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Archives for November 2016

November 5, 2016 By Lindsey Tarr 1 Comment

195, Morton County Numbering System

This is the way it happened.

We woke at 4:30AM ready to pray the sun up.  It was early afternoon when they came.  I was in a group of about 50 who sat down together, in a circle, in the path of the pipeline to protect the water.

We had no weapons. We prayed all day without stopping for food, water, or even in hearing screams come from the road behind us as officers leveraged any number of the tactical weapons they had come with: batons, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and sound cannons.  At the sound of the chaos behind us on Hwy 1806 we leaned into each other tighter.  The chaos behind us was never intended; folks had gathered in ceremony their to protect the water and to protect us.  However some instigators within our own crowd, even some sold out natives, antagonized our young men and waved in the officers. Chaos. Fire, gas, rubber bullets, horses killed.

At a certain point, the officers reached us despite the efforts of our own protecters standing ground around us;  they looked at the officers in their eyes and spoke to them – about the fact that they need water too, their wives and daughters need water too.

Rather than sitting down to pray with us, they pushed forward… they pushed our protectors and media more than a mile away to the point that we sat in prayer, surrounded by them and alone; we were weaponless, yet surrounded by bearcats, armored personnel carriers and riot police.  It was all very eery feeling until the buffalo came over the hill, running toward us! Pilamaya Wakan Tanka.  Unfortunately, quite quickly, a helicopter swooped in front of them, scaring them into a tangential direction.

The officers picked us off one-by-one starting with the stronger looking males. Warriors; they held strong and were treated horrible for it – hog tied to the point of purple hands.

An officer bent over to my ear and said, ” You’re being arrested for trespassing; if you resist you’ll be charged with a second misdemeanor for resisting arrest.”

I stood and walked with him across 1806 to the embankment.  We waited there in our zip-tie cuffs as the chilly North Dakota, October sun set.  Just behind us, as our elders sat facing the burial grounds – DAPL couldn’t resist immediate continued construction/destruction.  Their tinted-window, 4-by-4’s lined the horizon, less than 50 meters away and they watched with smiles, IPhones pointing at us as their groms bulldozed the land in front of us and as they set night lights across 1806; they pointed and talked and smiled toward us and at the land across the road that we sat protecting all day, all fall, all summer; they pointed toward the tents and teepees and river beyond, alluding to their immediate plans for progression upon our departure to jail.

20161027_180920_003

DAPL employees

 

https://youtu.be/IaA8V7sbnmA

https://youtu.be/f-AYDtibV44

https://youtu.be/jeJPZu13vrw

There on the embankment we waited for more than an hour to receive the numbers, mine 195, that have so aptly been reminisced to atrocious times of the past. These numbers were written on a plastic bag that our personal property was taken and stored away in to. We boarded the bus at dusk.

Being the last group to arrive at Morton County Jail it was only a short time that we waited before continuing our in-processing – stripped down to one layer.  Important to note that in being stripped down to one layer, our clothes were stored away into a second plastic bag, a larger one in which the initial smaller, numbered bag with our personal property (for me, a bag with my cell phone and a disposable camera) was placed; it was then tied – Later, the bag of personal items would turn up “missing”. It somehow untied the larger bag it was in and removed itself to become missing.

Upon getting off of the bus I noticed the men had been placed into dog runs; the majority were in two and a third contained one person, a leader of the day; intimidation.

It was clear to me that the officers were frazzled at attempting to arrest all of us.

I sat in the dog run for merely a few minutes, ignorant to the hours of waiting and human rights violations that had occurred here for the many who had arrived before us.

I was called onto a white bus that took us to Cass County Jail.  We boarded, wearing but one layer, and froze for the 4-hour drive to Fargo. Upon arriving, about 1 or 2AM, the captain at Cass gave us a sack lunch and Gatorade, the first food and drink we had received and certainly the first we had eaten since beginning our day in protection around noon.  Eating with zip-tie cuffs, Fu@#%@#$ ridiculous – physically, and of course fundamentally, based on the conditions of our arrest.

