Police tear gas and blast water cannons at North Dakota pipeline protesters

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier has blamed the protests on “violent actions” within the gathering of people opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline north of Bismarck, N.D.

Later Monday, tensions were eased as only a few dozen protesters remained on the disputed bridge, the Bismark Tribune reported.

Sophia Wilansky, 21, could lose her left arm after an explosion behind a blockade near the oil pipeline’s construction site ripped through her winter jacked. How did it happen?

Project developer Energy Transfer Partners and North Dakota regulators contend the pipeline is environmentally sound and will not disrupt Sioux sacred lands.

Ms Wilansky, who is from NY, travelled to North Dokota several weeks ago to join the mounting protests located close to the Standing Rock reservation. The Army Corps of Engineers declared last week they had respected all legal procedures required for permitting but acknowledged that they would need more consultations with Native American tribes.

At least one person was arrested.

Medics in the Upper Midwest are battling to save the arm of a demonstrator who was injured at a protest against a pipeline where police used water cannons to disperse crowds in sub-zero temperatures. Bond told KOLR10 News in an interview Monday he intends to be a peaceful voice as he plans to join the protest camps on Wednesday. “It was a horrific scene”.

The sheriff’s department said in a statement around 1 a.m. Monday that approximately 100 to 200 protesters were on the bridge or in the vicinity.

Wayne Wilansky, the injured’s father, traveled to Minneapolis to be with his daughter during her surgeries. Suddenly, it detonated, according to witnesses.

Sophia Wilansky, a 2016 graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, has already undergone multiple surgeries after the grenade struck her arm sometime during the night. “She’s devastated. She looks at her arm and she cries”.

In Minneapolis today, Wayne Wilansky said his daughter maintains police threw a grenade at her during a confrontation at the bridge Sunday night.

Through her father, Wilansky said she hopes to keep the focus on the indigenous people and the environment.

“Even though she’s lying there with her arm pretty much blown off, she’s focused on the fact that it’s not about her, it’s about what we’re doing to our country, what we’re doing to our native peoples, what we’re doing to our environment”, Wayne Wilansky said.

Nebraska State Patrol troopers assisting officers in North Dakota will return to Nebraska by Thanksgiving as scheduled.

The group flanked law enforcement and attempted to move in on the west, Herr said. “All the facts will be out there”.

They found one pound propane cylinders, including one that appeared to be intentionally punctured and Molotov cocktails near where the blast occurred.

A man helping organize protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline says about 180 protesters were injured in the latest skirmish with police in North Dakota.

John DeCarlo, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven in CT, said the state needs to take a more active stance or the situation could deteriorate.