Pipeline protesters clash with police

HUNDREDS of people protesting against a North Dakota oil pipeline project clashed yesterday with police, who fired teargas, rubber bullets and a water cannon, soaking the crowd in subfreezing temperatures.

Protest organisers said 167 people were hurt, including three Native American tribal elders, and that seven people had been admitted to hospital with severe head injuries.

“The police . . . targeted the heads and legs of water protectors,” read a post from the head medic of the Oceti Sakowin Camp, referring to people protesting against the contentious project, which is opposed by Native Americans who say it is being built on ancestral lands.

The Morton County Sheriff’s Department put the number of protesters at 400, saying they were engaged in a riot and had started a dozen fires.

The Bismarck Tribune quoted the sheriff’s department as saying protesters threw rocks and logs at officers, and one officer was struck in the head. One person was arrested, the report said.

“We have seen at least four gunshot wounds, three of them I know to the face and head, rubber bullets,” medic Leland Brenholt said in a video posted on social media.

He said that police were also using water, pepper spray and teargas on protesters.

“Right now, we are trying to keep people warm. We’re trying to get them decontaminated, and treating all kinds of different wounds,” he said.

Last week, the US government put a halt to the pipeline construction, saying more analysis was needed.

Pipeline operators Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners struck back, asking a court to stop regulators from further delaying the project, which is to be built under the Missouri River and man-made Lake Oahe in North Dakota.

The waterways are the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s drinking water source, and it has objected to building the 1 886km pipeline underneath the river and lake, for fear that it might leak.

They want the route altered away from lands near its reservation.