It became clear almost immediately that the numbered bags that arrived with us didn’t match those written on our arms. We were in-processed… searched again, exposed to a PREA video for our safety, searched again – Strip Searched (!) – Yes! Had to undress in front of someone one, bend-over-and-cough searched ! Changed into oranges then, finally, sleep; or whatever takes place on a concrete bench with a 1-inch mat. 5AM by now. The gentleman’s bus came in after ours; I believe their day didn’t end until the sun had come up again.

Waited. Arraignment came – three blanket charges for all of us: misdemeanors for trespassing, inciting riot and a felony for conspiring to do harm with fire.

My actions throughout the day consisted of praying, weaponless.  I’ve never prayed so much in my life.

Some wonderful person came along with something like to $200,000 to cover all of our bails ($1500), as well as the cost of releasing all of our cars from impound (about $700).

That missing bag, containing my cell phone and a disposable camera was returned a few days after being released. It was missing the camera which the state defense has seized and is creating a warrant for, to keep the photos as evidence.  I’m one of the few lucky ones; others have damaged vehicles (mine was fine), destroyed teepees and tents (mine was the only one in perfect condition), broken chanupas and missing sacred items.

It’s as one of our legal representatives, who has spent a career practicing law in New York state, recently said to me, “… I’ve seen things in five days that I’ve never seen in my entire career.”

Upon our release we’ve been interviewing with representatives from the UN, and members of larger media outlets such as the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.  I’ll send along these links as I get them.

The story is finally getting out, what has taken so long?

Obama said he’ll see how protests over the next few weeks plays out, what is taking so long?

 

Filed Under: Blog, Standing Rock

November 4, 2016 By Lindsey Tarr Leave a Comment

Letter From Cass County Jail

For those of you who know me… jail?! Felony?!  I myself had not planned on engaging in the activities of a felon when embarking on the journey to observe and support the efforts of those gathered in opposition of the “black snake”.   From day one until now, I have yet to act a felon!

In fact, from the first protector demonstration I observed in Palm Springs, California, up to now, I continue to find inspiration in the protectors as they are – prayerful and fearless mothers, grandmothers, women and children, and men who have chosen to abstain from alcohol, drugs, and violence.

The young men have had the most difficult time rejecting the inflammatory, aggressive and instigative actions of law enforcement/hired Blackwater-esque securit, understandably so. I’ve seen them misstep; the whole world is watching and has seen them misstep.  And yet, I’ve seen those same young men return to camp after tear gas, rubber bullets and jail with a sorrowful acknowledgement and humility over those missteps and their return to ceremonial discipline and respect toward their elders.

It is as clear to me in hindsight as it was in the moment – jail is nothingness, a great waste of humanity and resources.  I’m pleased to have read in a local printing that even Colby Braun, Warden of the North Dakota State Penitentiary, agrees that the back-end investment of corrections is reactionary, misplaced; it should all be invested on the front-end of society in social and cultural programs.

On the bright side, while imprisoned, I did have time to read HG Wells’ War of the Worlds.  So timely.  The book in its entirety illustrates the human races absolute helplessness against Martians that have come to Earth with clear intentions to take it as their own. Absolute devastation, only one Martian defeated by accident… a pitiful, hopeless fight.  Finally, and in a matter of ten concluding pages, upon the main characters acceptance of his fate, the Martians die – victims of an unseen force; they succumb to bacteria. They were absolutely  defenseless to this invisible thing that humans have spent centuries building immunity to.

How explicit and relevant our own present day David vs. Goliath saga.  The centuries old Lakota Way exists quiet, strong, and unbending. DAPL, Energy Transfer Partners, Enbridge, cannot win.  Everything that is within their nature to do takes them closer and closer to their own destruction. A few clear examples that their sole interest is in their own profit:

  • Pipeline route plan first called for crossing north of Bismarck
  • Pipeline Company Desecrates Graves On Sioux Sacred Land
  • Dakota Access Pipeline Company Attacks Native American Protesters with Dogs and Pepper Spray
  • Opposition arrests journalists, elected officials, clergy and Lindsey!
  • DAPL continues construction despite executive order from Army Corps of Engineers and Departments of Justice and Interior to halt construction within a 20 mile radius of Missouri River cross point.
  • Shooting, hurting, destroying anyone and anything in the way.

Mni Wiconi!

smartselectimage_2016-11-04-00-41-30

Filed Under: Blog, Standing Rock

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