During this year's presidential campaign, most of the airtime has been focused on Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, but Green Party representative Jill Stein has found an unusual way to get some publicity: vandalizing construction equipment for an energy pipeline.
According to an article posted by CBS and the Associated Press on Wednesday, Morton County in North Dakota has issued a warrant for the arrest of Stein, who is accused of misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and criminal mischief after spray-painting construction equipment during a protest against the Dakota Access pipeline.
A spokeswoman for Stein said Tuesday that activists invited her to leave a message at the protest site, and Stein sprayed “I approve this message” in red paint on the blade of a bulldozer.
It didn't take long for Stein to respond to the incident on her Twitter account: “State of ND may charge me with vandalism. Will they charge the oil company that razed sacred burial grounds?”
She also tweeted: “The Dakota Access Pipeline is vandalism on steroids.”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is trying to stop construction of a section of the pipeline that tribal leaders say would violate sacred and culturally sensitive grounds.
Morton County officials stated that the incident occurred at or around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, when some agitators “were reportedly on horseback, wearing masks and carrying hatchets in some cases,” according to an article by Logan Churchwell on the Breitbart.com website. “No arrests were made at the time.”
Churchwell previously reported on the brewing protest in April, when sit-in demonstrations first occurred. A key driver of outrage was due to concerns that potential pipeline leaks could affect potable water the local tribe relies on.
The Dallas company said at the time that the “[pipeline] does not cross any reservation land” and, where necessary, “mutually agreeable easement” deals had been struck with “various tribes. No construction is planned on the lands held by the Standing Rock Sioux.”
Blair Emerson of the Bismarck Tribune reported that Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault lauded the alleged acts as reminiscent of the Civil Rights Movement, saying: “It was illegal but it was the right thing to do.”
“The pipeline is to span from the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas 1,168 miles through South Dakota and Iowa to Patoka, Illinois, for refining and distribution,” Emerson added. “The 30-inch, $3.8 billion line is expected to facilitate a maximum daily capacity of 570,000 barrels of crude. Energy Transfer Partners hopes to see the asset online by fourth quarter 2016.”
The Tuesday incident occurred within half a mile of an encampment where hundreds of people had gathered to join the tribe’s protest of the oil pipeline.
Saturday's protest came one day after the tribe filed court papers saying it found several sites of “significant cultural and historic value” along the pipeline’s path.
“The North Dakota construction site has been a flashpoint for violent, environmental protests since Labor Day weekend, sending multiple private security employees and their service dogs for medical treatment,” Churchwell stated.
He also noted:
Various videos and local reports have confirmed that “hundreds” of Native American protesters and supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux turned violent at a construction site under the management of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.
The Associated Press reported that four private security guards and two dogs were injured in the incident as a result, according to the Morton County Sherriff’s Office. Though protesters have asserted through a variety of mediums that they were the ones first attacked, many of their own videos purport to show the opposite occurred.
A spokesperson for the Dallas pipeline company told the AP that violence first began when protesters breached a fenced security perimeter and “attacked” the construction crew on the site.
Videos uploaded by protesters and supportive media purport to show that the few private security guards were armed only with radios, pepper spray and leashed dogs while unidentifiable objects were hurled at them.
Protesters are also seen encroaching further onto construction areas and rushing vehicles. No local law enforcement are visible within the videos, and Energy Transfer contends to the AP that none were anywhere on site at the time.
Tribe spokesman Steve Sitting Bear said protesters reported that six people had been bitten by security dogs, including a young child. At least 30 people were pepper-sprayed, he said, while law enforcement authorities had no reports of protesters being injured.
There's an old joke about how much effort it takes to show up on TV. For Stein, who probably hopes that there's no such thing as bad publicity, that required vandalism and being arrested on misdemeanor criminal charges.
