A North Dakota judge issued a warrant Wednesday for the capture of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who is blamed for spray-painting construction equipment amid a protest against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Tuesday night, the Morton County sheriff’s department posted a photo of Stein to Facebook, accusing her of “vandalizing Dakota Access Pipeline equipment”.
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CNN has reached out to both the Stein camp and the Morton County Sheriff’s office to confirm the details, but did not immediately receive a response.
In the run-up to the campaign stop, Stein’s poll numbers hovered around 3 percent in four-way presidential polls, according to Real Clear Politics.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein talks with protesters and the media at a Dakota Access pipeline construciton site south of Mandan on Tuesday.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and another neighboring tribe oppose the construction of the pipeline, which the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe says would disrupt sacred land and affect its people’s water supply.
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, the Green Party candidate has never polled above five percent in this election cycle, and is now on 3.2 percent.
North Dakota authorities are recruiting law enforcement officers from across the state to guard the site of a protest in anticipation of an impending federal ruling on whether to block the construction of the four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg says he’ll rule by the end of Friday on the tribe’s challenge to the pipeline, which will carry oil from North Dakota to IL.
Additionally, Stein called for a jobs program similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Stein has a history of environmental activism, and was arrested in 2012 when she was running for president in that cycle during her protest outside a presidential debate she was not invited to. Numerous protesters say the construction is taking place on burial grounds.
On Wednesday, the retired physician and Highland Park native tweeted out a picture of herself spray painting a bulldozer at an oil pipeline protest in North Dakota.
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Stein’s graffiti-an act of vandalism that likely caused less than $1,000 in damages-is either a class A or B misdemeanor in North Dakota, which carry potential penalties of 30 days to a year in jail and up to $2,000 in fines. The U.S. presidential election will be held on November 8.
