The North Dakota sky over Standing Rock
beats almost continuously with the pulse of propeller blades. The
tempo is changed by the number of helicopters, planes, and drones;
speeding and slowing the beat in a sinister arrhythmia, taunting the
Water Protectors below. Each thump of the displaced air reminds Water
Protects they are being watched, followed, tracked, and attacked –
their civil and human rights stripped - with the approval of the
Federal
Aviation Administration.
Water Protectors
took up residence in camps in and near the Standing Rock Sioux
Reservation in North Dakota to demonstrate and attempt to prevent the
creation of the Bakken Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The oil
pipeline is slated to go under the Missouri River, just 2,400 feet
upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The Missouri River
is the main water source for the reservation and a food source for
its residents.
Protector efforts to
thwart the development of the pipeline has been met with violence and
surveillance by police. In order to track the Water Protectors,
police and Energy Transfer Partners use helicopters, planes, and
drones to photograph, monitor and harass. In some cases the
helicopters are used for more direct action against Water Protectors.
This nine part
series will illuminate the FAA’s complacency and the role the FAA’s
concession played in the violence against Water Protectors. A
listing of the other eight articles is at the bottom of this article.
Buffalo
Incident
In an effort to
block the pipeline, the Water Protectors set up camp on Energy
Transfer Partners’ property – directly in the proposed path of
the pipe on October 23, 2016. On October 28, a monsoon of police
swept over the camp, destroying personal property, impounding cars,
effecting over 140 arrests and pushing the residents south along
Highway 1806, back to Oceti Sakowin camp. The crowd pushed against
the police, slowing their progress and attempting to stop them from
taking the camp.
Riders on horse
back, Spirit Riders, galloped forward in an attempt to protect the
crowd and slow the police. They immediately became targets of police
violence and their effort to slow the progress of police was
diminished when the police began to project concussion grenades at
the horses.
The Spirit Riders
retreated and formulated a new plan to boost morale – send the
buffalo.
Buffalo hold a
special place in Lakota culture. Before colonization, they were a
primary food source for the Lakota and their society’s welfare was
tied to the buffalo. They
are symbols of strength, self-sacrifice, divinity, and unity.
Between Oceti
Sakowin and Sacred Ground was a sea of brown – the last of the mega
fauna – buffalo; hundreds of them. They were a private herd,
grazing near by.
Hours into the raid,
the police had made it most of the way through the Sacred Ground
Camp. The Water Protectors were heart broken. Leaders, elders, press,
and children had been arrested. Armored police vehicles had used
sonic weapons on the crowd. Pepper spray was free flowing. Tear gas
had injured hundreds. A sweat lodge (a traditional religious
building) had been destroyed and the people praying inside arrested.
A prayer circle was arrested. Women weeping in prayer on the burial
grounds of their ancestors were arrested.
When the crowd had
been pushed almost all the way to the edge of Sacred Ground Camp, the
crowd was in total dismay; even the deaf could hear the hearts
breaking. Waves of despair washed over the Water Protectors as they
watched their homes be ripped apart, their property cut into pieces,
and the tractors came.
The hills to the
east began to change color, their golden hew
turning dark brown. The sound of police commands and screaming was
drowned out by cheers and the sound of thunderous hooves. Water
Protectors pointed and jumped up and down.
The buffalo were
running. The buffalo were running toward the Water Protectors, at the
police.
From above, the
yellow helicopter left their surveillance and sped across the burial
grounds, across the road where hundreds of Water Protectors and
police stood embattled, zoomed over Sacred Ground Camp and directly
at the buffalo.
The helicopter,
flying at a maximum 100 feet above the buffalo, attempting to corral
the buffalo – splitting the herd. Two-thirds of the buffalo went
north and a third returned south, from where they came.
Red
Hawk: Standing Rock Rising FB Page
The helicopter
chased the northern herd, shooing them far from the sight of the
Water Protectors and returned to its task of
surveillancing
the Water Protectors.
Not long after its
return, the small southern herd ran across the hill again – raising
cheers from the crowd. As the small herd went over the hill, small
specks appeared over the ridges behind them.
The Spirit Riders
were riding over the hills, and moving the buffalo.
Again the helicopter
flew low over the crowds of people to get in position to scare the
buffalo away. The riders continued to move the buffalo forward. The
buffalo were pushed by the helicopter and left north, behind a hill
and out of sight.
As soon as the
buffalo were gone, police on ATVs raced across the hills toward the
Spirit Riders. The helicopter turned from the north and headed south,
following the ATVs in pursuit of the Spirit Riders.
Elders screamed to
the crowd to help the riders but they were hundreds of yards from the
Water Protectors, past a barbed wire fence and behind a line of
police. They were on their own.
The Spirit Riders
split into two groups.
The ATVs chased down
one group of Spirit Riders – shooting the horses and the riders
with rubber bullets – injuring both.
The helicopter
chased the other group. The riders ran their horses as fast as they
could, but they were no match for the speed of the helicopter. The
helicopter dropped elevation over and over again, buzzing and
hovering above the Water Protectors at 10-15 feet above their heads
in an attempt to spook the horses or dismount the riders.
Video footage of the
buffalo run spread across the internet, in it documentation of the
helicopter pursuits of the buffalo and its low elevation flying over
the crowd.
Title
14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 91.119 of the General
Operating and Flight Rules requires the helicopter to fly at least
500 feet above non-congested areas and 2,000 feet above congested
areas.
The
Water Protector Camps had a higher population than the majority of
the cities in North Dakota, sometimes reaching 10,000 residents. The
greater population density and population numbers makes the Water
Protector camps congested if any city in North Dakota is considered
congested.
Even though
impartial evidence swirled around the internet, even though the
stories of the helicopter are well known – the yellow helicopter
continued flying.
No comments:
Post a Comment