First, I agree that vicious isn't the word I would use.
(Oct 27, 2016, 04:26 AM)Venom Wrote: [ -> ]This states that a protester disarmed an officer of his pepper spray and used it against him. So much for your peaceful protest huh? Along with the fact that they continued to refuse to leave, even after being told multiple times to. You can't just expect to break the law and get away with it.
The only evidence for this is the statement released by the sheriff's department.
BlackDog Wrote:Sure the police are heavily equiped, but whats your point? The american population is so heavily armed it would be insane for a police force to go out without protection, out of those 50 people, how many have firearms? No one knows, thus bring in protection so that no one potentialy gets killed.
I don't think the protesters were acting in a manner that warrants a riot police response. Is an assembly of a large amount of upset people really all it takes to warrant riot police and military vehicles? There's no emergency or imminent threat to public safety.
For those who are claiming that the protesters are trespassing on private property, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe
has claimed that they own the land under the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which supersedes any state or federal government authority. Seeing as the US and state governments have a long history of violating treaties with Native American nations and generally fucking them over, it wouldn't surprise me that this is another one of those cases. Also somewhat related, the company building the pipeline is using eminent domain to seize a lot of the land that they want for the pipeline,
including in my home state of Iowa which the pipeline runs through.
jarz Wrote:'peaceful' assembly doesn't warrant walking in roadways as the video showed.
I don't see how it isn't peaceful assembly. Walking on the road isn't considered 'violent' protest.
jarz Wrote:The police has the equipment available, why can't they use it? Should they sit in the parking lot?
The justification for acquiring these kinds of military vehicles in the first place is that they're needed for situations like active shooter or hostage situations. Once they're in the possession of departments, it's ok that the argument shifts to 'why not'?
Toxic Wrote:I did see a different video of the same pipeline with these peaceful protesters trespassing and attacking both workers and site security with improvised weapons.
I think I might know the video you're talking about. In said video the workers started bulldozing the land which is claimed to be a sacred Native American burial site. Once the protesters crossed the fence and marched on, site security sicced dogs on them. In response some protesters fashioned makeshift weapons to defend themselves from being attacked by said dogs.
Here is the video in question, the part I mentioned starts at about 1:52:
One thing that should be noted is that, following the release of this video, the state of North Dakota tried to
charge the journalist in the video, Amy Goodman, with participating in a riot because her reporting "was from the position of justifying the protest actions". The charge was later thrown out by a judge. Now the FAA
has restricted aircraft from the airspace near the construction site for unspecified reasons, which would prevent news helicopters from viewing the area from above. It seems that authorities are trying to restrict media access to clamp down on the flow of information and deflect attention, which is troubling.
