Democracy Now! & Paul Gottinger / Reader Supported News & Prolific The Rapper – 2016-11-23 18:45:12
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/22/headlines/sophia_wilansky_critically_injured_during_police_attack_at_standing_rock
Police Blow Off Protester’s Arm as Media Ignores Standing Rock Protests
Police sprayed water cannons in freezing temperatures on protesters just north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota Nov. 20. In a Facebook post, law enforcement officials said they were involved in an “ongoing riot.” (Video courtesy of the Washington Post.)
Standing Rock Protector’s Arm
Blown Off By Police Grenade
The Young Turks
Sophia Wilansky Critically Injured
During Police Attack at Standing Rock
Democracy Now!
(November 22, 2016) — In Minneapolis, 21-year-old activist Sophia Wilansky is in critical condition and has been undergoing a series of surgeries, after reportedly being hit by a concussion grenade during the police attack against water protectors fighting the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota Sunday night.
Sunday’s attack at Standing Rock included police firing rubber bullets, mace canisters and water cannons in subfreezing temperatures. The Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council reports as many as 300 people were injured in the attack, with the injuries ranging from hypothermia to seizures, to loss of consciousness, to impaired vision as a result of being shot by a rubber bullet in the face. Water protectors say at least 26 people were evacuated from the area by ambulances and hospitalized.
Sophia Wilansky was evacuated and airlifted to a Minneapolis hospital. After hours of surgery, she posted on Facebook early this morning that her arm has not been amputated, but she will not know for another week whether amputation might be required.
The Morton County Sheriff’s Department is claiming the police are not responsible for her injury. Wilansky is from New York City and has organized against the construction of pipelines, including the AIM Spectra pipeline, in New York and across the East Coast. A prayer vigil is slated for 4 p.m. today outside the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
Police Are Shooting Down Aerial
Drones Over Standing Rock Demonstration
TheRealNews
#NoDAPL Sophia Wilansky AIM Press Conference
Shaun Sutton JamPony Productions
Police Are Deliberately Hurting Standing Rock
Protesters to Deter Others From Coming, Father of Injured Protester Claims
Paul Gottinger / Reader Supported News
(November 23, 2016) — A few hundred people gathered for a prayer vigil Tuesday evening outside the Minneapolis hospital where 21-year-old Sophia Wilansky was recovering from her injury at Standing Rock.
Witnesses say her arm was severely damaged when an officer pulled the pin on a stun grenade, and held it, then timed the throw so the grenade would explode exactly as it hit her. Witnesses say the police threw the grenade directly at Ms. Wilansky as she was backing away from the police. The grenade explosion caused bone, muscles and arteries to be blown from her arm, according to her father, Wayne Wilansky.
Ms. Wilansky was airlifted to a Minneapolis hospital, where she has undergone multiple surgeries to save her arm, though it’s not yet clear whether doctors will need to amputate. Wayne Wilansky said his daughter may need up to 20 surgeries, and if she keeps her arm it will have very minor functionality.
Mr. Wilansky says FBI agents, including a representative from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, kept his daughter prisoner inside her hospital room yesterday. The agents didn’t say why they were there for hours, but they eventually collected his daughter’s clothing.
Mr. Wilansky says he reached a verbal agreement with the FBI that they will give the Wilansky family access to the clothing to forensically test it themselves.
Police have denied responsibility for the injury to Ms. Wilansky, but her father said, “My daughter, who was completely conscious, says that they threw a grenade right at her.” Multiple witnesses also say Ms. Wilansky was injured due to a police grenade.
Mr. Wilansky continued, “I spoke to the surgeon myself directly. They took shrapnel out of her arm, so it’s pretty clear that it’s a grenade and they’re going to save that shrapnel. It’s going to stay in pathology until it’s needed. There’s proof. There’s evidence that our government is throwing grenades at our people who are there peacefully protesting.”
The police have changed the story of how Ms. Wilansky was hurt three times, according to her father. He also said police are intentionally hurting people in an attempt to deter new protesters from joining those already at Standing Rock.
“It’s unbelievable that governments are violently attacking citizens who are there peacefully in an attempt not to control the protest, not to protect property, but to potentially damage people, to hurt people on purpose so that other people won’t come.”
The authorities blocked medical help from reaching injured protesters, according to Mr. Wilansky.
“They are intentionally blocking ambulances from getting to the site. One of the things that hampered [my daughter’s] healing process was that it took her 6 to 8 hours to get to a hospital where they could do this kind of surgery. [Ambulances] don’t have any access to the roads. They stopped people from getting through.”
