Madison Ald. Rebecca Kemble was arrested Oct. 10 in North Dakota after a peaceful protest opposing the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
Kemble, who represents the city’s north side, was one of 27 people detained in Morton County. Most of the people detained face misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and engaging in a riot, the Bismarck Tribune reports. Also arrested Monday was actress and activist Shailene Woodley, best known for her roles in Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars.
Madison lawyer Patricia Hammel tells Isthmus that Kemble spent Monday night in jail and is awaiting a mass bail hearing scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Hammel, who was also at Monday’s demonstration but was not arrested, has been in North Dakota since Oct. 5, acting as a legal observer.
The demonstration in Morton County followed a Monday morning decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for an injunction to stop the construction. Hammel says about 100 protesters held a “prayer ceremony” at a nonoperational construction site where the pipeline crosses Highway 6, about 45 minutes southwest of Bismarck.
“Within an hour, about 50 law enforcement officers arrived and came marching up the highway,” Hammel says. “I was amazed to see that most of them were from Wisconsin.”
Patricia Hammel
Earlier this week, the Dane County Sheriff’s Department sent 10 officers to help North Dakota law enforcement manage the protest as part of an interstate mutual aid agreement. Other Wisconsin agencies, including the State Patrol, sent additional officers. Hammel says officers surrounded the protesters using a crowd control technique called “kettling” and appeared to prevent some people from leaving to avoid arrest. She heard no warnings were issued.
“It did seem like the level of law enforcement that was there was not necessary or warranted,” Hammel says.
According to the Bismarck Tribune report, law enforcement characterized the demonstration as a riot “because of the number of people present, who were breaking the law and refusing to leave.”
Hammel disagrees.
“There was certainly no riot happening,” Hammel says. “People were peaceful, singing and chanting, holding a prayer ceremony.”
Hammel, who has previously worked with native peoples and individuals resisting resource extraction, says stopping the pipeline construction is a “very serious matter for the Standing Rock people.”
“I’ve had several people tell me, just in the last couple days, that it’s a matter of their cultural survival,” she says. “If they can’t stop the pipeline, their people are done for.”
Adds Hammel: “If the legal system won’t protect them, they’re going to lay their bodies down.”
