Law Enforcement is Systematically Dehumanizing Standing Rock Water Protectors to Justify Violence

Dehumanization; it is the first step to war. Long before the tanks roll onto ships, or planes fly overhead, propaganda strips the enemy of their humanity. The simplest way to dehumanize is to demonize. The Morton County Sheriff and local press are knowingly and calculatingly taking aim at the safety of the Standing Rock Water Protectors by slowly tainting the perception of their character and stripping them of their humanity.

On October 16, the Morton County Sheriff published on their Facebook page an article from Inforum.com with the headline “Butchered and missing livestock reported near Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp” The article connected the Standing Rock Water Protector camps to 30 missing cows, and the deaths of four cows, three bison and a saddle horse by saying it happened near the camps.

The cow rustling incident was in a different county, investigated by a different sheriff. It was not Morton County’s jurisdiction.

North Dakota Stockmen’s Association (NDSA) Chief Brand Inspector Stan Misek asserted, "They're [the cattle] missing from right beside the camps, right there. We don't know. We don't know for sure. We're just putting it out there and hopefully somebody will come forward."

The camps are monitored by aircraft which visit numerous times per day. Police have stations on the ridges above the camps. They employ electronic surveillance devices which trap cell traffic. It is monitored at all times, day and night. One camp is up a large hill and has cattle catchers on the way in. Another is in a large geographic bowl and into a plain. It is surrounded by rivers on three sides – which at the time were not frozen. The only part of the camp which is not surrounded by river is lined by a major highway.

The idea that Water Protectors sneaked out undetected past the hundreds of police and aircraft, collected 30 cattle, smuggled them back to camp, took them along the highway, and took them either up a huge three mile hill, past cattle catchers or down a big hill, slaughtered them, butchered them, and ate them with no detection is truly a concession of incompetence of police surveillance or entirely fallacious.

The improbably and reality is not point. This was no mindless move, or silly bit of eye rolling non-sense. It was a shot right at the Water Protectors’ safety. It was a shrewd move to show the Standing Rock Sioux, Water Protectors, and their supporters the Sheriff knows history – and they mean to repeat it.

A dead cow and dehumanization led to wars lasting 14 years.

In 1854, the cow of a Mormon traveler on the Oregon Trail was killed by a starving Native American. Instead of dispatching an Indian Affairs Officer as treaty required, the military sent itself to deal with the situation. Lakota Chief Conquering Bear met the battalion of American Army soldiers peacefully. The military demanded he turn over the cow murderer. Conquering Bear refused because it is against Lakota custom to put a guest in a harmful situation. He offered the Mormon a horse and a cow. The Mormon demanded money. Conquering Bear had no money. Talks broke down. As he was walking away, Conquering Bear was shot in the back and died. The Lakota killed every single soldier. The Lakota were called violent. Newspapers said the Lakota massacred the soldiers. The spin on their response to the violent invasion of their territory was used to justify a war with the American people– The First Great Sioux War.

Julie Ellingson, NDSA Executive Vice President was asked for details including where, when, which ranchers, or for photos and stated, “This is an active investigation and those details cannot be disclosed at this time as law enforcement work the case.”

When asked how long it took for thirty cows to go missing, Ellingston said, “Sorry, but I do not know the answer, as that is something that the investigators gather in their case files.”

Four days later, the Sheriff again referenced the missing cows on his Facebook page, this time increasing the number of dead horses to two and reassuring the public that social media rumors that the cows had been found were entirely off base.

The cattle rustling was just one of Morton County Sheriff’s attempts to make the public see horns on the Water Protectors.

One of Morton County Sheriff’s favorite tactics is to post videos of local residents complaining about the camps. Generally the videos lack any direct interaction with Water Protectors – instead conveying stories about neighbors who have interactions.

On one of the Morton County Sheriff’s video posts, an unnamed rancher explained in an interview with Scott Hennen on the radio show “What’s On Your Mind” that he bought a gun to defend himself against Water Protectors after an interaction with a neighbor. “I have a neighbor who lives in the pipeline area and he asked if he needed help, if I would come and help. I said I would.” He continued, “At that point I didn’t really have anything to go help him with. So I proceeded to acquire some stuff.”

He confessed that his only interaction with a Water Protector was watching them change a flat tire.

Even when interactions are direct, the bar for fear seems preposterously low. After having a conversation with a Water Protector, which by his account had no threats in it at all, Jared Ernst, a local farmer, bought guns. He said, "I've been carrying a sidearm on me everywhere I go. I have a small revolver that I carry, my wife has started carrying, a bunch of the neighbors have started carrying firearms in their vehicles.”

Even though the geographic region of origin of Water Protectors should play no role in their arrest or charges, the Morton County Sheriff put out a map of where the arrestees were from. In a smacking case of “let’s play jingoism” the sheriff made the tacit argument that it is the outsiders ruining the community and making problems.

The map calls the arrested individuals “professional protestors.” Even though Morton County Sheriff provides no evidence for the professionalism of the protestors, or who is funding them, or why they are called professional protestors – they are called professional.

The professional protestor myth is a new form of racist double speak. Whenever a group of people who are primarily not- white gather to assert their rights – as in the Winters’ Doctrine which assures fresh, clean drinking water to all Native American Nations and the people living in them, the “George Soros Myth” pops up.

The George Soros Myth is essentially that a Jewish guy is sending hapless, mindless, uneducated, unemployed, brown people who are driven only by money to upset the poor white Christian folks and their communities.

Yup – it is a double whammy of dehumanization and racism. It requires the speaker and the listener to believe Jewish people want to upset their communities and that brown people are so stupid, and mindless that they would do anything for money – including upsetting poor, innocent people.

It also requires both the listener and the speaker of the myth to accept that white people have an inherent right to have their realities stay exactly the way they want it and it is morally wrong for Jewish people or brown people to assert rights or pay people to assert rights which upset their inherent right to keep things status quo.

For a group of people who in general voted for Trump to further free market capitalism – the idea people would get paid as a way to express market values – like clean water or equal pay – is a monumental act of hypocrisy.

The map is nothing more than a tantrum that the superiority of white people might be challenged in North Dakota and its development was paid for by a public law enforcement official.

And why? It serves no formal law enforcement purpose. It does however serve an important social purpose.

North Dakota has many nick names, most of which are unknown to the rest of the country. It is called the Deep North or the Mississippi of the North. The racism is unabashed in North Dakota. Drivers roll down their window and yell “NIGGER” at black people walking down the street. Then they circle the block and do it again. They call Native Americans “Red Niggers” and “Prairie Niggers” and “Lazy Indians” and “Chief” and “Half-Breed” and “Dirty Indians.” Mexicans are called “Beaners” and “Wet Backs” and “Fucking Juans.” The white people who ally with the minorities are called the racist slur with the added monicker “lover”. For example, “Red Nigger Lover.” They make unabashedly racist comments which usually start with “They...”

And yes – the police do call people all of those things while making arrests or interacting with members of the public who brown too much.

North Dakota is the keeper of the runner up title for state with most hate crimes and has held that title since 2012 according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Well – except for 2013 when North Dakota won the title and wore the crown of most criminal haters in the country.

The Morton County Sheriff is deliberately demonstrating that the Water Protectors’ are internationally and nationally challenging the accepted racism. He is tacitly showing the challenge to white superiority in North Dakota in order to create an us (whites) vs them (anyone who thinks brown people are equal humans to whites). The Morton County Sheriff is intentionally whipping up the racist factions and increasing the settler anxiety in order to escalate public hostility and make violence against the Water Protectors acceptable.

Tensions were relatively low between Water Protectors and law enforcement in December 2016. On December 4, the Obama Administration stopped the drilling and ordered a complete Environmental Impact Statement. On December 5, a wave of thousands veterans arrived in Standing Rock with the stated mission to protect the Water Protector from police violence.

Unwilling to allow the public to come to their senses and cool down and think; the Morton County Sheriff released a document to whip up the racism and dehumanization again and it used its favorite old tactics; racist, bigoted propaganda. On January 9, 2017 the Morton County Sheriff released information about the cost of the Water Protector Camps.

Days of Response Support (since August 10, 2016) 153

Hours of Response Support (as of January 9, 2017) 181,232

State and Local Cost to Taxpayers (estimated as of Jan 4, 2017) $22.3 M

In State Agencies Providing Support 91

States Providing Support1 9

Out of State Agencies Providing Support 33

Number of Arrests 581

Number of Protesters Arrested 556

Percent of Arrestees from Out of State 94.5%

Number of Arrestees with Prior Criminal Records2 182

Number of Arrestees with History of Violence3 25

Number of livestock killed/missing, injured4 (as of Jan 6, 2016) 10 / 32

Number of poaching investigations tied to protest area 53

Number of abandoned cars/structures on protest camp (estimated) 650 - 75

1. Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming

2. Total of 1062 previous citations and charges for illegal activity (as of Jan 3, 2016).

3. Includes domestic violence and child abuse.

4. ND Stockmen’s Association. 1 bull, 2 horses, 3 bison, 4 cows killed. 30 missing cows and calves, 2 injured cows.

5. ND State Game and Fish Department

6. ND Department of Emergency Services

First they focus on cost, the cost and manpower to contain the evil scourge of the Water Protectors. The cost is directly related to the mass militarization of the police which is widely criticized by human rights organizations, police officials, civil rights groups, and indigenous groups.

This is a choice the people of North Dakota have made to over police the area. However, by framing it as an unwanted cost to the people, the Water Protectors are seen as taking from the good, taxpaying citizens of North Dakota.

To translate this from the cloaked racism of the Morton County Sheriff’s Office to the actual meaning, addressing the cost can be reduced to one sentence, “The brown people are stealing your money.”

Missing livestock and poaching is added to the mix in the report. Even though the poaching and missing livestock was never linked to the camps in any way, no evidence was provided to link it to the camps, and the idea that a herd of 30 cows could disappear or be slaughtered under the nose of nearly a thousand police and National Guard with nearly constant aerial surveillance is preposterous – it is again linked to the camps.

Horses are considered people in Lakota tradition. The idea they would tolerate the slaughter of a horse is ridiculous.

Then the Sheriff’s Office moves on to painting the Water Protectors as a collection of law disobeying miscreants.

They bothered to do the jingoistic math for the number of Water Protectors from out of state, asserting a number of 94.5%. They do not explain the number or if Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is considered out of state by their number but it serves the same purpose either way – rile up the jingoists.

They did not bother to do the math on the people with a history of violence. Of the 556 arrestees at that time (it is over 700 now), the grand total with a violent history is 25 or less than 4.5% of arrestees had a history of violence.

Or 95.5% have no history of violence.

Did Morton County Sheriff’s Office suddenly lose the ability to do math? Were they suddenly stuck without a calculator? Did their phone stop working and they could not call a high school junior for help? Was their statistician suddenly struck by lightening and no officer was capable of figuring out the math because their IQ is below that of a wombat?

No. They were caught trying to present a false narrative.

According to the FBI crime statistics for 2014, 498,666 people were arrested for violent crimes out of 11,205,833 total arrests or 4.45% of arrests are for violent crimes. Having a 4.5% violent arrest rate is totally, completely, and exactly in the American normal.

Either Morton County Sheriff’s Office is so grossly misinformed about national crime statistics that they don’t know this is perfectly average that they should probably give up policing right now or they are attempting to paint all the Water Protectors as a wild bunch of violent hooligans; marauding and terrorizing the poor white community of nice, vulnerable law-abiding citizens.

They added in child abuse and domestic violence in the notes for the giggles of showing those damned Indians are so dangerous – even people in their homes are not safe. They did not disclose how many of those 25 people had such charges.

The Sheriff added a new category of dehumanization – dirty. They included a number of abandoned cars and structures at the protest camp of 650-75. Morton County Sheriff’s Office provided no evidence for their numbers, nor how they came to those numbers.

It would be surprising to learn how they learned which structures were abandoned without conducting illegal searches of people’s homes in the camps – but that is a totally separate issue.

The point is not to be accurate or lawful, it is to paint the Water Protectors as dirty. Not figuratively filthy, but literally slovenly.

Morton County Sheriff’s Office validated the accusations of dehumanization when during arrests they strip searched, labeled, different searches for different races, and keeping people in animal cages.

Police raided Sacred Ground Camp on October 27, 2016. The camp was situated on grounds considered sacred burial grounds to many Native American nations. It was also directly in the proposed path of the Bakken Dakota Access Pipeline. Police made over 140 arrests.

Arrestees’ arms were labeled with numbers in permanent marker, instead of their names in a fashion resembling WWII European concentration camp victims.

They were told to strip to one layer of clothing. They were put in a chain link cages with concrete floors described as dog kennels.

The Water Protectors were divided into groups, separated, and sent up to four hours away to far flung jails across the state. Many were then strip searched, fully nude and told to cough.

The United Nations sent human rights investigators to Standing Rock in the days after the raid and Water Protectors gave testimony. They described the events in lock up in specific, consistent, horrifying detail.

Maina Kiai, the United Nations Special Rapporteur said arrested Water Protectors suffered, “inhuman and degrading conditions in detention.”

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier goes out of his way to seem he is a man of discernment when it comes to the Water Protectors, drawing distinctions between the good ol’ passive Water Protectors who know their place and those arrested. He makes references to “instigators” and “agitators” ad nauseam.

In an interview with KX4 in Bismarck on October 26, Kirchmeier said,

“Well, I think as we go through this, from the very beginning, safety for everybody involved has been number one. But there are definitely instay -- instigators in there that want us to come and arrest them. For whatever reason that is, I don't know. For their cause, if it thinks it will help them as they're going along here, I'm not 100% sure.”