Despite her injury, Ms. Wilansky has asked that the attention be kept on the people of Standing Rock.
“Sophia said please go out there and say it’s not about me, it’s about the indigenous peoples. Even though she’s lying there with her arm pretty much blown off, she’s focused on the fact that it’s not about her. It’s about what we’re doing to our country and what we’re doing to the native peoples and what we’re doing to our environment,” her father said.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has been fighting to stop the 1,170 mile Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) for seven months.
DAPL is planned to go under the Missouri River just a half-mile north of the Standing Rock reservation. The pipeline would cross culturally significant areas, and any spill would have a devastating impact on the reservation’s water.
The reservation already faces significant issues, including rates of unemployment, poverty, overcrowded housing, premature deaths, and a suicide rate that are all much higher than the national average.
Thousands of supporters have come to the Sacred Stone camp at Standing Rock to act as “Water Protectors” in an attempt to help the Standing Rock Tribe stop the pipeline.
One protester who spoke at the vigil had just returned from Standing Rock and said that police were firing directly at protesters who were posing no threat to law enforcement or to property. He held up a blue sponge round and said, “This is what I get for trying to take a selfie near the police line.”
Activists at Standing Rock have described police firing these sponge rounds at protesters’ faces and heads.
Mr. Wilansky blamed the governor of North Dakota, Jack Dalrymple, law enforcement, and the National Guard for his daughter’s injury. He also asked for everyone to call their local and federal representatives to say the violence towards protesters at Standing Rock must end.
“Everyone has to just say no, we can’t be throwing grenades at people who are peacefully protesting, singing, and chanting and supporting our indigenous nations. This is not the way we behave. This is not Afghanistan and Iraq. We don’t throw grenades at people.”
Mr. Wilansky said that Obama needed to intervene to stop the police attacks on protesters.
“Even president Obama, who I love, said three weeks ago, ‘We’ll wait and see.’ What is there to wait and see? People will die if the situation isn’t stopped.”
Ms. Wilansky’s injury is far from the first injury caused by a “non-lethal” police grenade. Police officers have lost their hand or been killed by mishandling the grenades. Victims have also experienced “bone deep” burns, smoke inhalation, loss of fingers, and even death.
The activist media outlet Unicorn Riot has collected fragments of the different types of grenades that police are firing at Standing Rock protesters.
Paul Gottinger is a staff reporter at RSN whose work focuses on the Middle East and the arms industry. He can be reached on Twitter @paulgottinger or via email.
DAPL EXPOSED #5: Lethal Round Fired at Unarmed Youth
Prolific The Rapper
(November 2, 2016) — Don’t be angry, be prayerful.
NEW EVIDENCE: ON 10-27-16 they SHOT A LIVE LETHAL ROUND at one of our UNARMED YOUTH HORSE RIDERS WHO WAS RIDING AWAY FROM THEM. This is what happens in America when we let our politicians get bought by Big Oil Corporations. This is a police state, this is not American, this is Fascism.
Human rights abuses galore. People being held in dog kennels. Police Brutality, Reckless Endangerment, Lines blurred between DAPL security/police, Zero Police Accountability, Police taking orders from unidentified masked men, Illegal Search and Seizures, Unjust charges pressed on Journalists, Egregious Felonies placed on protectors, Excessive bond sought by states attorney, NO CHARGES ON POLICE OR SECURITY TO DATE (none for the dog attacks, or illegal shooting of drones, or the DAPL infiltrator who broke through a barricade chasing protectors with an AR-15).
And for what? For wanting a FULL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT. For wanting fair inclusion of tribes concerns on projects that affect their water, graves & sacred sites. For wanting human rights abuses to stop. For wanting clean water.
Everyday that we delay this pipeline is $6,000,000 that DAPL loses. This is why we have seen an escalation of police/DAPL violence. This police state was made possible when the ND Governor declared a State Of Emergency. Those emergency powers give him the ability to change the rules governing the agencies involved as he sees fit. But he needs to portray us as a dangerous, riotous, hazard to public safety in order to justify this police state.
That is why it’s so important for the world to see the true story, beyond infiltrators, that we are peaceful no matter what violence and injustice they perpetrate on us. See the laws here.
Despite everything we remain with prayer.
Obama needs to step in NOW, not later, NOW. #NoDAPL
NOTE: I didn’t make this video to increase anger, I made it to bring truth to light, because some people have no idea. BUT DONT STOOP TO THEIR LEVEL WITH ANGER, OUR JOB NOW IS TO BRING TRUTH TO LIGHT, PRAY PEACEFULLY, AND LET THE WORLD SEE WHATS HAPPENING.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
