Former Democratic U.S. House Candidate Chase Iron Eyes Arrested in Renewed #NoDAPL “Direct Action”
TOM STROMME/Tribune Chase Iron Eyes speaks at his booth at the 2016 North Dakota Democratic-NPL state convention where he is seeking the party's nomination for Congress. The convention continues Saturday in Bismarck.
As I wrote earlier, despite a cooperative spirit between state and tribal officials in recent weeks, a contingent of “rogue” protesters today attempted to establish an illegal camp on privately owned land near the Dakota Access Construction site.
The protesters set up teepees and, per the activists talking in the video below, were saying they were going to “resist arrest.”
As of right now I can confirm that there has been one arrest. Chase Iron Eyes, who the North Dakota Democrats nominated as their candidate for the U.S. House last year, was taken into custody.
Lt. Tom Iverson of the North Dakota Highway Patrol confirmed the arrest to me, but didn’t provide me any further details.
Iverson did tell me that the illegal protest camp has been cleared.
Iron Eyes previously pleaded guilty to four Class C Felonies in 2003 related to burglary, preventing arrest, theft of property, and criminal mischief.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has asked protesters to leave the area and continue the fight against the pipeline in the courts and other venues, but Iron Eyes and others have ignored those calls.
As protest camps have been emptied and cleaned up in recent days law enforcement had been taking down barriers on the Backwater Bridge, a major point of contention for the tribe. But with renewed unlawful protest activities today this Bismarck Tribune report says Morton County is putting the barricades back up.
https://www.facebook.com/lorna.knowshisgun/videos/10212085237916930/
