Prayer service set for Standing Rock resistance on Saturday

The September decision by the Obama administration to delay final approval for the Dakota Access Pipeline was meant to give federal officials more time to consult with Native American tribes that have faced dispossession from lands for decades.

A spokeswoman for Hennepin County Medical Center says 21-year-old Sophia Wilansky has been upgraded from serious to satisfactory condition. The Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council reported 300 injuries on Sunday from the “direct result of excessive force by police”. The tribe fears a section of the pipeline slated to go under the Missouri River near their reservation could leak, threatening their water source.

It’s a continuation of the state of North Dakota and the Morton County sheriff’s department and the North Dakota state patrol being in collusion with the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Protests against the pipeline have intensified in recent weeks, with total arrests since August rising to more than 520.

Jon Don Ilone Reed, an Army veteran and member of South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, poses for a photo at an oil pipeline protest near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in southern North Dakota on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016.

“As protesters took to the bridge, police deployed tear gas and sponge bullets”.

AIM reported that Wilansky is a protest veteran, having also been active in campaigns to stop NY state and Vermont oil and gas pipelines.

The money raised by these events will help the organization raise awareness about what is happening in Standing Rock and hire civil rights defense for those who have been detained and harassed peacefully and prayerfully opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. But the violence continues, and there are now reports that chemical agents are being used on protesters by aircraft that are flying at night, under cover of darkness.

According to USA Today, Morton County Sheriff’s Office’s Maxine Herr said an officer was injured and protesters were throwing objects at police, including burning logs and propane tanks that were rigged “to explode”.

Hernandez called the Standing Rock protests “one battle amongst many where indigenous folks have had enough of colonialism”.

Keller defended police crowd control methods. “If we’re going to be heroes, if we’re really going to be those veterans that this country praises, well, then we need to do the things that we actually said we’re going to do when we took the oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic”.

Protesters claimed they were attacked with concussion grenades, but law enforcement officials denied using the devices during Monday’s clash.

“This is not Afghanistan”.

Wayne Wilansky denounced the law enforcement tactics, saying “this is not Afghanistan, this is not Iraq”. We at CODEPINK, under the initiative of activist/entrepreneur Judy Wicks, are helping to cook a Thanksgiving meal for 2,000 people and bringing donations to fortify the encampments for the bitter cold winter ahead.

The Mandan police chief, Jason Ziegler, said in a press conference on Monday that law enforcement agencies “can use whatever force necessary to maintain peace”. There are no words to describe the pain of watching my daughter cry and say she was sorry for the pain she caused me and my wife.

Police say an explosion did occur the night Sophia Wilansky was injured. Police say while investigating the scene, they uncovered materials commonly used to make Molotov cocktails. But police can not confirm that Wilansky was involved.

Protesters stood outside the William L. Guy Federal Building and the First Presbyterian Church.

Armed with a 4×5 large-format camera and audio equipment, New York City-based photographer Chris Callaway has documented in intimate portraits and audio interviews the stories of these protesters.