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120takeoversCalling the bia the Native American Embassy of Washington,demonstrators broke into the building, inverted American flags anddestroyed computers. They posted signs—“Aim for Unity. Custer diedfor your sins.”They refused to leave, even though two-thirds of the occupantswere women and children. “The worst thing the police can tell you issend out the women and children,” Adams says. “The women particularlyfeel that they can’t go out. If they leave, all these guys will beslaughtered. That’s the best way to assure a standoff, to send out thewomen and children. The women won’t leave, I’ll tell you that. Theywouldn’t leave Wounded Knee, and they wouldn’t leave the biabuilding.”“Them things are direct action things,” Billy says of the occupation.“All of that in that time was direct action. But it was for acause that got us to where we want to be.”Adams relates the story from inside the occupation. As he negotiatedliving arrangements for activists, and a possible exit from thebureau, Indians “prepared the second floor for burning.” A courtdecision came down that allowed occupants to be removed from thebia by force, unleashing mayhem.“The moment that the judge at the lower level issued that order,Dennis Banks said to George Mitchell [a leader of the AmericanIndian Movement] from Minneapolis, ‘Well, let’s go back and tearthat place apart,’ or ‘let’s go back and destroy it,’ or something likethat. And they did. They broke the toilets all up and did all theplumbing damage. As one of the [news] writers said, ‘What level ofrage would involve someone to sit down and twist each key of atypewriter?’”Billy remembers crawling out windows. “That was the big-timetakeover. We got surrounded by all the park people. And Nixonwouldn’t let them come in on us, until we finally negotiated out ofthat.”During the occupation, Billy got lost on the streets of Washington,D.C.—first on foot, and then in a car.