[HN Gopher] Pipeline company paid Minnesota police for arresting...
___________________________________________________________________
Pipeline company paid Minnesota police for arresting and
surveilling protesters
Author : esarbe
Score : 270 points
Date : 2021-10-06 18:05 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Seems like the police's problem. If the police need more money to
| enforce the law, then they should request it through the proper
| government channels.
|
| If the pipeline company needs more support on their frontlines,
| then they should pay a _private_ security company such as
| Pinkerton[0] or Blackwater[1] - not the police.
|
| A weak or non-existent financial barrier between corporations and
| government is synonymous with corruption.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)
| threatofrain wrote:
| There's perverse incentives going for both obvious plans (company
| pays vs town pays), but I suspect one is worse than the other.
|
| If we say that towns should pay the burden, then companies cannot
| "incentivize" police, but they can also exhibit disproportionate
| burden vs. other police priorities.
|
| If we say that companies pay, then at some point the company is
| responsible for so much of police wellbeing that the police begin
| to lose moral credibility.
| fnimick wrote:
| "begin to lose"?
| [deleted]
| ruined wrote:
| commenters so far have been discussing two options like "town
| pays for police operations" and "company pays for police
| operations" but there are third and fourth options
|
| 3) police simply don't conduct expensive operations
|
| 4) permits denied, moot point
|
| of course it's all in the past at this point, but if the people
| responsible receive the right incentives, maybe those choices
| will be on the table next time this comes up
| jrd79 wrote:
| Re (4): heckler's veto anyone?
|
| In the US, individuals and companies pay property tax and are
| entitled to police protection, consistent with the law.
| Opponents of the permit should use the courts and the political
| process to argue their position. Failing that, protests should
| follow the law, and failing that, police should enforce the law
| at their own expense.
| speedybird wrote:
| 5) Towns tax the pipeline company like they would any other
| business that attracts crime?
|
| Am I missing something here? These pipelines pay taxes, right?
| If so, why is a special funding arrangement parallel to
| taxation needed? And if not, why not?
| derbOac wrote:
| For more, similar, coverage of the same issues from July:
|
| https://theintercept.com/2021/07/07/intercepted-line-3-pipel...
|
| Surprised it didn't get more attention then. It's fairly
| convincing in my opinion.
| gremloni wrote:
| The police in the US are atrocious. It's an easy problem to
| solve. Dissolve the only union that rightfully needs to be
| dissolved-- the police union. Put cops on practitioners insurance
| like nurses and back that up with always on cameras that the
| police department has no access to. It's a low skilled, low bar
| for entry job. Finding candidates should be a breeze.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| It's really important to stem this stuff, in law, before it has
| even the slightest foothold to get out of hand.
|
| I'm sure there are plenty of rational folks who could sensibly
| sell their left kidney to a transplant facility but we forbid it
| because, unchecked in any form, it will lead to corruption and
| exploitation of humans.
|
| We don't forbid private entities from paying for policing because
| we're ultra flush and don't need the money -- we forbid it
| because once allowed it is inevitable that corruption will occur.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| > We don't forbid private entities from paying for policing
| because we're ultra flush and don't need the money -- we forbid
| it because once allowed it is inevitable that corruption will
| occur.
|
| We don't forbid private entities from paying for policing at
| all. In my town, and many other places I've lived [0 for
| example}, you can contact the police department and hire a
| "paid detail" consisting of off-duty uniformed officers for any
| e.g. event where a police presence is beneficial.
|
| [0]
| http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_informatio...
| tdeck wrote:
| Which in my opinion is a real problem. I went to a private
| high school that hired off-duty cops from the local PD as
| security. Guess which high school students got off easier
| when they were caught underage drinking and the like by the
| police?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I don't think it's a problem with an easy solution though.
| Activities by private organizations that require a police
| presence aren't something we want to discourage, but we do
| want to pass the costs on to the people incurring them.
