#NoDAPL Arrests Update: 451 Total, Just 21 Percent From the Dakotas

The National Sheriff’s Association, one of the groups helping coordinate assistance for North Dakota law enforcement from other states, has also been tracking the people arrested at the #NoDAPL protests.

Their latest map shows a total of 451 people arrested at the protests, of which just 21 percent are from North and South Dakota which encompass the Standing Rock Indian Reservation (click for a larger view):

Also according to the NSA (the aforementioned law enforcement group, not the federal agency reading your emails):

There have been 451 protesters arrested in connection with anti-pipeline riots and protests. Just 8% of those protesters are from North Dakota, while the other 416 are from 45 other states stretching from Vermont to Florida to California.

143 of the arrested protesters have a total of 764 previous citations and charges for illegal activity.
19 protesters have a history of violence including domestic violence and child abuse.
23 arrested protesters have a history of theft, robbery, or burglary.
18 protesters have a history of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
26 protesters have been previously cited or arrested for drug possession.

The Sheriff’s Association uses the term “professional protesters” to describe these folks, and before you suggest that’s unfair, consider this tweet from a Bismarck Tribune reporter covering the #NoDAPL movements latest antics in Bismarck today. As a group of the protesters moved from the state capitol to the federal courthouse a few blocks away the organizers were saying something kind of interesting:

One woman just called out for “arrestables” to come toward the front.

— Caroline Grueskin (@cgrueskin) November 14, 2016

There's 2 distinct lines here — allies and arrestables at the front, everyone else to the back

— Caroline Grueskin (@cgrueskin) November 14, 2016

“Arrestables.”

As in people protest organizers intend to be arrested. No doubt so the organizers can then turn around and claim to often credulous news reporters that the cops are a bunch of bullying fascists trying to crush dissent against the pipeline and not merely law enforcers forced to arrest people who do illegal things like block public roads.

This is a tactic, I believe, intended to run up costs for the State of North Dakota. The protesters aim to overwhelm law enforcement, and flood our courts, as a way of making their point.

A reader sent me this photo from across the street from the protesters, with the federal court house visible on the left: