Nov 1, 2016 - Eyewitnesses Dispute Police Claims of Shots Fired by Water Protectors

On October 27th, a heavily militarized police force moved on water protectors who had erected a blockade along Highway 1806 in effort to stop the Dakota Access pipeline. In all, police arrested 141 people, used pepper spray, shot rubber bullets (including at a horse who later died from injuries), tore down tipi’s and even pulled people out of sweat lodges and prayer circles and arrested them. Accounts of police actions have been widely shared in news media and on social media.

Early reporters from the North Dakota Department of Emergency Servicesstated, “At the Dakota Access Front Line Camp on Highway 1806 a woman was arrested for firing three shots from a .38 caliber revolver at law enforcement, narrowly missing a sheriff’s deputy. She was taken into custody without force by law enforcement.”

This incident has been widely disputed by eyewitnesses.

According to Sara Jumping Eagle, “I witnessed this and filmed it on 10-27-16. This is when the mercenary police grabbed a lady, she was on the ground, tackled by up to 6 mercenaries then they fired the rubber bullets three times at close range within their own crowd of mercenaries. Then immediately after, they begin to lie and state that the woman had a gun and shots were fired at the police. In the video, you hear there are no live bullets fired. Standing Rock Elder stateswoman Phyllis Young informs police that Live bullets were shot at young Lakota men on horses (this occurred further south). Interesting that a day or two later, mercenary police make statement that an officer shot himself in foot while “cleaning his gun.”

https://www.facebook.com/sara.jumpingeagle.7/videos/1249778081747530/

In the same report police claimed, “In one situation, a private individual was run off the road by protesters and shot in the hand. The victim had a firearm in his vehicle at the time he was shot, and he is being treated for injuries.”

The sheriff’s office has since backed off its claim now stating that the man was not shot. It has come to light that the man, Kyle Thompson, was revealed to be an undercover Dakota Access employee from Knightsbridge Risk Management out of Springfield, Ohio.

Thompson had drove through the water protectors barricade and was forced off the road by water protectors who feared he would run people over. Upon exiting his vehicle, Thompson fired off several rounds. He was detained by Bureau of Indian Affairs police before turning him over to the FBI.

DAPL armed security Kyle Thompson

DAPL armed security Kyle Thompson confronted by water protector.

The police’s willingness to blatantly lie about shots fired by water protectors and utilize undercover instigators is troubling though not without precedence. On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Military claimed shots were fired as an excuse to massacre over 300 Lakota women, men, and children. More recently, cops often claim that black and brown men they kill are armed.

by Wakíƞyaƞ Waánataƞ (Matt Remle- Lakota)