|
| If I'm putting together a festival in a city park to raise
| money for cause X (while providing some value to the local
| denizens), that's a good thing, but the municipality
| shouldn't have to pay my security costs. It's similar if I
| need to do construction that will impede a roadway and need
| a police officer to direct traffic; the cost for those
| hours should be passed to me, not to the town.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Why does it need to be true police? Why don't mall cop
| security guards work? If you needs to hire police it
| means you are pulling resources away from elsewhere
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| The police are off duty, and it doesn't have to be them,
| they just are available, trained, and willing.
| tdeck wrote:
| There are many problems with them being actual police
| though. Actual police can directly arrest people, and can
| physically assault people without consequence in many
| cases. Meanwhile, off-duty or not, assaulting a police
| officer typically carries much harsher penalties than
| getting into a fight with ordinary private security.
| stuaxo wrote:
| It's not inevitable it is corruption.
| rhacker wrote:
| There are a lot of Canadian pipeline companies that pull this
| shit all over the US.
| marricks wrote:
| All these comments seem to live in a fantastical world where
| money doesn't corrupt or influence behavior. Police were paid to
| do a job and did it to the benefit of an oil company. You can't
| pay a detective to investigate a family murder or sexual assault
| and shouldn't have to. Ostensibly that's what taxes for and what
| most people actually want them to do anyways.
|
| The day we normalize companies paying for services like these is
| the day we normalize the things people actually like police doing
| getting even more de-prioritized because everyday people can't
| (and shouldn't) pay for it. It's like a college building a new
| sports stadium, suuuure they say the ticket sales will offset the
| cost and help the school but somehow it all gets funneled back
| into sports.
| gruez wrote:
| > All these comments seem to live in a fantastical world where
| money doesn't corrupt or influence behavior. Police were paid
| to do a job and did it to the benefit of an oil company. You
| can't pay a detective to investigate a family murder or sexual
| assault and shouldn't have to. Ostensibly that's what taxes for
| and what most people actually want them to do anyways.
|
| But as another commenter mentioned[1], the pipeline company
| isn't doing this voluntarily, they're doing it because the
| utility commission forced them to. If that's the case, what's
| the difference between the pipeline company paying the police,
| and the pipeline company paying taxes, which goes to the town,
| which pays the police?
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28776698
| Barrin92 wrote:
| For starters according to the article:
|
| _" Enbridge told the Guardian an independent account manager
| allocates the funds, and police decide when protesters are
| breaking the law. But records obtained by the Guardian show
| the company meets daily with police to discuss intelligence
| gathering and patrols. And when Enbridge wants protesters
| removed, it calls police or sends letters.
|
| "Our police are beholden to a foreign company," Tara Houska,
| founder of the Indigenous frontline group Giniw Collective,
| told the Guardian. "They are working hand in hand with big
| oil. They are actively working for a company. Their duty is
| owed to the state of Minnesota and to the tribal citizens of
| Minnesota.""_
|
| The company does much more than just funding the police
| comparable to tax revenue, they're literally organisizing and
| coordinating with police in their own interests, put simply,
| they use the police like a bunch of private goons.
| gruez wrote:
| >they're literally organisizing and coordinating with
| police in their own interests, put simply, they use the
| police like a bunch of private goons.
|
| I'm not seeing that in the quoted excerpts. Specifically,
|
| >But records obtained by the Guardian show the company
| meets daily with police to discuss intelligence gathering
| and patrols
|
| "company meets daily with police" just means... "company
| meets daily with police". It doesn't mean the company is
| ordering the police around. Maybe the pipeline company has
| knowledge about the local geography and/or protester
| movements. Is telling that to the police wrong? Moreover, I
| fail to see where the leverage is coming from. Suppose the
| company wants the police to illegally beat up protesters.
| The police chief refuses. What's the pipeline company going
| to do, fire them? That's not an option because they're
| forced to pay the police.
|
| >And when Enbridge wants protesters removed, it calls
| police or sends letters.
