Standing Rock Backwater Bridge, 2016
The night of November 20, 2016, temperatures hit the low twenties when Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier and police from seven states turned fire hoses on hundreds of unarmed people standing on a bridge in North Dakota. For hours. In freezing weather. Water protectors had come to stop a pipeline. Law enforcement came to break them.
Tear gas. Rubber bullets. Concussion grenades. More than 300 injured, 26 hospitalized. One woman, 21-year-old Sophia Wilansky, nearly lost her arm when a concussion grenade tore through muscle, bone, and artery.
The cops called it crowd control. It was state-sanctioned violence to protect corporate profits.
Environmental Racism, Plain and Simple
The Dakota Access Pipeline wasn't supposed to cross near Standing Rock. Energy Transfer Partners originally planned to run it near Bismarck, the state capital. But that route threatened Bismarck's water supply, so they moved it. Textbook environmental racism - reroute the risk from the white city to the reservation.
The new route crossed under Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux's primary water source. It would destroy burial sites and sacred land guaranteed under the Fort Laramie Treaties. The tribe's consultation with the Army Corps of Engineers? A bureaucratic checkbox before green-lighting a $3.8 billion project.
By April 2016, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard had established Sacred Stone Camp for spiritual resistance. By summer, nearly 300 tribes had sent people - the largest gathering of Native Americans in over a century. They called themselves water protectors. At its height, Oceti Sakowin camp housed thousands. Communal kitchens served meals by the thousand. People woke to prayer with the sun. When you thanked someone for food, they'd say, "Thank you for the work you're doing out there."
This wasn't some hippie protest. These were people who knew how to run chainsaws and build wood stoves, who kept horses and rigged solar panels, who believed freedom was in their DNA.
Dogs and Bulldozers
September 3, 2016. Energy Transfer Partners leapfrogged 15 miles of undisturbed land to bulldoze directly through sacred sites the tribe had identified in court filings the day before. A 150-foot-wide, two-mile-long path of destruction. Ancient cairns and stone prayer rings that could never be replaced.
When water protectors rushed to defend what was left, private security guards were waiting with attack dogs. Not guard dogs on leashes - attack dogs unleashed into crowds. Pit bulls, German shepherds, a Rottweiler, a cane corso. Six people were bitten, including a child and a pregnant woman. One dog had blood dripping from its mouth. Its handler kept pushing it back into the crowd. At least 30 people were pepper-sprayed.
Amy Goodman from Democracy Now filmed it all. Her footage went viral - 14 million views, rebroadcast by CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC. Five days later, North Dakota issued an arrest warrant for Goodman. Criminal trespass, later upgraded to inciting a riot.
Document what we're doing, and we'll come for you.
The security guards? Unlicensed to operate in North Dakota. No one was charged with assault.
Mercenaries and Surveillance
After the dog attacks, Energy Transfer Partners brought in TigerSwan - a private mercenary firm founded by a retired Delta Force commander. TigerSwan had offices in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia. They'd cut their teeth in the war on terror. Now they'd treat Indigenous water protectors like enemy combatants.
Leaked internal documents revealed the operation: drones, helicopters, aerial surveillance, social media monitoring, radio eavesdropping, infiltrators embedded in camps. They built watch lists, shared intelligence with law enforcement across five states, and called the movement "an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component." They compared water protectors to jihadists. Called their camps a "battlefield." Wrote about protesters "stockpiling signs" like weapons.
The FBI planted informants. After Sophia Wilansky's injury at Backwater Bridge, an FBI intelligence specialist circulated an email claiming protesters were making IEDs and that Wilansky had been "witnessed throwing an IED." Complete fabrication. No one was ever charged with possessing explosives. That lie became Morton County's official story.
TigerSwan operated without a license for months. Final penalty? $175,000 - pocket change for what Energy Transfer Partners was paying them.
Journalist Deia Schlosberg faced 45 years on felony charges for filming pipeline activists. Cody Hall, a lead organizer, was jailed and denied bail for misdemeanor trespass. Morton County prosecutor Ladd Erickson declared Amy Goodman wasn't a journalist. "She's a protester, basically."
The Committee to Protect Journalists called it "a transparent attempt to intimidate reporters." Goodman kept reporting anyway. A judge finally dismissed the charges - no evidence she'd participated in any riot. But the message had been sent.
Backwater Bridge
After police cleared the 1851 Treaty Camp in October, they blockaded Backwater Bridge with burned-out trucks and razor wire. The roadblock added 30 minutes to emergency response times for Standing Rock residents.
On November 20, water protectors tried to remove the barricade. By nightfall, police from seven states had assembled with armored vehicles, sound cannons, and fire trucks. Around 6 p.m., the assault began.
