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Update: Courthouse News: Injured Standing Rock Protesters Press 8th Circuit to Revive the Suit
(CN) — Dakota Access Pipeline protesters seeking reinstatement of their case against law enforcement officers who gassed them, fired less-lethal munitions and sprayed them with firehoses during a freezing North Dakota November told an Eighth Circuit panel Tuesday afternoon that a federal judge improperly glossed over factual disputes in granting summary judgment to the officers.
“Water protectors” Vanessa Dundon, David Demo, Guy Dullknife, Frank Finan, Mariah Bruce and Crystal Wilson were at a prayer camp established by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe just south of the Backwater Bridge, near a construction site for the Dakota Access Pipeline, in late November 2016. All six suffered injuries during a confrontation between police and protesters on the night of Nov. 20, when police made headlines by spraying water at the protesters in sub-freezing temperatures alongside stinger grenades, beanbag rounds, rubber bullets and tear gas."Read CN article:
Standing Rock: Federal Appeals Court Hears Case of Law Enforcement Brutality at Backwater Bridge
By Brenda NorrellCopyright Censored News
Sept. 19, 2023
ST LOUIS -- A federal appeals court heard arguments in the class action lawsuit filed for excessive force at Backwater Bridge at Standing Rock. The issues argued included whether water protectors were free to leave, whether law enforcement feared for their lives, and whether the use of munitions, including bean bags filled with shot, and water sprayed on water protectors in temperatures below freezing, was justified or legal.
Rachel Lederman, lead counsel for water protectors, said law enforcement fired indiscriminately in a "free for all" grabbing whatever weapons they could that night.
Lederman pointed out that the National Congress of American Indians described those at Standing Rock as "non-violent" and said they posed no dire threat.
Three hundred water protectors were injured on the night of November 20, 2016, at Backwater Bridge at Standing Rock. Twenty-six were seriously injured and taken by ambulance to nearby hospitals.