|
| Yes, that's how police works. If my house is getting robbed
| or my neighbor is partying a bit too loud, I call the
| police to deal with it. I don't wait for the police to show
| up on their own accord. Me calling up the police doesn't
| mean I'm using them "like a bunch of private goons".
| klyrs wrote:
| Can the tribes call up the police to have them enforce
| treaty rights that the oil companies are infringing?
|
| > Yes, that's how police works.
|
| Yes, that's the problem.
| gruez wrote:
| >Can the tribes call up the police to have them enforce
| treaty rights that the oil companies are infringing?
|
| Police aren't supposed to be judge, jury, and
| executioner. A protester trespassing on pipeline
| company's property is a fairly cut and dry case that the
| police can act on it. Some treaty dispute between the
| tribe and the pipeline company is vague enough that
| they'll need a court ruling before they can act. If the
| tribes can get a court ruling, they can definitely call
| up the police to enforce those treaty rights.
|
| >> Yes, that's how police works.
|
| >Yes, that's the problem.
|
| I'm baffled by this. You think that being able to call up
| a police to report a disturbance/crime, is a problem?
| klyrs wrote:
| Funny how the pipeline company's "property" is cut and
| dry, but a 200 year-old treaty guaranteeing access to
| that land isn't recognized, is't it?
|
| The problem with the police that I'm talking about here
| is that they readily apply violence to suppress protest
| on behalf of corporate interests, when the legal
| situation is actually far more complex.
|
| If it's just so simple as "the pipeline companies meet
| with the police every day," do tribal leaders get the
| same courtesy?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I hope you're able to draw a distinction between protests
| of the public near a state park and through native land
| against a company and their pipeline which is inherently
| an issue of public land usage and environmental concerns
| and some thief rummaging through your garage. It should
| be very obvious why that is a bad faith comparison.
|
| The right of the public to protest and protect their
| land, in a democracy at least, holds quite some value,
| and furthermore in a democracy the police answers to the
| people and citizens it serves, in this case native
| people, they should not have the oil company CEO on speed
| dial.
| gruez wrote:
| Am I missing something here? Is the pipeline company
| calling the police in bad faith? ie. they're reporting
| protesters even though they're not on pipeline company
| land? Is the legal situation regarding land rights in
| that area so conflicted that it's impossible to know who
| owns what? Even if there are appeals going on, there
| should be some sort of current decision about who can
| access/use the land.
| avs733 wrote:
| underfunding public institutions in ways that drive them
| towards other sources of funding and outside influence by
| those with power and capital is not accidental, it is
| intentional.
|
| You can effectively force this type of corruption by
| cutting apportionment without cutting responsibilities.
| C.f....
|
| * IRS unable to investigate rich tax cheats due to lack of
| agents
|
| * the FDA example used elsewhere
|
| * America's public universities
|
| * This
| gruez wrote:
| > underfunding public institutions in ways that drive
| them towards other sources of funding and outside
| influence by those with power and capital is not
| accidental, it is intentional.
|
| You fail to address the question in my earlier comment:
| what's the difference between:
|
| 1. a company being forced to pay taxes to the local
| government, and the local government using that to fund
| the police
|
| 2. a company being forced to pay the police
| verall wrote:
| It adds a layer of indirection which helps prevent moral
| hazard. If the company pays taxes to the local
| government, and the local government pays the police
| department, AND the company is not allowed to pay the
| police department directly, there is less possibility for
| the company to incentivize particular behaviors.
|
| The police budget should be set by the local government,
| breaking protestor lines should not come with rewards
| provided by a private company, that investigating regular
| public crimes would not have.
| gruez wrote:
| > It adds a layer of indirection which helps prevent
| moral hazard. If the company pays taxes to the local
| government, and the local government pays the police
| department, AND the company is not allowed to pay the
| police department directly, there is less possibility for
| the company to incentivize particular behaviors.
|
| According to the article there's already a layer of
| indirection.
