“A Shameful Moment for This Country”

Report Back on Militarized Police Raid of DAPL Resistance Camp


We go to Standing Rock, North Dakota, for an update on how hundreds of police with military equipment raided a resistance camp Thursday that was established by Native American water protectors in the path of the proposed $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. More than 100 officers in riot gear with automatic rifles lined up across a highway, flanked by multiple MRAPs, an LRAD sound cannon, Humvees driven by National Guardsmen, an armored police truck and a bulldozer. Water protectors say police deployed tear gas, mace, pepper spray and flash-bang grenades and bean bag rounds against the Indigenous peoples and shot rubber bullets at their horses. “We learned a lot about the relationship of North Dakota to Native people,” says Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth. “I was standing next to a group of teenagers that were maced in the face. … I was shot in the face by a bean bag round.”

Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Read other articles by Democracy Now!, or visit Democracy Now!'s website.