Two newly reviewed videos casts doubt on on
police justification for brandishing weapons at anti-Dakota Access
Pipeline protestors at a prayer event resulting in 21 arrests.
Anti-DAPL
protestors called Water Protectors were holding a prayer event on
September 28 at the end of dead end county road near Mandan, North
Dakota. Police responded to the event with with two armored police
cars, an LRAD, automatic weapons, shot guns, and dozens of officers
from several agencies.
During
the interaction, police officers pointed guns at the Water
Protectors. In a press release, the Sheriff’s Office of Morton
County explained the reason for the officer pointing his gun as a
horse charged the officer and was an "imminent threat" to
the police.
The
first video shows the Water Protectors yell “GUN” because the
officers have pointed their weapons and put their hands up. Some of
the crowd screams, others run away. As a group of men and women move
forward through the crowd with their hands up and out and stand in
front of the children and the elderly.
Only
after the police put their gun up, the crowd runs away, and the
protectors on foot move forward do the horses enter the picture.
The
second video shows the speed of the horses as well as their location.
The horses walked briskly to the front, behind the guard Water
Protectors. A horse charging the officers who brandished their
weapons would have had to trample the line of Water Protectors
standing between the officers’ guns and the vulnerable population
they were guarding.
Water
Defenders are protesting the creation of an oil pipeline which will
travel under the Missouri River and over the Ogallala Aquifer. The
Missouri River is the primary source of water for the Standing Rock
Sioux Reservation. Ogallala Aquifer provides 30 percent of the fresh
water used for agricultural irrigation in the United States.
In
recent weeks, police have made over 100 arrests of Water Protectors.
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