|
| " _independent account manager allocates the funds_ "
|
| What's the difference between "independent account
| manager" and "local government" in this case? Moreover,
| what can either party do to influence the police's
| behavior? Does having "evil pipeline co." on the check
| make the police chief more willing to beat up protesters
| or something?
|
| >The police budget should be set by the local government
|
| Considering that the payment is being forced by the
| utility commission, I doubt the local government is able
| to spend the money as they see fit (ie. spend it on
| schools rather than police). For all intents and purposes
| their budget-setting ability is fairly limited.
|
| >breaking protestor lines should not come with rewards
| provided by a private company, that investigating regular
| public crimes would not have.
|
| Is there any indication that's the case? As far as I
| understand it the utility commission is forcing the
| pipeline company to give the police a given amount, and
| the pipeline is complying with that requirement. Is the
| pipline company setting a bounty per protester beaten up
| or something?
| ipsum2 wrote:
| > You can't pay a detective to investigate a family murder or
| sexual assault
|
| Isn't that the point of private detectives (aka private
| investigators)? They can be used to provide admissible evidence
| to a court.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Speaking of those stadiums, when there's a large event, the
| city asks the event holder to compensate them for the amount of
| overtime it will cost the city to man the event. It's already
| quite normal, tho I agree with you in principle.
|
| If taxes paid for any and all necessary police protection,
| Trump wouldn't owe the city of El Paso half a million dollars.
| choward wrote:
| > All these comments seem to live in a fantastical world where
| money doesn't corrupt or influence behavior.. You can't pay a
| detective to investigate a family murder or sexual assault and
| shouldn't have to.
|
| An example of corruption is how the FDA is funded.
| Pharmaceutical companies who want their application for
| approval to be given priority can pay extra. Because of this
| the pharmaceutical companies end up doing most of the funding
| of the FDA instead of the federal government. Ever since this
| rule was put in place a higher percentage of drugs have been
| recalled and had to add side effects to the label than before.
|
| Just like in the detective example, nobody should be given
| preferential treatment just because they pay more. Just because
| a drug company pays more to get their drug doesn't mean it's
| drug is more valuable to society than the one that it skipped
| in line. It's just like paying a detective to investigate your
| case doesn't make it more important.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| > Because of this the pharmaceutical companies end up doing
| most of the funding of the FDA instead of the federal
| government.
|
| 45% is way too much, but it is not "most of the funding".
| IIRC that was an urban legend that got started recently.
|
| Many government agencies are funded to a significant degree
| based on fees from their specific constituents. The post
| office is funded in large measure from postage fees. Highway
| construction is funded in part from gasoline and automotive
| vehicle taxes. The USPTO is funded in part from fees. So is
| the SEC.
|
| The point of fees of this sort is that they are directed
| narrowly at the petitioners who use the service of the
| agency. Do you want Merck to have its (arbitrarily many)
| applications to the FDA paid for by _you_ , rather than
| Merck, via income tax? Surely it should be shouldering the
| cost of its own drug submissions.
|
| That can be dangerous of course. It's true that such fees can
| promote regulatory capture, or even corruption, but they are
| not in and of themselves _examples of corruption_ as you
| claimed. 45% is ridiculously high but it is not corruption.
| Corruption would be the FDA approving drugs in return for
| payment where it would not have otherwise.
|
| > Just because a drug company pays more to get their drug
| doesn't mean it's drug is more valuable to society than the
| one that it skipped in line.
|
| No, it means that the company was willing to shoulder the
| costs of expedited processing. Embassies do this too, you
| know: if you pay more money you can get your passport
| processed faster. I don't like the idea of expedited approval
| processes for drugs: it damages the safety checks in place.
| But I don't think that just because Merck paid gets its drug
| approved faster means it "skipped ahead in line" in front of
| J&J, just that its process is moving faster because it paid
| for the resources to make that happen.
| bequanna wrote:
| Clickbait title and manufactured outrage.
|
| The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required Enbridge to
| pay for additional police presence as a condition of granting
| permits. These payments are managed by an independent third
| party.
