PINE RIDGE, S.D., Oct. 18 (AP)—Pedro Bissonette, an American Indian Movement leader in the siege of Wounded Knee, was shot and killed last night by policemen seeking him on a fugitive warrant, the authorities said today.

Stanley Lyman, superintendent of the Pine Ridge Inman Reservation, said that the shooting had occurred after two police officers making a routine check of a car found Mr. Bissonette inside.

“Pedro attempted to shoot one of the officers and was shot, at fairly close range,” Mr. Lyman said.

He said that Mr. Bissonette had pulled a gun but had not got a shot off. He said that Bureau of Indian Affairs policemen from the reservation had begun looking for Mr. Bissonette yesterday afternoon on a fugitive warrant issued after assault charges were made in a tavern incident last month in Nebraska. Two officers who spotted him soon afterward tried to stop him, Mr. Lyman said, but Mr. Bissonette fired a shot at them, and they gave up the pursuit.

William Clayton, United States Attorney in Sioux Falls, said that Mr. Bissonette had been shot once with a shotgun. He said that he had asked the F.B.I. to make a “thorough investigationregarding the circumstances.