Over 140 People Arrested in Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

Law enforcement officers moved to force activists off private property

A months-long protest over the Dakota Access oil pipeline reached it’s most chaotic pitch yet, when hundreds of law enforcement officers moved in to force activists off private property.

Thursday, a nearly six-hour operation that began at 11:15 a.m., dramatically escalated the dispute over Native American rights and the project’s environmental impact, with officers in riot gear firing bean bags and pepper spray.

Authorities arrested 141 people, no serious injuries were reported. Donnell Hushka, a spokeswoman for the Morton County Sheriff’s Office, says most protesters were arrested for conspiracy to endanger by fire or explosion, engaging in a riot and maintaining a public nuisance.

State Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong says that among those arrested was a woman who pulled out a .38-caliber pistol and fired three times at officers, narrowly missing a sheriff’s deputy. She says officers did not return fire.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier says the camp was cleared by nightfall.

Early Friday morning, protesters who were ousted from the camp, set up a block on a state highway composed of burned vehicles. One roadblock was comprised of a burned SUV and sheets of plywood, and another was made up of two heavy trucks on a bridge.

More than two dozen protesters are now at the site, many of them waving signs and holding up their hands in a show of defiance, while law enforcement authorities in riot gear are lined up on a hill overlooking the scene.

Protestors and tribal leaders fear that the pipeline could affect water supplies and disturb tribal cultural sites.