|
| Enbridge informs the police when people are suspected or observed
| breaking the law. Some of those people are indeed breaking the
| law and arrested.
| draygonia wrote:
| I can confirm this as I worked with a cleaning contractor for
| their offices and met the cops that were paid to work the night
| shift watching for trespassers.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| > The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, which regulates
| pipelines, decided rural police should not have to pay for
| increased strain from Line 3 protests. As a condition of granting
| Line 3 permits, the commission required Enbridge to set up an
| escrow account to reimburse police for responding to
| demonstrations.
|
| The crux of the issue here is whether the police are being
| incentivized and are biased by this arrangement.
|
| It's possible they feel that they are being paid by Enbridge and
| thus behave differently, but I think it's much more likely that
| this arrangement is above their heads -- they're doing their job
| as police, and the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is
| ensuring that local townspeople don't pay for an increase in
| police budget caused by a large company's behavior. I could only
| really imagine they're being biased if they're being weaponized
| as a personal security force, and could, for instance, be removed
| from assignment if they don't follow Enbridge's orders on who to
| arrest. I highly, highly doubt that to be the case.
|
| > Enbridge told the Guardian an independent account manager
| allocates the funds, and police decide when protesters are
| breaking the law. But records obtained by the Guardian show the
| company meets daily with police to discuss intelligence gathering
| and patrols. And when Enbridge wants protesters removed, it calls
| police or sends letters.
|
| This reminds me of a local police presence at a rally or
| controversial talk speaking to the organizers of the event about
| their concerns. This is rather ordinary, really.
|
| Without evidence of what their letters or calls contain, I
| imagine it's like "hey, this person broke the law and here's the
| evidence," which frankly is fine reason to arrest someone. The
| ability to call the police and tell them that you want someone
| arrested for an illegal action is one of their main purposes!
|
| Altogether, this article has a huge bite as clickbait, as the
| idea of our police being weaponized like a private security force
| by a foreign national company, but I think the reality is much
| more dull.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Even if the patrol officers had no idea they were being paid by
| the pipeline company, the chief of police surely would know.
| And the chief would be able to direct patrols in certain
| locations or drive investigations into individuals of interest.
| Loughla wrote:
| I think the issue is that without a) all documents being public
| from day 1, and b) all processes controlled, audited, and
| strictly overseen by an independent third part who is just as
| open and public from day 1, this process is ripe for
| corruption.
|
| Even having the conversation, click bait or no, tells me that
| there wasn't enough information about this from the get-go.
| clarkevans wrote:
| So, I'm curious -- why are there protests here to begin with?
| What is the proper bar for adding a pipeline across the
| landscape? When your land is traversed against your will, what
| exact rights to you have to protect it?
| googlryas wrote:
| There are protests because there isn't a legal way to stop
| the build. No one can have a pipeline traverse your land
| against your will.
|
| If the right of way already exists, then it isn't just "your
| land", it is "your land with caveats, one caveat being a
| pipeline can be built here".
|
| If the land is seized via eminent domain, then it is not your
| land any more.
| glasss wrote:
| I was curious whose land it is based on your comment, found
| this document that helped me understand the circumstances: ht
| tps://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sc...
|
| The Anishinaabe people did cede all of this land the pipeline
| is on to the US Government in the 1800's. However it came
| with the requirement that they retain the rights to hunt,
| fish, and gather wild rice there.
|
| So while it is technically the government's land to do
| whatever they want with, I can understand the argument that
| building a pipeline across the land and rivers could impact
| their ability to hunt, fish, or gather on the lands.
| loeg wrote:
| Also keep in mind that the land was ceded to the USG under
| significant coercion.
| mrkstu wrote:
| inter-govermental government land transfers happening
| under coercion approach nearly 100% (things like Seward's
| Folly being the rare exception.)
