The independent television and radio program Democracy Now! documented dogs appearing to bite protesters and security guards appeared to use pepper spray. However, according to local law enforcement, no injuries of protesters had been reported, and no arrests were made. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors”.
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“We urge all protesters to participate only in peaceful and lawful activities”, Dalrymple said.
About 500 to 800 people traveled to the construction site around 2:30 p.m. Saturday and broke down a fence to get in, the department said.
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 just outside the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The desecration of these ancient places has already caused the Standing Rock Sioux irreparable harm.
“Any suggestion that today’s event was a peaceful protest is false”, said Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier. He urged tribal members to avoid traveling to or doing business in the area. “Our primary focus as a state is to maintain public safety for protesters, workers and the general public”.
ND -The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe released a statement Sunday stating it has filed a temporary restraining order against Dakota Access Pipeline.
The motion seeks to prevent additional construction work on an area two miles west of North Dakota Highway 1806, and within 20 miles of Lake Oahe until a judge rules on the Tribe’s previous motion to stop construction.
Demonstrators in Kansas City also held a protest to support the Sioux and protest the pipeline’s threat to water resources and sacred sites. Mentz said that rock piles called cairns, used for burial purposes, were discovered, as well as “other sites of historic significance to Native Americans”.
“I wasn’t expecting them to mace, it came out of nowhere”, one protester said. “According to numerous witnesses within five minutes the crowd of protestors, estimated to be a few hundred people became violent”.
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The tribes are accusing the construction companies of destroying Native American Indian burial and cultural sites on private land in southern North Dakota. He said that it did not seem like a protest, but more like a riot.
