Injured Standing Rock protesters press 8th Circuit to revive suit
Attorneys for protesters said the use of "less-lethal" munitions and firehoses in subfreezing temperatures was unnecessarily brutal despite a federal judge's ruling otherwise.
by Andy Monserud / September 19, 2023
"'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.
"The protesters brought suit against two North Dakota counties and their sheriffs, plus the city of Mandan and its police chief and up to a hundred John Does, shortly afterward but were shot down first by U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland and then by U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor, who took over the case after Hovland took senior status in 2019. Traynor, in his order granting summary judgment to the law enforcement officers, found that they had not committed a “seizure” of the protesters, that if they had they would be entitled to qualified immunity, and that the protesters’ First Amendment rights had not been infringed upon because they were trespassing on private property at the time.
"In her arguments before the Eighth Circuit Tuesday, attorney Rachel Lederman said Traynor had taken far too much of law enforcement’s side of the story at face value. 'This case is fundamentally about disputes of fact,' she said. 'The story defendants have put forth to justify their use of force is hotly disputed.'
"By cutting off the case before discovery could be conducted, Lederman said, Traynor had deprived the protesters of the chance for a jury to look at the evidence and resolve those disputes, particularly whether protesters posed enough of a threat to law enforcement to justify the use of force.
"'Defendants’ use of force caused serious injuries, such as broken bones and detached retina,' Lederman said. 'Only a single officer was even slightly injured, without requiring medical attention. There’s no evidence whatsoever that any of the named plaintiffs were threatening in any way.'
"The use of water hoses or cannons in particular raised concerns for Lederman and for attorney Michael Avery, of the National Police Accountability Project, who pointed out that the last time water cannons were used on protesters in the United States was in the apartheid south during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Officers, moreover, were “ensconced in a multi-layered barricade” of armored vehicles and concertina wire, and drastically outnumbered protesters at the time, Lederman argued. Furthermore, she said, construction had already been halted on the pipeline, neutralizing any threat protesters posed to that project."
Read more:
https://www.courthousenews.com/injured-standing-rock-protesters-press-8th-circuit-to-revive-suit/
#StandWithStandingRock #WaterProtectors #WaterIsLife #BackwaterBridge #ACAB #NoDAPL #StandingRock
DoomsdaysCW /
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"content": "Injured Standing Rock protesters press 8th Circuit to revive suit\n\nAttorneys for protesters said the use of \"less-lethal\" munitions and firehoses in subfreezing temperatures was unnecessarily brutal despite a federal judge's ruling otherwise.\n\nby Andy Monserud / September 19, 2023 \n\n\"'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.\n\n\"The protesters brought suit against two North Dakota counties and their sheriffs, plus the city of Mandan and its police chief and up to a hundred John Does, shortly afterward but were shot down first by U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland and then by U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor, who took over the case after Hovland took senior status in 2019. Traynor, in his order granting summary judgment to the law enforcement officers, found that they had not committed a “seizure” of the protesters, that if they had they would be entitled to qualified immunity, and that the protesters’ First Amendment rights had not been infringed upon because they were trespassing on private property at the time. \n\n\"In her arguments before the Eighth Circuit Tuesday, attorney Rachel Lederman said Traynor had taken far too much of law enforcement’s side of the story at face value. 'This case is fundamentally about disputes of fact,' she said. 'The story defendants have put forth to justify their use of force is hotly disputed.'\n\n\"By cutting off the case before discovery could be conducted, Lederman said, Traynor had deprived the protesters of the chance for a jury to look at the evidence and resolve those disputes, particularly whether protesters posed enough of a threat to law enforcement to justify the use of force. \n\n\"'Defendants’ use of force caused serious injuries, such as broken bones and detached retina,' Lederman said. 'Only a single officer was even slightly injured, without requiring medical attention. There’s no evidence whatsoever that any of the named plaintiffs were threatening in any way.'\n\n\"The use of water hoses or cannons in particular raised concerns for Lederman and for attorney Michael Avery, of the National Police Accountability Project, who pointed out that the last time water cannons were used on protesters in the United States was in the apartheid south during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Officers, moreover, were “ensconced in a multi-layered barricade” of armored vehicles and concertina wire, and drastically outnumbered protesters at the time, Lederman argued. Furthermore, she said, construction had already been halted on the pipeline, neutralizing any threat protesters posed to that project.\"\n\nRead more:\nhttps://www.courthousenews.com/injured-standing-rock-protesters-press-8th-circuit-to-revive-suit/ \n\n#StandWithStandingRock #WaterProtectors #WaterIsLife #BackwaterBridge #ACAB #NoDAPL #StandingRock",
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