Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein will likely be charged with vandalism or trespassing at a North Dakota construction site during her participation in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, law enforcement said.
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Stein was charged in Wood County for criminal trespassing. She apparently tagged bulldozer with the words, “I approve this message”.
Morton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Donnell Preskey said four private security guards and two guard dogs were injured after several hundred protesters confronted construction crews Saturday afternoon at the Dakota Access pipeline construction site.
It was not clear what Stein spray painted onto the bulldozer. The issue is being heard in a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which granted the Standing Rock Sioux tribe a partial restraining order against construction on tribal ground.
The Morton County Sheriff Department stated that no arrests or charges have been filed yet because they are still investigating the incident.
Stein can be seen on local media outlet video Tuesday shaking a can before spraying something onto the front blade of the bulldozer at a construction site in St. Anthony, North Dakota.
Each day, they march a mile up a highway to a construction site where preparatory work is being done for the pipeline.
Protesters claim they were pepper-sprayed and bitten by the dogs.
“We think those warrants are misdirected”, she said.
The article continues, suggesting that the pipeline is “expected to carry 470,000 barrels of crude oil per day from North Dakota to IL”. Her campaign, she added, “supports the courageous Indigenous leaders who are taking a stand to protect future generations from the deadly greed of the fossil fuel industry”.
As protests have grown more heated in recent weeks, police and pipeline opponents also have disagreed over who has been provoking the clashes, which erupted in violence over the weekend.
Stein said she didn’t feel as if she could say “no” to such a simple request from people leading the fight against a crude-oil pipeline.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump ‘s $90 million raised in August leaves him behind the $143 million that his Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton, raised this summer.
