Central ND News

On this day in 2016, 27 people were arrested for illegal activities during two separate protests over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

According to a press release from the Morton County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a dispatch call at 7 a.m. on Oct. 10, 2016, to a report of two protesters who had locked themselves to DAPL equipment southwest of St. Anthony.

Law enforcement explained that two protesters utilized the “sleeping dragon” method to lock themselves to the equipment on private property, and were subsequently arrested and charged with felony charges of reckless endangerment and misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct, inciting a riot, and criminal trespass; one additional protester was also arrested for criminal trespass.

After the arrest, the small group disbanded and left the area.

About two hours later, law enforcement received an alert about a large convoy of around 100 vehicles that were assembling about two miles south of St. Anthony on Highway 6. Law enforcement then closed Highway 6 between County Road 138A and Highway 21, due to the large group of rioters.

In following law enforcement protocol, St. Anthony and Flasher schools were notified around 8:30 a.m., and they instituted lockdown procedures. Around 10 a.m., police officials told the crowd numerous times to leave the area. After the crowd refused to leave, 24 individuals were arrested and charged with a variety of offenses, including inciting a riot, engaging in a riot, and criminal trespass.

Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney offered comments on the arrests.

“While some would like to say this was a protest, this was not a protest – this was a riot. When you have that many people engage in that kind of behavior, inciting others to break the law, cheering others on as they do break the law, refusing to leave when they are asked to leave, that’s not a protest...Today 27 arrests were made – not because we wanted that to happen, because those people on scene chose for that to happen,” Laney said.

“The other thing I want people to pay attention to is how many North Dakotans are in this bunch...if past behavior is predicting future performance here, you’re going to find very few. These are people with an ideology and an agenda that is not from here and they’re bringing it here. What started out as a North Dakota issue, with North Dakota people and the Standing Rock tribe, has excelled well past that.”

The arrests that day brought the to-date total to 123 since August 2016.

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests of 2016 and 2017 aimed to halt the construction of the reported $3.8 billion pipeline and “drew thousands of people to camp out” in Morton County, the Associated Press reported.

The protests resulted in 761 arrests, according to MPR News. Charges ranged from trespassing to more severe offenses. A significant number of those arrested were from out of state.

California resident and actress Shailene Woodley was arrested in October 2016. Other figures, including actors Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio, participated in the protests but were not arrested.

Certain days of the protests resulted in dozens of arrests, such as Feb. 1, 2017, when 76 people were arrested after Morton County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Rob Keller said a “rogue group of protesters” had trespassed on private property.

The State of North Dakota is currently suing the federal government to “recoup $38 million it claims it spent policing the protest camps,” Source NM reported.

Attorneys for North Dakota reportedly argued in court records that the protests “resulted from an illegal occupation on federal lands and led to ‘frequent outbreaks of illegal, dangerous, unsanitary, and life-threatening activity on federal, state and private property.’”

North Dakota Special Assistant Attorney General Paul Seby said in court that the aftermath of the protests “required a four-day cleanup of the camp and 600 bins to remove 9.8 million pounds of trash,” according to MPR News.

Former Morton County Commissioner Cody Schulz, who is now the director of the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department, said in court that, “beyond the drain on law enforcement, the protests caused a range of impacts on Morton County — everything from minor inconveniences like sluggish traffic to damage to private property,” Source NM reported.

Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of the pipeline, has filed a $300 million lawsuit in state court against the environmental activist organization Greenpeace for its role in the protests. The suit says Greenpeace “should be held responsible for trying to disrupt pipeline construction and damage the company’s reputation and finances,” the Associated Press reported.

That lawsuit, and an attempted settlement, led to the recent ouster of Greenpeace’s Executive Director Ebony Twilley Martin, said the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Greenpeace.

Willem van Rijn, the group’s COO until April 2024, told E&E News that “Twilley Martin ‘advocated a way in which the organization would settle for a minor amount of money so that we could fight another day,’” and that the “board vehemently disagreed.”

Greenpeace has launched a fundraising campaign to “raise awareness” of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed by Energy Transfer Partners in Morton County District Court is currently pending.