NEWS RELEASE
Aug. 16, 1995
For immediate release:

Contact: J. Tony Serra, attorney, 415-986-5591

Surrender of Bear Lincoln at Pier 5 San Francisco law office of J. Tony Serra.

Gov. Pete Wilson has offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of Native American Eugene Bear Lincoln, who was the subject of a recent America's Most Wanted TV broadcast.

Law enforcement is charging him with killing a police officer during a shooting incident on the Round Valley Indian Reservation in Mendocino County on April 14, 1995. Another Native American, Leonard Acorn Peters, was killed by police who falsely believed that he was involved in a previous homicide.

For the last four months, the Indian community in Round Valley has been subject to a state of siege marked by systematic and unlawful activities of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department. Threats, physical abuse of elders and pointing guns at children are examples of excessive force used, all under the guise of searching for Bear Lincoln.

On Wednesday, Aug. 16, 1995 at 7 p.m., at the law offices of J. Tony Serra, Bear Lincoln will come forward to vindicate himself and to testify on behalf of Leonard Peters. He will surrender himself into the custody of Detective Roy Gourley of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department, who has headed law enforcement investigations of the Round Valley incidents.

Present will be Indian activists, Lincoln family members and attorney Tony Serra with other members of the legal team. Defense attorney Serra promised a vigorous defense.

"We accuse law enforcement of the murder of Leonard Acorn Peters," Serra said, "and the attempted murder of Eugene Bear Lincoln."