CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP) – Law enforcement officers dressed in riot gear fired bean bags and pepper spray on Thursday as they tried to clear protesters from a camp on private land in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
North Dakota State Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong said the officers were responding to “aggressive” tactics by protesters, including some throwing rocks at officers and threatening them.
A male protester was holding his leg after an Associated Press reporter at the scene described hearing a loud boom. A protester with a medic bag tended to the man’s leg, and he was up and walking a short time later. Fong said she wasn’t aware of any serious injuries to officers or protesters.
More than 20 protesters were arrested, Fong said. Several were led away and put in trucks, including at least one handcuffed.
The confrontation marked a major escalation of a protest that has raged for months. Opponents of the pipeline moved in over the weekend to establish a camp on private land where the developer was working to complete the 1,200-mile pipeline designed to carry oil from western North Dakota to Illinois. The route of the pipeline skirts the Standing Rock Reservation and the tribe says it could endanger water supplies and disturb cultural sites. The state of North Dakota says no sensitive cultural sites have been found in the area.