will say next is the part he's been dreading. We'll send four people tomorrow to represent us at the signing of the truth with the government negotiator here at Wounded Knee, but there is a catch. The people we send will all be arrested. That's part of the agreement, but they promise that all four will be out on bond quickly so that they can go to Washington to meet with the White House. Means waits as a tense silence takes hold of the room. Some faces in the crowd show obvious skepticism about the agreement. Moves look overjoyed. Some in the crowd are already glancing at him. It would be a great honor to be chosen, but he doesn't want to leave Wounded Knee. He prepared himself to die here, even asked to see his kids one last time, but unfortunately one of their mothers had no interest in taking them into a war zone, and the other mother was blocked by an FBI checkpoint. But anyway, if he's not going to die, he'd like to continue living in the independent Ogolala Nation. I'd be surprised if there's any disagreement about three of the four we send. We will send Tom Badkab as our Ogolala Elder. Russell means watches as a man in his 80s, acknowledges the honor with his slightest nod. Leonard Crowdog will represent us as our spiritual leader, and we'll send our lawyer to keep the government honest. We will also send one member of the Wounded Knee leadership. There are several here who deserve this honor, but I suggest we send Russell Means. Now that the moment is here, it means it doesn't hesitate. Thank you, thank you all. I'd be honored to go. The next day Means takes a last look at Wounded Knee from the window of the helicopter. He's always wanted to fly in one. Now he gets a bird's eye view of the independent Ogolala Nation. It looks so small from up here, just a few houses scattered on the undulating hills of Pine Ridge, still surrounded by federal roadblocks. But its strength is growing. He left Wounded Knee with the entire village celebrating. The truth with the government was signed with great ceremony. Means and the other representatives smoked the sacred pipe along with the Assistant Attorney General Kent Frizell. And Frizell borrowed an Indian pony and wrote it around bearback as a sign that peace had come. But as soon as the meeting was over, they put means and handcuffs and loaded him onto this helicopter, where he'll be booked at the jail in Rapid City, and then supposedly be released for his meeting with the White House. He hopes that meeting happens. But before he left, Means told Dennis Banks to keep the village on high alert. As part of the agreement they were able to get the phone lines into Wounded Knee reopened. Means told Banks not to disarm until he had heard from him specifically that everything at the White House went according to plan. They haven't won anything until they secure their treaty rights. And Means hates the feeling of these handcuffs on his wrists. Two days after his first helicopter ride, Russell Means and the three other representatives of the independent Oglala Nation sit at a table in front of a nest of microphones in the lobby of a high dollar hotel in Washington, DC. It's the 40th day of the occupation of Wounded Knee and it was supposed to be the last. But Means has called a press conference to announce that things in Washington have gone the way of all negotiations between the U.S. government and the Indian nations, with Uncle Sam knifing the Indians in the back. Means tells the reporters that he submitted to arrest and came to Washington to deal honestly with the government and settled grievances. He expected to go to the White House today to start that process. But the government people aren't honorable. The White House flat out lied, backing out of its promise to meet with the independent Oglala Nation. Means knows, even as he feels questions from the reporters in the room, that government negotiator Kent Frizel is holding a rival press conference, feeding the press the same bullshit that Frizel started feeding means as soon as he landed in Washington. Now Frizel saying that the occupiers at Wounded Knee need to disarm before the White House meeting, because the White House won't negotiate while guns are pointed at federal officials. But does the government really think they're that stupid? Why would they disarm and then start negotiations? That's never been done in the entire history of armed conflict. What Means doesn't tell the reporters in the room is that there's been a strange new development, one that's more concerning now that the White House is backed out of the deal. Just before Means left the jail in Rapid City to make the trip to Washington, some white guy who said he was from Arizona approached him to set up a meeting. Means agreed to go with him to a hotel where the guy offered to sell him grenades, plastic explosives, AK47s, anything A might need to make up for their disadvantage and firepower at Wounded Knee. It was way too good to be true. The guy had to be a fed. The FBI must be trying new tactics for going after A. After Means finishes with the press, he calls desks banks to warn him. With all the new faces at Wounded Knee, there might be government agents in their midst. They'll have to stay vigilant or else the occupation will get taken down from the inside. Banks assure him they'll be careful and gives means and update from inside the village. Now that the White House deal is off, the occupiers are already back in the bunkers, fending off heavy fire from the feds. A week later, on April 17th, Pine Ridge tribal president Dick Wilson barrels through the front door of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Pine Ridge. He's here to meet with Stanley Lyman, the BIA superintendent for Pine Ridge. The BIA building is still the headquarters of the government's military occupation on Pine Ridge. The US marshals have their 50 caliber machine gun mounted on the rooftops. The halls are lined with grenade launchers and assault rifles. Wilson scoffs at all the weaponry as he makes his way down the hallway toward his