![\"dapl-concentration-camp-thumb\"](\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dcclothesline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/dapl-concentration-camp-thumb.jpg?resize=495%2C260\")
<\/p>\nClaire Bernish
\nThe Free Thought Project.com<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cannon Ball, N.D. \u2014 On Thursday, police from no less than five states sporting full riot gear and armed with heavy lethal and nonlethal weaponry, pepper spray, mace, a number of ATVs, five tanks, two helicopters, and military-equipped humvees showed up to tear <\/span>down an encampment of Standing Rock Sioux<\/a> water protectors and supporters armed with \u2026 nothing.<\/p>\n Under orders from the now-notorious Morton County Sheriff\u2019s Office, this ridiculously heavy-handed standing army came better prepared<\/a> to do battle than some actual military units fighting overseas.<\/p>\n But the target of their operation \u2014 a group of slightly more than 200 Native American water protectors and supporters opposing construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline<\/a> \u2014 never intended to do battle with the armed, taxpayer-funded, corporate-backed, state-sponsored aggressors.<\/p>\n Reports vary, but no less than 141 people<\/a> were arrested Thursday, and \u2014 according to witnesses \u2014 police marked numbers on arrestees\u2019 arms and housed<\/a> them in cement-floored dog kennels<\/strong>, without any padding, before they were transported as far away as Fargo.<\/p>\n \u201cIt goes back to concentration camp days,\u201d<\/i><\/b> asserted Oceti-Sakowin coordinator Mekasi Camp-Horinek, who, along with his mother, was marked and detained in a mesh kennel, reports<\/a> the Los Angeles Times<\/i>.<\/p>\n Although Thursday\u2019s incident remained relatively peaceful for some time, with only shouts, chants, and occasional attempts by water protectors to convince this standing army to examine its motives and reconsider, clashes nonetheless broke out \u2014 solely because of gratuitous police aggression.<\/p>\n After facing off for a couple hours, these militant cops began closing in on the water protectors to shut down the Treaty of 1851 camp \u2014 in reference to the Fort Laramie Treaty of that year, which established a large parcel of land designated exclusively Native American territory not to be disturbed by the U.S. government. Prior to his arrest, Camp-Horinek had established the camp, stating, as cited by Indigenous Rising<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cToday, the Oceti Sakowin has enacted eminent domain on DAPL lands, claiming 1851 treaty rights. This is unceded land. Highway 1806 as of this point is blockaded. We will be occupying this land and staying here until this pipeline is permanently stopped. We need bodies and we need people who are trained in non-violent direct action. We are still staying non-violent and we are still staying peaceful.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Despite the water protectors\u2019 commitment to nonviolence, the militarized police response went as would be expected \u2014 horribly awry.<\/p>\n \u201cA prayer circle of elders, including several women, was interrupted and all were arrested for standing peacefully on the public road,\u201d<\/i> stated a press release<\/a> from Indigenous Environment Network. \u201cA tipi was erected in the road and was recklessly dismantled, despite law enforcement statements that they would merely mark the tipi with a yellow ribbon and ask its owners to retrieve it. A group of water protectors was also dragged out of a sweat lodge ceremony erected in the path of the pipeline, thrown to the ground, and arrested.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Claims to the contrary<\/a> by Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier aside, Native American and Indigenous water protectors and supporters have refrained from violent acts on the whole, preferring instead peaceful prayer vigils and acts of civil disobedience.<\/p>\n No matter how peacefully the opposition acts, armed defenders of Big Oil interests<\/a> seem determined to brutalize<\/a>, disrespect, and generally incite and inflict violence against those who desire unsullied water for generations to come.<\/p>\n In fact, at the beginning of September, a private security firm hired by Energy Transfer Partners, the company responsible for pipeline construction, indiscriminately unleashed vicious attack dogs<\/a> on water protectors, press, and supporters \u2014 for reasons as yet unknown.<\/p>\n During the savage attack, a pregnant woman, young girl, and many others suffered serious dog bites thanks to the ineptitude of the dogs\u2019 handlers. Afterward, a warrant for inciting a riot was issued Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman \u2014 for doing her job, filming events as they happened \u2014 though charges were subsequently thrown out.<\/p>\n Although ETP and some law enforcement officers defended the barbarous actions of the private security mercenaries, the Guardian<\/i><\/a> now reports that \u2014 because the guards lacked proper licensing \u2014 they could now face criminal charges. On Wednesday, the Morton County Sheriff\u2019s Office made the determination that \u201cdog handlers were not properly licensed to do security work in the state of North Dakota.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Bob Frost, owner of Ohio-based Frost Kennels, told the Guardian<\/i>, \u201cAll the proper protocols \u2026 were already done. I pulled my guys out the next day because we weren\u2019t there to go to war with these protesters.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Frost insisted he had cooperated with authorities investigating the incident \u2014 but the sheriff\u2019s department disagrees. Seven handlers and dogs were deployed to the scene in early September, allegedly in response to reports of trespassers; but, according to theGuardian<\/i>, police have only managed to identify two people.<\/p>\n The sheriff\u2019s department claims Frost has not provided necessary information, and unnamed security officials cited in the report said that \u201cthere were no intentions of using the dogs or handlers for security work. \u2026 However, because of the protest events, the dogs were deployed as a method of trying to keep the protesters under control.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n In a statement cited by the Guardian<\/i>, Morton County Captain Jay Gruebele said,\u201cAlthough lists of security employees have been provided, there is no way of confirming whether the list is accurate or if names have been purposely withheld.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Water protectors, in the meantime, are left to deal with absurdly disproportionate state violence \u2014 and the altogether unacceptable, disrespectful, and demeaning insult of being relegated to dog kennels after being arrested for exercising their rights.<\/p>\n As Lakota Country Times<\/i> editor Brandon Ecoffey wrote in an editorial<\/a> Thursday,<\/p>\n \u201cOver the course of the last several months the abuse of detainees by Morton County Law Enforcement has overstepped every boundary guaranteed by the American constitution. Water protectors have been seen being bound and hooded by police. People are being stripped searched and abused within their jail for misdemeanor crimes. And police have employed the use of mass surveillance through drones on the protector camps. <\/i>This isn\u2019t a war zone this is North Dakota.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n