| klyrs wrote:
| Alaska, Florida, and Louisiana purchases were contracts
| between colonial powers, not the indigenous peoples of
| the respective lands. Not quite comparable.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Pipelines leak after being in place for a while and what they
| leak is usually toxic to the ground near where they are
| built. Hypothetically leaks can be kept to low levels by
| proactive maintenance, but in practice managers want to cut
| costs to a minimum, and have no incentives to spend their
| company's money to keep up the value of someone else's land.
| vkou wrote:
| The proper bar for adding a pipeline across a landscape is
| putting enough money in a cleanup trust to handle any and all
| spill costs and compensation, up to the most catastrophic
| outcome, as well as EOL decommissioning. This trust must be
| controlled by the communities across whose lands this
| pipeline runs.
|
| No pipeline in the United States currently meets this bar.
| dekken_ wrote:
| depends https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _this article has a huge bite as clickbait...the reality is
| much more dull_
|
| Agreed. I imagine future deals will be structured as a special
| tax. Same situation, fundamentally. But less potential to be
| spun by the Guardian.
| tclancy wrote:
| Would you rather these things be reported on or not? The US
| doesn't exactly have a great history with company towns and
| these deals smell a lot like that.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Might as well make the payments from master to servant
| explicit, I agree.
| imglorp wrote:
| The same thing is happening in Pennsylvania: environmental
| crimes; hiring armed muscle to keep civilians from observing
| drilling sites from afar (I've been harassed myself) even though
| these sites pass through little league fields, apartment
| complexes etc; some shenanigans getting classed as a public
| utility with eminent domain rights; and some FOIA shenanigans
| (there should be no secrets here). Highlights:
|
| * thugs: https://www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio/articles/news/more-
| scrut...
|
| * charges:
| https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2021/10/05/pennsylvania-pi...
|
| * FOIA: https://www.chescoplanning.org/pic/PDF/ME2-092421.pdf
|
| etc. If you think there has been miscarriage of justice, consider
| letting Sunoco know how you feel.
| dls2016 wrote:
| I mean, the PSP was formed to replace the more violent coal
| police and break strikes... police protect capital... same
| crap, different decade.
| abawany wrote:
| Similarly in Texas: https://www.kxan.com/pipeline-exposure/ .
| The KXAN reporter (Jody Barr) who worked on this expose was
| followed by sheriffs in multiple counties and stopped for no
| reason on public roads.
| mfer wrote:
| > But in Minnesota, a financial agreement with a foreign company
| has given public police forces an incentive to arrest
| demonstrators.
|
| I must have missed it. What's the incentive. Are the police paid
| by the number of arrests or something else?
|
| > Police have arrested more than 900 demonstrators opposing Line
| 3 and its impact on climate and Indigenous rights
|
| Identifying where problems are is, it think, important. So, where
| these people doing illegal things or arrested for doing legal
| things? Police enforce laws but legislatures create them. Is
| there an issue of bad laws a legislature needs to look at around
| protesting?
| jms55 wrote:
| I'm not convinced this is necessarily the worst option?
|
| On one hand, the police being paid for by the company for their
| enforcement, especially so much money, definitely creates
| perverse incentives for the police officers to disrupt the
| protests more than they should.
|
| On the other, the police were going to do it anyways because
| several of the protesters were breaking the law. I'd rather the
| police be doing this than a private enforcement company who is
| entirely dependent on the pipeline company, without the
| additional duties of being a police officer.
|
| So I'm not sure where to stand on this.
| standardUser wrote:
| It should be illegal for a police department to accept any source
| of funding outside of government. The potential for abuse is so
| obvious that I struggle to imagine how this is not already the
| case.
| just_steve_h wrote:
| Are commenters here familiar with the history of police and
| "private security" being deployed against striking workers? This
| has been happening without interruption in the U.S. since the
| nineteenth century.
|
| There are some excellent resources out there - some useful
| keywords to search would be "Pinkertons" and "Ludlow"...
|
| It's useful to recognize that police primarily exist to defend
| private property and the persons to whom said property belongs.
