Sheriffs Refuse to Send Troops to Standing Rock as Public Outrage
and Costs Mount
November 26,
2016 by Jenni Monet
Photo:
Rick Danielson via Flickr
Reprinted
from YES! Magazine posted Nov
23, 2016
North Dakota is stretched thin in
its battle to protect the Dakota Access pipeline construction: Costs are
nearing $15 million, and police reinforcements are diminishing.
Agents with the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection will be the latest agency assisting Morton County Sheriff
Department deputies to guard Dakota Access pipeline construction as it prepares
to drill under the Missouri River. But as tensions mount, along with costs to
keep up with militarized attacks on water protectors, there are signs that
North Dakota’s resources are stretching thin.
North Dakota’s resources are
stretching thin.
Sheriff
Kyle Kirchmeier announced the aid of CBP officers Monday following the most
violent confrontation yet near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Dozens of
activists were hospitalized after Sunday night’s standoff when police sprayed
water on hundreds of people in 26-degree temperatures and fired what has been
described as concussion grenades. One activist, Sophia Wilansky, 21, may face
the amputation of her arm.
Even
before Sunday’s subfreezing assault on the Backwater Bridge, the escalating
violence, the toll of mass arrests—528 as of Monday—and the routine response to
demonstrations were taking their toll on local agencies. The policing costs
have reached nearly $15 million. The courts are taxed. The jail is burdened.
The 34 local law enforcement officers are stressed.
All this
comes amid an increasingly loud public outcry against the militarized policing.
Organized
campaigns to contact the people and agencies responsible for sending officers
and equipment to aid Morton County in the assaults on water protectors have in
some cases been effective. YES! Magazine published that contact information Oct. 31,
and in less than a month, the Facebook post had reached more than half a
million people with commenters trading stories about their experiences making
complaints.
It was
intense public response that led Montana’s Gallatin County Sheriff Brian
Gootkin to literally turn his detail around. He and his deputies were en route
to Morton County when Gov. Steve Bullock raised concerns about the potential
misuse of the interstate statute. The Emergency Management Assistance Compact
obligates law enforcement around the country to fulfill requests for aid under
any form of emergency or disaster.
“I got
messages from England, Poland, New Zealand, Australia,” Gootkin recalled. And
he received phone calls and hundreds of emails from his constituents,
too — people that may have elected him sheriff. They were concerned about the
use of force on protesters, Oct. 27, he said, and also had been affected by the
public outrage from Minneapolis’ Hennepin County.
Gootkin
said the callers and emailers believed the EMAC was meant for natural disasters
and catastrophic events like 9/11, not for protecting a corporation’s pipeline
construction. All that caused Sheriff Gootkin to change his mind. He turned to
Facebook to post his decision to stand
down on Standing Rock: “Although my actions were well-intentioned, you made it
clear that you do not want your Sheriff’s Office involved in this conflict. One
of the biggest differences of an elected Sheriff from other law enforcement
leaders is that I am directly accountable to the people I serve (YOU).”
It was
not an easy choice to make, Gootkin said. “I wanted to go and help my fellow
law enforcement.” Then, he raised a question that has begun to rattle many
communities across America lately. “I just don’t understand where we separated
from the public. It really breaks my heart. We are not the enemy.”
Sheriff
Dave Mahoney from Wisconsin’s Dane County was also empathetic to those decrying
deployment of his officers. “All share the opinion that our deputies should not
be involved in this situation,” Mahoney told the Bismarck Tribune. He and
his unit stood by Morton County officers for one week before pulling out and
refusing to return.
This
week, the ACLU released the most comprehensive list of law enforcement
participating in the conflict at Standing Rock, 75 agencies total, all believed
to be operating under the EMAC agreement. The ACLU’s current list of agency
support to Morton County can be found here.
Of the
$15 million spent so far to protect the pipeline construction , $4.4 million
has been spent by Morton County alone, officials said. The figure also includes
more than $10 million in state emergency funds, according to Cecily Fong,
spokeswoman for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services. Fong told
the Associated Press that protest-related law enforcement costs
reached $10.9 million dollars last week, including $6 million borrowed from the
state-owned Bank of North Dakota in September and an additional $4 million on
Nov. 1.
Nearly 1,300 officers have come
from 24 counties.
Now it
seems likely that the state will need to request even more money from its
Emergency Commission. In a press conference two days prior to Sunday’s
violence, Gov. Jack Dalrymple expressed frustration in the ongoing police
action against protesters. “We’re incurring expenses every day,” Dalrymple
said.
The
governor has pressed the Obama administration for federal aid in responding to
the escalating conflict. He has suggested the U.S. Marshal Service step in to
evict thousands of protectors who have occupied U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
land. “They are camped without a permit,” Dalrymple said of those occupying the
mass encampment near the Backwater Bridge blockade. “In other words, they’re
there illegally.”
But the
Obama administration has refused to do that, opting to sit down with the
Standing Rock Sioux and negotiate a solution. It has asked that construction of
the $3.8 billion pipeline stop until one is reached, but Energy Transfer has
refused. It is now suing the federal government and meanwhile continuing to advance
the pipeline.
With the
absence of federal assistance, Morton County has had to rely on the EMAC and
support from police agencies nationwide. Since early August, the sheriff’s
department says that nearly 1,300 officers have come from 24 counties, 16 cities,
across nine different states.
The number of law enforcement
agencies assisting Morton County has dwindled.
The
farthest traveled was the president of the National Sheriff’s Association, Greg
Champagne of St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. He arrived Oct. 28, the day after
Morton County led its heavily militarized removal of occupants from the “1851
Treaty Camp.” In a lengthy post on Facebook,
Champagne commended the multiagency action while taking special care to praise
Minnesota’s Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek. He said they were “protecting
lives and property” that day.
But in
the aftermath of the violent Oct. 27 raid, the number of law enforcement
agencies assisting Morton County has dwindled — in some instances, because of
the pipeline‘s polarizing effect.
Minneapolis’
Hennepin County has received some of the loudest public outrage as taxpayers,
voters, even state lawmakers turned out to denounce Sheriff Stanek’s decision
to send Minnesota personnel and equipment to Standing Rock. “I do not have any
control over the Sheriff’s actions, which I think were wrong,” said Lt. Gov.
Tina Smith in a prepared statement. “I believe he should bring his deputies
home, if he hasn’t already. I strongly support the rights of all people to
peacefully protest, including, tonight, the Standing Rock protest.”
Following
a nine-day stint in North Dakota, Sheriff Stanek said enlisting 29 of his
deputies to serve on Morton County’s front lines was “the right thing to do.”
But he
also said his deputies would not be returning.
Jenni
Monet wrote this article for YES! Magazine.
Jenni is an award-winning journalist and tribal member of the Pueblo of Laguna
in New Mexico. She’s also executive producer and host of the podcast Still Here.
Reprinted with permission.
Creative Commons License
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21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
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master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought
the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while
the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially
their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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