Fellow 'Indian' Activist Turns Out to Be Officer
Fellow 'Indian' Activist Turns Out to Be Officer
It came as a jolt to Indian activist leader Anita Collins when a trusted "Apache" friend, John Arellano, pulled out a badge and said: "'Nita, I hate to tell you this, but I'm a cop."
Arellano, a 25–year–old Mexican–American, and no Indian, had infiltrated the Indian movement four months earlier and was with the police when they arrested her Wednesday.
He is the source quoted by the FBI in the charges against Miss Collins, Indian leader Hank Adams and investigative reporter Leslie H. Whitten, who are accused of unlawfully possessing documents stolen from the Bureau of Indian Affairs building last November.
Arellano told FBI agents that Miss Collins had picked up three boxes of stolen documents at the bus station the night before. Indian leaders said he had driven her there.
Agents handcuffed Adams and Whitten as they carried three cartons of documents from Adams' apartment to Whitten's car. Adams said they were on the way to the BIA to return the material; Whitten said he was along to get a story.
Miss Collins had been Arellano's closest friend among the Indians. He had used his association with her to become part of the nucleus of Indian demonstrators who occupied the BIA building. Later, he was able to keep up communications with Indians who scattered after taking part of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan that climaxed with the ransacking of the building.
District of Columbia police said Arellano began his intrigue by studying Indian history and customs. His long, black hair and high cheekbones helped him pass for an Indian.
He had drawn the assignment as a city policeman, but after the BIA building was damaged the affair became a federal matter.
Meanwhile, Arellano had told some of the Indians he had been born on a reservation but his parents died and he was sent to a city to live. Friends said he told them he joined the caravan to "regain his Indian roots" and to reestablish a sense of identity.
Miss Collins said she felt sorry for him and that he acted like many city Indians who do not understand the reservation life.
It was easy for Arellano to melt into the crowd in the melee after the caravan took over the BIA building.
Of the hundreds of Indians who barricaded themselves inside, most were strangers, coming from more than three dozen states.
There was no registration list. The leaders of the American Indian Movement kept warning people that spies and police undercover informers probably were inside and said everyone should be on guard. If they saw a stranger they were to ask "Are you an Indian? Prove it."
Arellano's association with Miss Collins presumably saved him from being put on the spot. He was a mamber of the AIM security guard, watching rooms where the Indians made makeshift gasoline bombs, wrecked furniture and ultimately ransacked files.
When some Indians filled orange juice bottles with gasoline, Arellano relayed that fact to police.
Arellano is shown in picture after picture taken of the BIA invaders, with a club or a knife raised high as he joined others in defending what the Indians called their embassy.
Once the demonstrators left town, Arellano ingratiated himself with the core group left behind by producing a new van to replace their broken-down one. He said his mother in Colorado had received some unexpected insurance money from a car wreck.
No one was certain where he lived, however. He told some people he joined the caravan in Boulder, Colo., but Miss Collins thought he had hitchhiked to Washington.
Two weeks ago, when Indians said all stolen documents would be returned, Arellano was one of several persons who made numerous calls to find out what documents might come back and when, Indians said. This may have given him a good pipeline to which Indians had what.
Since the arrest, Arellano has dropped out of sight.
After Arellano's true identity was revealed, LaNada Boyer, at whose home Miss Collins was arrested, recalled a prophetic incident, ignored at the time.
When an Indian drank too much and got sick at a party several weeks ago, Miss Boyer told Arellano, "Go Help your brother."
"He's no brother of mine," the informer replied.