The next day his department raided the northernmost Water Protector camp, Sacred Ground Camp. Using hundreds of police from several states, law enforcement used tasers, bean bag guns, rubber bullets, concussion grenades, batons, billy clubs, pepper-spray, helicopters (swooped down to dismount horse riders), LRADs, armored vehicles, smoke bombs, mercenaries from DAPL, and tear gas.

People in the middle of prayer, in sweat lodges, and who were just standing were arrested by police when police came to the camp, unannounced, and raided.

In the same KX4 interview Kerchmeier also said,

“This is nothing special that has been brought out. It's equipment that we have at the sheriff's department and around the sheriff's departments around the state.”

The crime they came there to address? Misdemeanor criminal trespassing.

North Dakota must be a scary place if the sheriffs are rolling out hundreds of cops with weapons which are not even allowed in war to every misdemeanor trespass call. North Dakota must be swimming in officers to mount such offensives for every single trespass call.

Considering in 2015 North Dakota experienced one of the hugest crime spikes in its history, with some crimes spiking over 9.3% in one year – officers must have been rolling armored vehicles all over the state; tear-gassing, and LRADing at impressive volume. They must have been buying pepper-spray in 55 gallon drums.

His comments about the normality of the weapons used at Standing Rock are meant to normalize what is clearly an extraordinary use of force against Water Protectors. Yes, those weapons existed but they certainly are not used in the same way against white North Dakotans as they are Water Protectors.

Kirchmeier said in the KX4 interview,

“But the biggest thing I'm concerned about is the safety for everybody involved.”

On November 20, 2016 the police turned water hoses on a group of Water Protectors in sub-freezing temperatures standing behind 3 feet of razor wire and concrete barriers - creating a mass causality situation. The police also used all the same weapons on as in the raid.

Over 300 people needed medical attention. Most of the injuries were different degrees of hypothermia but it was not limited to hypothermia.

Police shot tear gas into the air then as Water Protectors traced that in the air, they shot concussion grenades and tear gas canister along the ground. One Water Protector suffered a compound fracture to his arm when a concussion grenade shot along the ground bounced up and hit him in the arm.

Another Water Protector, Sophia Wilansky, was hit in the arm by a concussion grenade and her arm was almost completely severed from her body.

Vanessa Dundon lost sight in one eye when she was shot at point blank range by a canister. When she fell to the ground, she was shot in the back of the leg with some sort of less lethal round.

Officers indiscriminately tear gassed, pepper-sprayed, and smoke bombed the Water Protectors.

On November 15, 2016 Water Protectors held an action near a DAPL work-site. The police told the crowd to disperse and began to chase them in packs creating a panic. Cars began to fly around police and Water Protectors. When a group got into a black sports car, the police surrounded the car and began to beat it with billy-clubs. The car tried to leave and the police shot into the car with a black shot gun. Shot guns carrying less-lethal rounds are generally orange.

Kirchmeier’s officers are either so fragile that hearing Water Protectors yell and pray at them presents such a danger it constitutes a lethal threat and have to use nearly lethal force to protect their fragile selves or he is explicitly categorizing Water Protectors as not human and therefore not part of the “everybody” for whose safety is being looked out.

The United Nations confirmed the dehumanization of Water Protectors in jail.

“The excessive use of State security apparatus to suppress protest against corporate activities that are alleged to violate human rights is wrong and contrary to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” said U.N, Special Rapporteur Kiai.

Since good decent people who don’t speak racism, jingoism, bigotry, and moral bankruptcy cannot decode this stuff easily, a concise summary is prudent.

Once we decode the propaganda, The Morton County Sheriff’s position is:

Dangerous, child-abusing, thieving, cattle-rustling, wife-beating, dirty, sub-human Indians and their professional assistants are flooding into the white areas of North Dakota and presenting a danger to the good, tax-paying white people here. Don’t worry – we will protect you from having to hear them, address your white supremacy, or see the dirty brown people using almost any means necessary, even if a few Indians have to die.

Butchered and missing livestock reported near Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp http://trib.al/GF8vvfH

FBI Crime Stats

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/latest-crime-stats-released

Information on the Water Protector Camps

http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/Morton-County-Sheriffs-Department-releases-DAPL-protests-by-the-numbers-report-410199055.html

Kerchmeier Interview

http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/misc/Morton-County-Sheriff-Kyle-Kirchmeier-on-DAPL-protests-and-law-enforcement-398788621.html

Hate Crime Stats:

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/north-dakota-crime-rate-up-percent-in-biggest-spike-of/article_88301225-3e51-5dfd-899b-93076e157c83.html

North Dakota 10% spike:
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/north-dakota-crime-rate-up-percent-in-biggest-spike-of/article_88301225-3e51-5dfd-899b-93076e157c83.html

UN Comments on Conditions in ND

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20868&LangID=E