Standing Rock Protester Shot in Face With Tear Gas Canister May Go Blind

Justin Glawe 30/11/16

Police at Standing Rock said it was too dangerous to move burned-out vehicles from a bridge there on Nov. 20, leaving it to protesters like Vanessa Dundon to get rid of the wrecks so emergency vehicles could get through in the case anyone needed medical treatment.

That’s when police opened fire, according to a lawsuit filed by Dundon on Monday in federal court. The protesters opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline were choked by tear gas and struck by rubber bullets and bean bags, the lawsuit states. In sub-freezing temperatures, police soaked protesters with a water cannon over and over again.

After being struck by the tear gas canister, Dundon was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet before being pulled from the bridge by other protesters. In a triage tent, paramedics stopped the bleeding from her eye before taking her to a Bismarck emergency room where she received stitches. Within a few days, she was told it was likely that her retina was detached, and she may not see out of her right eye again, according to the lawsuit.

Dundon may never regain vision in her right eye after being struck in the face with a tear gas canister that day. (Dundon’s GoFundMe page has so far raised $80,000.) She and other protesters—one shot in the head with a rubber bullet, another struck in the genitals with a tear gas canister—are now suing Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, his department and two other law enforcement agencies for using excessive force.

Now, the clashes of the Nov. 20 standoff may be repeated. Thousands of veterans backed by more than $500,000 in donations are expected to travel to Standing Rock this weekend. Ahead of that, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple issued an executive order requiring protesters to leave immediately. Morton County pledged on Tuesday to cut off supplies to the encampment of thousands.

“They’re sadly mistaken if they don’t think we already have many supplies there,” said Winona LaDuke of Honor the Earth, a Native American land rights group that has been fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Sandpiper Pipeline in Minnesota, among other land disputes in tribal territories.

“We have enough rice already there to last us 10 years,” LaDuke told The Daily Beast.

The emergency treatment Dundon received at the camp on Nov. 20 may now be harder to come by thanks Dalrymple’s order—which also leaves it up to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and the state Highway Patrol to decide on a “case by case basis” whether or not to allow first responders into the protest camp.

The department, along with Sheriff Kirchmeier, the Stutsman County Sheriff’s Department and the Mandan Police Department are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

In his order, Dalrymple contends that blocking paramedics from responding to the camp will “reduce threats to public safety by not guaranteeing” emergency services to protesters.

On Tuesday, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department said it will stop the flow of supplies to the main protester camp at Standing Rock.

But it doesn’t appear that police will be short of any supplies, which according to Dundon’s lawsuit include long-range acoustic devices, tear gas, flash grenades, rubber bullets, bean bags and a water cannon that have been used on her and other protesters. Jade Wool, another plaintiff in the case, was one of several protesters sprayed with the water cannon on Nov. 20, prompting her and others to be treated for hypothermia, the lawsuit alleges.

The Morton County Sheriff’s Department and the Mandan Police Department defended their use of water on protesters, with Mandan police chief Eric Ziegler telling reporters the day after the incident that the water cannon “was effective, wasn’t it?”

Calls to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department have gone unanswered for several days. Requests under the state’s Open Records Act asking for information on the use of non-lethal weapons by the Morton and Stutsman counties, Mandan police and the North Dakota Highway Patrol did not receive an immediate response. (To get an idea of the full scope of police resources used in Standing Rock would be much more difficult—police from more than 70 law enforcement agencies in nine states have worked the protests, according to the ACLU.)

For months protesters have been complaining that police have treated protesters harshly, especially on Nov. 20, one of the most contentious days of clashes since protesters set up camp in July.