Biography
Eugene Bear Lincoln, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, was charged with murder after an April 1995 shootout on the Round Valley Reservation near Covelo, California, in which Mendocino County Sheriff Deputy Bob Davis and Lincoln's friend Leonard Acorn Peters were killed. Maintaining that he fired in self-defense after deputies ambushed the two men, Lincoln turned himself in at the San Francisco law office of attorney Tony Serra. He was held without bail in the Mendocino County jail for two years. In 1997, after a trial that drew national attention to law-enforcement treatment of Native people in Mendocino County, a jury acquitted Lincoln of murder. He was later, in 2000, convicted of an unrelated charge of firing into reservation homes.
UPI’s September 24, 1997 report distinguishes Eugene “Bear” Lincoln’s acquittal on four murder charges from lesser manslaughter and weapons allegations then still awaiting a separate trial. It reports his release the preceding Tuesday afternoon on $50,000 bail. The murder acquittal is not treated as dismissal of every allegation; the existing September 23 release date and custody totals are unchanged. Source.
