Protests at Dakota Pipeline Lead to Arrests

Deia Schlosberg, a journalist, was arrested and is facing felony charges in North Dakota over taping the unrest over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Schlosberg, who filmed the critically acclaimed How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change documentary, was charged with three felonies: conspiracy to theft of property, conspiracy to theft of services, and conspiracy to tampering with or damaging a public service.

Schlosberg was arrested while filming and documenting the protests at a pipeline station near Walhalla, North Dakota. She could face up to 45 years in prison.

Prosecutors in North Dakota are proclaiming that Schlosberg was recruited into recording illegal activity.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a pipeline being constructed through heartland of the US. The DAPL project extends from the northwestern edge of North Dakota, to near the southern tip of Illinois.

Jon Eagle Sr., the Standing Rock Sioux’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, has claimed that the construction is going through sacred tribal land.

The land is considered burial grounds for all the tribes’ ancestors and is a place of prayer.

While the government is set on having the pipeline constructed, their efforts have not gone unopposed.

The Standing Rock Tribe have been protesting the pipeline construction, along with people from across the country, and indigenous tribes from around the world that sympathize with their cause.

Law enforcement has come down hard on the demonstrators, and soldiers with IED resistant armored trucks, UAV drones, and planes have all been deployed in the use against the protesters.

Reports of rubber bullets and mace being used against unarmed protesters have surfaced, as well as over 400 arrests of civilians and journalists.

Famous actors have come to the protests and showed their support. Actress Shailene Woodley was arrested for criminal trespassing.  

Democracy Now published an article featuring an interview with Dallas Goldtooth, the organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Goldtooth said in the interview that they caught a security guard worker armed near the protest.

In a YouTube video you can see the accused, Kyle Thompson, dressed as a water protector protester, wearing a red bandana along with holding an AR-15 assault rifle. Thompson was eventually detained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs police after a tense moment between him and the protesters.

From there Goldtooth described how they found Thompson’s security guard ID with the insurance of his truck belonging to the Dakota Access pipeline.

Thompson explained on a social media post that he was told by the pipeline company to go out there and take photos of a certain station.

President Obama stepped in September of this year placing a halt on the project, with construction still being done despite that order.