| willcipriano wrote:
| >At about 5pm a group of protesters ran from a nearby camp to the
| drill site, leaned ladders against the fence and began to climb
| over, according to a Wright county police report obtained by the
| Guardian. Police told them they were under arrest but they kept
| climbing. Then police fired at protesters with "less-lethal
| munitions" - weapons that are more likely to injure than kill
| someone. Wright county officers fired pepper spray at protesters
| and arrested four people.
|
| Is it safe to say that the fenced in drill site is private
| property? If so couldn't the headline alternatively read: "Police
| demand payment for enforcement of trespassing law"?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Looking at the maps in [0], there's a variety of land types
| involved, including state forests and private property.
|
| Having spoken with some folks who are involved in this sort of
| protesting, frequently the lines are built on private land with
| a utility easement or eminent domain seizure. In the cases of
| private land, often the owner is sympathetic to the protesters
| but legally barred from supporting them, so they tacitly look
| the other way from a group of protesters camping on their
| property. Since utility workers are only allowed to access the
| easement when they are undergoing active work, the goal of the
| protest is to prevent active work as often as possible, forcing
| the pipeline company to repeatedly weaponize the state to
| enforce their easement.
|
| [0] https://www.stopline3.org/map
| codezero wrote:
| If it's protocol to shoot non-violent trespassers with "less-
| lethal" ammunition, that seems like a big problem. They weren't
| involved in theft or destruction, at least not at the point
| they were climbing a fence. It's kind of a distraction to turn
| this into "but it's private property" - that doesn't inherently
| excuse police action.
| willcipriano wrote:
| If there isn't a legal basis for those arrests the headline
| should read: "Police violently commit extra judicial action
| against peaceful protestors".
|
| If I got a mob of angry people and stood them in front of
| your place of work and I incited them to rush towards it,
| when would you like the police to take action?
| codezero wrote:
| A corporation and a personal home are different, and again,
| I'm not challenging the police's ability to act, I am
| challenging the magnitude of response given the context of
| the situation.
|
| If I have a mob outside of my home, I'm going to assume I
| will be dead and fight to the best of my abilities or run.
| These people were trespassing on property, not entering
| into a private home, so still not really addressing the
| concern I have.
|
| For my own opinion: I absolutely value individual private
| human life over replaceable corporate property. I find it
| unacceptable that our police force isn't trained to respond
| peacefully to a nonviolent threat of minimal immediate
| danger.
| willcipriano wrote:
| While you were writing your comment I realized the flaw
| in that argument and changed my point to place of work.
| This is a better anology because that is exactly what it
| is. The people doing the manual labor to install a
| pipeline aren't responsible for environmental policy. Go
| climb over the fences they had around Congress if you
| want to find someone to blame. However in that case they
| won't use less lethal rounds.
| [deleted]
| codezero wrote:
| I don't think trespassing on open property is inherently
| threatening - I doubt the manual labor employees were at
| any time in risk or threatened by the protestors, maybe I
| need to do more homework, but this still isn't holding
| up.
|
| If they forcibly enter a locked building, that's also
| different than crossing a fence. If they force open a
| building and sit in the lobby with a sign, that's still
| different from forcing themselves further into the
| building, or causing destruction or damage to
| irreplaceable property (computers/data/private
| information).
|
| All of these things should require a different level of
| awareness of context and response magnitude by officers.
|
| Comparing them does nobody any good unless we're laying
| out the different levels of force/response we think is
| reasonable at what level of crime and at what cost to
| taxpayers or businesses.
|
| I don't really want to have that conversation because
| it's moot if we're starting at cops using "less than
| lethal" which isn't non-lethal, force against unarmed
| fence climbers. Just full stop.
| [deleted]
| nostromo wrote:
| Because the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required they
| do so.
|
| Getting enraged at the pipeline company is misplaced. You can't
| blame the company for following the law. Complain to the
| governor, Tim Walz, that oversees the commission.
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