Hubbard Co. Sheriff abused his power and won’t face consequences

Law enforcement line at Namewag in Hubbard County, July 28, 2021. Photo: The Giniw Collective.

Across the country, law enforcement’s credibility is under scrutiny. To regain it, it’s essential that it’s impartial in deed and in public perception.

The state and law enforcement did themselves damage in how they responded to water protectors resisting the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in 2020-2021. The state approved a plan allowing Enbridge to fund an escrow account to reimburse law enforcement agencies for any Line 3-related costs. Those law enforcement agencies collectively received $8.5 million.

The Hubbard County Sheriff’s Office received nearly half a million dollars from the Enbridge escrow account. It also abused its power to intimidate those at Namewag, a camp set up by Giniw, an Indigenous women-led environmental protection group. At Namewag, they practiced traditional Anishinaabe ways and also actively opposed Line 3.

On June 28, 2021 the Hubbard County Sheriff’s Office organized a shock-and-awe law enforcement response to Namewag … because it didn’t have an easement to drive a short stretch of county-owned land, the camp’s only access.

Let that soak in. Look at all the deputies in the photo above, and ask: Does this make sense over an easement infraction?

Decision 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

Line 3: Don’t be distracted from the true danger

Screen grab of Unicorn Riot’s feed showing part of Friday’s protest.

Friday’s bomb scare in Carlton County will be used by some to make water protectors seem dangerous, shifting attention away from real dangers posed by the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

Water protectors were demonstrating against Line 3 in Carlton County Friday. As the event was happening, the county received a 9-1-1 call reporting a “suspicious device,” the Sheriff’s Office said. A news story called it “a suspicious package thrown into a pipeline construction area.”

The county’s response was quick and perhaps excessive. It called in the bomb squad. Law enforcement evacuated 40 nearby residences within a half-mile radius of the device. Carlton County Sheriff Kelly Lake called in regional and federal law enforcement. She’s calling for maximum charges and penalties.

There was no bomb. Still, placing a “replica device” that causes fear and panic is a crime.

The incident occurred near Camp Migizi, an Indigenous-led frontline resistance camp, but the protests that day were several miles away from where the incident occurred.

There’s been no information released that ties the incident to Camp Migizi or the protest. There have been no arrests. Yet without evidence, Enbridge and others are blaming water protectors.

In Bizarro World, Water Protectors Are Scary, Climate Change Is Not

Photo: Ginew Collective Facebook Page

This morning, one person was arrested at Enbridge’s headquarters in Superior, Wisc., an action timed to protest Enbridge’s annual shareholder meeting in Calgary where the company no doubt was praising its proposed new Line 3 project. The water protector was suspended from a tripod and hung there until the local Fire Department came and brought him down.

It was part of an ongoing protest against the Line 3 tar sands crude oil pipeline. It would cross 340 miles of northern Minnesota, ultimately connecting to a terminal in Superior. Line 3 would cross more than 200 Minnesota water bodies (including the Mississippi headwaters), threaten treaty rights and create as much climate damage as approving 50 new coal-fired energy plants.

Today’s action offers a small metaphor for how distorted the public thinking has become on these issues. Somehow Anthony Graham (Chumash), the person suspended from the tripod, was seen as the threat requiring a heavy police response instead of the much more dangerous pipeline.

“I stand in solidarity with my relatives up north and across Turtle Island,” Graham said in a media release from the Ginew Collective. “This is for the future. We have to be brave and fight. The oil industry is trying to grow when we know climate change is killing us. No more tar sands.”

Here’s an update on today’s actions and reflections on what is and is not a threat.

Religious Leaders Speak Out Against Enbridge Line 3 as Vote Looms this Month

Religious leaders gathered at Leif Erickson Park before crossing to the state Capitol to deliver their letter to Gov. Mark Dayton.

Curtiss DeYoung, CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches

Curtiss DeYoung, CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches, stood before a crowd of hundreds of people Monday afternoon at Leif Erickson Park to state the shared belief of many religious leaders that the state should reject the Enbridge Line 3 crude oil pipeline on moral grounds.

“Oftentimes the faith community historically has been on the wrong side, particularly as it relates to indigenous communities and sovereign nations who we are in relationship with.” DeYoung said. “Today we decided to be on the right side.”

The event was organized by the Minnesota Poor People’s Campaign, and Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light (MN IPL), and had the support of the Minnesota Council of Churches. (Star Tribune article here.)

The event, held just west of the state Capitol, included civil rights songs, a Jewish cantor, a brass band, chants, and a Buddhist moment of silence. It included indigenous prayer and truth-telling. It included a number of brief speeches from religious leaders from different traditions. But the event’s main goal was to Stop Line 3. To that end, the group delivered an interfaith letter opposing Line 3 to both Governor Dayton and the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Some 540 faith leaders signed.