- EPA presses MPCA to protect wild rice
- LaDonna Brave Bull Allard walks on
- PUC to hear Honor the Earth’s petition to investigate Enbridge’s pipeline data
- Dakota ‘Village of Well Being’ still hoping to get building code waiver
- Law enforcement bill to Enbridge for Line 3 protection reaches $500,000
- Gov. Walz gets low to failing grades on protecting our climate
This is more than an accident
Hundreds of people attended a vigil in Brooklyn Center Monday night near the site where a police officer shot and killed Daunte Wright. (Crowd video here.) It ended by 7 p.m., the start of a curfew imposed by Gov. Tim Walz.
Many residents ignored the curfew and clashed with police during the evening.
In a media conference today, Brooklyn Center officials spoke to the “tragic” events and the community’s grief, but failed to speak to the community’s justifiable anger.
Brooklyn Park Police Chief Tim Gannon called the shooting “an accident.” The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension would do the investigation, he said.
Regardless of who’s doing the investigating, Gannon needs to acknowledge this is more than an accident. The officer’s actions were, at a minimum, reckless and negligent.
Continue readingVigil tonight for unarmed black man shot and killed by Brooklyn Center police during traffic stop
The family of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old unarmed black man who was shot and killed by police in Brooklyn Center last night, has called for a peaceful celebration of life tonight at 6:00 p.m. at 63rd Avenue North and Kathrene Drive, the site of the shooting. LED candles have been requested. (Previous version said 7 p.m. but because of potential curfew it was moved up an hour.)
At a news conference today, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said the officer “apparently meant to fire a Taser but instead made an ‘accidental discharge’ from her gun,” the Washington Post reported.
Continue readingAnother case of white supremacy policing, Maryland repeals ‘Police Bill of Rights,’ and a look at ‘excited delirium’
As the Derek Chauvin trial begins its third week, as Maryland’s legislature passes a law to address police abuses, the latest example of excessive force by police against a person of color has emerged in a lawsuit filed against cops in Windsor, Va.
On Dec. 5, police officers pulled over U.S. Army officer Caron Nazario, drawing their guns and shouting at him to get out of his car, ABC News reported.
Nazario, who is black and Latino, tells them he’s afraid to get out of his car.
The officer responds angrily: “You should be.”
Continue readingDecision delayed (again) on DAPL shut down; Appeals Court strikes down key ICWA provision, and more
In this blog:
- Judge, Army Corps, play Kick-the-Can-Down-the-Road on DAPL shut down
- U.S. Court of Appeals weakens Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)
- ND House passes law mandating Native American history as a part of K-12 education
- CNN Op/Ed by Rep. Ilhan Omar, Tara Houska: The pipeline that President Biden needs to stop
- Water protectors blockade Enbridge’s Bemidji office demanding #StopLine3
- Michigan tribal leaders denounce Enbridge for ‘manipulative’ video about Indigenous peacemaking
- Enbridge and Frankenstein
Fond du Lac Band court victory helps all Minnesotans concerned with clean water
The PolyMet ruling forces EPA, MPCA to do their jobs
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa won a big court victory in February in its ongoing effort to stop multinational corporate giant Glencore from building the PolyMet copper mine upstream from its reservation.
The Band has significant and legitimate concerns that the PolyMet mine would worsen an already bad problem of mercury-contaminated fish and water for its community. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) knew of the problem and was supposed to notify Fond du Lac so it could participate in the permitting process.
The court ruled the EPA failed to follow the law. As a result, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended PolyMet’s permit to fill or dredge a large area of wetlands for its mine. “It also means that five major permits for the $1 billion PolyMet project are now stayed or under review,” the Star Tribune wrote.
“The move spotlights the Band’s groundbreaking effort to assert Indigenous water quality standards as a ‘downstream state’ under the Clean Water Act,” it said.
The court ruling also spotlights lax environmental oversight by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and the EPA.
Continue readingNews and Events: A guide to recognizing cultural appropriation, reparations updates, and more
In this blog:
- Native Governance Center: Guide to cultural appropriation and wellness
- Webinar: “Boarding School Healing: Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit,” March 31
- Watch the Line monitor training Saturday
- One more in a long list of reasons to worry about Enbridge
- Jesuits pledge $100 Million to atone for slave labor and sales
- Webinar: Modern Racial Categories, American slave societies, and the integration of African religious practices into Christianity
- Lessons From Lynchings: There’s a through-line from a noose on the neck to a knee on the neck
We are all witnesses
I have been deeply moved listening to the Derek Chauvin trial, hearing eye witnesses describe their experiences of watching George Floyd’s murder and trying desperately to intervene. Perhaps you could feel yourself transported to the intersection, too.
I watch in awe as the people on the sidewalk, young and old, express their outrage, doing everything they could to plead, cajole, and shame the officers to save Floyd’s life.
Then I hear them in court, distraught that they didn’t do more. It’s heartbreaking, especially given the incredible courage they showed.
And somewhere in that reflection, it strikes me that I am a witness everyday. There’s racism all around me. And like those who stood on the sidewalk, I have the opportunity to act.
Continue readingEnbridge tacitly admits there’s no need for Line 3, and other news
In this blog:
- The PUC’s shoddy analysis could sway the court to reject Line 3
- Pipeline companies abandoning lines in the ground, leaving mess
- Oil pipeline trespassing on reservation land being forced to pay up
Enbridge disagrees with itself on state’s pipeline safety role
For more than six decades, Enbridge’s dual Line 5 pipelines have run four miles along the bottom of the Great Lakes, exposed to the elements. The pipelines carry tars sands crude and natural gas liquids across the Straits of Mackinac, the narrow waterway connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
The pipelines are moving oil “near delicate wetlands and through fish spawning habitats where swift currents pull water between the Great Lakes,” The Narwhal says. Michigan scientists, conservationists and tribes have been “warning that Enbridge’s Line 5 was a disaster waiting to happen,” the article said.
For more than five decades, the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline has operated along a 282-mile corridor across northern Minnesota. It passes through sensitive wetlands and wild rice waters, crossing rivers and streams with some of the state’s cleanest waters.
Line 3 is in such bad shape, it can only operate at half capacity. State regulators worry it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
When it comes to addressing Minnesota’s aging Line 3 and Michigan’s aging Line 5, Enbridge offers different interpretations about the state’s role in pipeline safety.
Continue reading