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Water Cannons Used in Sub-Freezing Temperatures at Standing Rock; No Reports from Corporate Media

Accepted submission by -- OriginalOwner_ http://tinyurl.com/OriginalOwner at 2016-11-22 02:57:19
News

from the breaking-news-you-say? dept.

Weapons Used Once Again Against Unarmed Water Protectors

Rubber-coated steel bullets, concussion grenades, CS gas, and water cannons used in 26°F (-3°C) temperatures

Indian Country Today reports [indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com]

"We have seen four gunshot wounds, three of them to the face and head", said Leland Brenholt, a volunteer medic.

[...]400 protesters, or "water protectors", attempted to dismantle a police-enforced barricade on State Highway 1806 around 6 p.m. [on November 21].

[...]"Water protectors are done with the military-style barricades. We are done with the floodlights and the armored military trucks. We are are done with it!" declared organizer, Dallas Goldtooth in a mid-evening Facebook post [facebook.com].

Their action was met with the same militarized response that the Morton County Sheriff's Department has demonstrated on protesters for weeks: the use of armored trucks, less-than-lethal ammunition, tear-gas, mace, and on this below-freezing night, water cannons.

[...]Pictures [twitter.com] and videos [twitter.com] circulating among water protectors showed an armored truck, not fire trucks, dispersing a powerful stream of water into the crowd.

[...]Reports from a coalition of advocacy groups near Standing Rock report hundreds of water protectors were receiving treatment for contamination by tear gas, hypothermia, and blunt traumas as a result of rubber[-coated steel] bullets. One person, an elder, was reportedly revived after suffering cardiac arrest, organizers said.

"As medical professionals, we are concerned for the real risk of loss of life due to severe hypothermia under these conditions," read a statement [sacredstonecamp.org] from the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council.

[...]More than six hours into the standoff, legacy media was seemingly transfixed on one of two topics, neither of them the pipeline battle. The obvious distraction: the Donald Trump news-cycle. The other: celebrities. [...] ABC [...] was broadcasting the 2016 American Music Awards.


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