meeting. What a waste. Sure, the feds shot lots of bullets in the Wounded Knee, but they might as well have been fireworks. It's all just a big show. All the guns are just government posturing, pretending to be tough on crime when they've spent six goddamn weeks letting Russell Means and the rest of his band of communist outlaws do whatever they want. Wilson bursts through the door of the meeting room and finds Lyman waiting for him. The BIA superintendent is the only government person Wilson trusts. He's defended Wilson against his critics time and again, allowed him to preside over his own impeachment trial, helped him fund his private protection force. Lyman says that he believes first and foremost in Indian self determination, and that means not interfering with the way Dick Wilson runs his government. Hopefully Lyman has some good news. Thanks for coming, Dick. Stan, please tell me we have some prodders here. Six weeks. It's been six goddamn weeks since this mess started. My reservation is at a standstill. There are kids who can't go to school because of all the roadblocks. None of the businesses can function. Russell Means is a free man running around the country giving speeches and bad mouthing me on college campuses. Lyman's size. I know, Dick. It's been a long haul. Just the other day, I got a phone call from one of the parents of this group of students in Florida, real earnest kids. They had put together 12,000 pounds worth of canned goods for the wounded knee occupation. We're wondering if I could help them fly to South Dakota. I tried to explain to the man that this occupation is a criminal enterprise, but he just couldn't get that through his head. No one understands how hard our job is here. This entire thing started with the traditionals, making noise and trying to get me thrown out of office. Just because I wasn't giving them enough federal aid and jobs, they live way out in the outline districts and their English is lousy anyway. What jobs do they think they're going to get? Lyman shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Dick, I've got some bad news. You know, aim has these high powered lawyers. Well, they just got a federal judge's rule that we need to allow food through the checkpoints during the occupation. That same judge said that your roadblocks are illegal, so you need to take them down. What? What are you talking about? I'm the elected president of this reservation. If I want to put up roadblocks, that's my right. Well, I agree with you, but the judge doesn't. Well, I'm not taking them down. No way. We'll burn that village or the ground first. Wilson sees Lyman shrinking into himself. He hates everything that's happened on Pine Ridge as much as Wilson does. The only difference is that Lyman just wants it all to go away. Wilson is willing to take action to make it go away. Lyman looks defeated. All right. Leave your checkpoints up, but if anyone asks, I'm not the one who said so. I'll keep sending the BIA police to help you, and I'll even try to get them some military ration from the government so they'll have something to eat out here. But listen, Dick. Do what you want at the checkpoints, but you can't go into wounded knee. You have to give the feds time to work this out. Are you kidding? How much more time do they need? Look, I know the government is slow walking this, and I'm sorry, but I'm on your side. And they're doing more than you think. I was just in Utah for a meeting of BIA directors from all over the country. We were working on strategies for the military threat, trying to create a BIA police strike force modeled after the US marshals. If there's ever a disturbance like this again on Pine Ridge or anywhere else, we'll be ready. Yeah, but that's not enough. What about what's going on right now? Lyman suddenly shifts forward in his seat and lowers his voice. Listen, don't tell anyone this, but I saw something else in Utah. I was at the airport in Salt Lake City, and I saw an FBI agent I know. Only he was pretending not to notice me. That's when I realized he's there on surveillance. Let's see what he's watching. One of the aim leaders is at the airport talking with these two black guys. It turns out one of them is that black power nutcase, Stokey Carmichael. Typical, all the commies getting together. I agree with you, the government isn't doing nearly enough to end the standoff, but the FBI is watching. Give them time. Maybe the occupation will last a little while longer, but I guarantee you, the American Indian movement won't survive wounded me. The FBI will mad them on a weapons charge or find them conspiring with the foreign agent. Whatever it is, they're going to take aim down. Wilson exits the room and walks past the row of weapons in the hallway. Lyman's a good man. He's probably right about the FBI, but Wilson has no interest in waiting. What Lyman doesn't know is that Wilson's men have gotten to know the FBI agents pretty well during those long days and nights searching cars at the road blocks. They're far closer than Lyman or any of the other higher ups realize. If there is finally a government attack, his men will get a heads up so that they can join in and do real damage. Just as Wilson's leaving the building, one of his goons rushes up to him, grinning ear to ear. He tells Wilson that the feds finally got one of them. Someone just got carted out wounded me with a bullet to the head. Next on American Scandal, the alliance between federal forces and Dick Wilson's goons is severely tested, but the anti occupation forces come together for a final assault. From one degree, this is American Scandal. Just a quick note about our reenactments. We can't always know exactly what was said, but everything in our show is based on historical research. American Scandal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship, sound designed by Derek Perons. This episode is written by Michael Canyon Meyer, editing by Casey Meiner. Executive producers are Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and her nonlopus for Wondering.