Stein was charged Wednesday in Morton County with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and criminal mischief.
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Stein, a 66-year-old doctor and environmental activist from MA, said in a statement that she had spray-painted the words “I approve this message” onto a bulldozer, a nod to the phrase American politicians append to their advertisements to comply with transparency laws.
Beyond the photos and video showing Stein’s actions, investigators say they have video of Baraka painting the word “decolonization” on the front of a bulldozer.
A spokesman for Earthjustice, the tribe’s legal representation, said its own surveyors identified the construction sites as sacred in court filings less than 24 hours before the company used bulldozers to destroy burial sites, prayer sites and other culturally significant places on Saturday. Along with Ms. Stein, her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, is also facing arrest in North Dakota.
The $3.8 billion pipeline is to carry oil from western North Dakota to IL.
An arrest warrant was issued for Stein, who polls in the low single digits in national surveys, stemming from her actions a day earlier against the 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer) pipeline project contested by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We are greatly saddened and extremely bothered to confirm that today, unwarranted violence occurred on private property under easement to Dakota Access Pipeline, resulting in injury to multiple members of our security personnel and several dogs. First the Commission on Presidential Debates refused to let her participate in the presidential debates; now a warrant has been issued for her arrest. On 6 September 2016, a federal judge sided with the Sioux, at least preliminarily, and granted their emergency request to halt construction on a segment of the pipeline in North Dakota.
“At this point. I don’t believe that we need to go in there and have physical altercations with the protesters, ” Kirchmeier said. Residents say the $3.7 billion project will contaminate their water and land. “I felt that it would have been unconscionable for me not to stand up and support the indigenous leaders who are putting their lives on the line and are under attack from vicious attack dogs who are having pepper spray sprayed in their faces and whose sacred burial grounds are being desecrated”. Stein also ran for president in 2012 on the Green Party ticket.
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She argues that a vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is a wasted vote. Police charged her with trespassing for trying to take food to activists trying to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.