Tear gas, then rubber bullets, then the water cannons in 28-degree weather. Medics treated hypothermia all night. Physicians warned of "real risk of loss of life." Mandan Police Chief Jason Ziegler, asked if they'd use water cannons again: "It was effective, wasn't it?"
Sophia Wilansky was handing out water when the concussion grenade hit. It destroyed both arteries in her arm, shattered her radius, obliterated the muscle. Surgeons said 20 surgeries to maybe save it. Morton County claimed protesters were making bombs from propane tanks - posted it on Facebook, then deleted it when no one bought it.
By 4:30 a.m., it was over. Three elders hospitalized. One person went into cardiac arrest.
Kirchmeier held a press conference. Claimed they'd only used fire hoses to put out fires. "We don't have water cannons. I don't know where that term comes from."
The videos said otherwise.
Who Paid
Morton County: $4.4 million. North Dakota: $10 million. Total tab: $38 million across seven states. Nearly 1,300 officers from 75 agencies. All to suppress peaceful protest on tribal land.
Energy Transfer Partners' reimbursement? Zero. CEO Kelcy Warren had donated $103,000 to Trump's campaign, $6 million to Rick Perry's. Trump owned stock in the company.
Obama's Theater
President Obama could have stopped it. In September, federal agencies asked Energy Transfer Partners to "voluntarily pause" construction. The company refused and kept building.
December 2016 - after Trump won, after Obama had nothing left to lose - the Army Corps announced they wouldn't issue an easement until completing a full Environmental Impact Statement. Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II told water protectors to go home. "Nothing will happen this winter."
Four days after taking office, Trump signed an executive order allowing construction to resume. By April 2017, the pipeline was finished. By May, oil was flowing.
Obama's pause was theater. A way to run out the clock. The federal government never honored the treaties, never protected tribal sovereignty, never stopped a Fortune 500 company from bulldozing through burial grounds.
The End
February 2017. Governor Doug Burgum ordered the evacuation, citing flood risks. On February 22, about 200 officers moved in with riot gear and Humvees. Forty-six arrested. Water protectors burned the structures they'd built rather than let the state seize them.
Kirchmeier, triumphant: "I am very happy to say that we finally introduced rule of law in the Oceti camp."
Sophia Wilansky still can't use her hand. Still lives with chronic pain. Police pull her over at airports. Border agents detain her crossing into the U.S. The state marked her.
Kyle Kirchmeier retired in 2018. No investigation, no charges, pension intact.
Energy Transfer Partners got its pipeline - 750,000 barrels daily under Lake Oahe. It leaked three times within months. TigerSwan paid a $175,000 fine, then tried selling its "counterinsurgency playbook" to other oil companies.
The water protectors got hypothermia, rubber bullet wounds, a demolished arm, and arrest records that follow them forever.
The Message
Standing Rock wasn't new - just the latest in a 500-year pattern. Indigenous people defending their land and water, the state responding with violence to protect corporate profits. This time the world watched via live stream. Millions saw the water cannons, the dogs with blood on their mouths, the tear gas, the grenades.
Still the pipeline was built. Still no one was held accountable.
The message was clear: stand between capital and quarterly earnings, and the state comes for you with everything it has. Police from seven states. Mercenaries who call you terrorists. Prosecutors who charge journalists for doing their jobs. Surveillance that tracks your every move. A president who signs the paperwork as soon as he takes office.
That's how it works. That's what happens when no one stops them.
Sources
- The Intercept, "Leaked Documents Reveal Security Firm's Counterterrorism Tactics at Standing Rock," May 27, 2017
- The Intercept, "Standing Rock Documents Expose Inner Workings of 'Surveillance-Industrial Complex,'" June 3, 2017
- Democracy Now, "Standing Rock Special: Unlicensed #DAPL Guards Attacked Water Protectors with Dogs & Pepper Spray," November 24, 2016
- Democracy Now, "North Dakota v. Amy Goodman: Arrest Warrant Issued After Pipeline Coverage," September 12, 2016
- NPR, "Woman Injured At Standing Rock Protest Might Lose Arm, Family Says," November 23, 2016
- NPR, "Photos: The Final Hours of a Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Camp," February 23, 2017
- CBC News, "Standing Rock pipeline protesters repelled by force," November 21, 2016
- Forward, "She Still Can't Use Her Hand, A Year After A Grenade Injury At Standing Rock," November 18, 2017
- Committee to Protect Journalists statements, September-October 2016
- Morton County Sheriff's Department press conferences, November 2016
- Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council, Facebook statements, November 2016