Biography
Kenneth Moses Loud Hawk was an American Indian Movement defendant in United States v. Loud Hawk, one of the longest-running criminal prosecutions in U.S. history. On November 14, 1975 — five months after the deadly shootout with the FBI at Pine Ridge — Oregon state troopers, acting on an FBI tip, stopped two vehicles near Ontario, Oregon; Kenneth Loud Hawk and Russell Redner were arrested while Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier fled the scene. Officers reported finding dynamite, partly assembled time bombs, ammunition, blasting caps, and weapons, but Oregon authorities destroyed the dynamite, crippling the evidence. The federal weapons-and-explosives case then dragged on for some twelve years through repeated appeals — reaching the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 (United States v. Loud Hawk, 474 U.S. 302) on the question of speedy trial — before the charges were finally dismissed in 1988 for the government's violation of the defendants' right to a speedy trial.
The Black Panther reported in May 1976 that Judge Robert C. Belloni dismissed the Oregon federal firearms and explosives charges against Dennis Banks, his wife, Russell Redner and Kenneth Loud Hawk because of government delay. This was a court disposition in the Oregon prosecution; the report does not establish a physical release or the outcome of later proceedings.
