Most of the world thinks that everything ended in Standing Rock when the Army Corps of Engineers denied the permit for the pipeline to be put under Lake Oahe. The Reality is, the fire has been turned down to simmer, but there have been numerous smaller actions since then. The DAPL people, and the cops, have not left...so neither have the water protectors.

There are daily Prayer Walks, where people from the camps (there are still three camps, each with several hundred people) head out onto the Cannonball and the Missouri Rivers, to pray for the stopping of the pipeline. For a while, the Sacred Stone Camp had a "prayer stump"...a site where they were on the Cannonball, where they have every right to be, and where they would pray daily. They had a flag there, on a post...a prayer flag. A couple of nights ago, the police came out in the middle of the night and stole the flag. (The stump apparently disappeared a few nights earlier.) Sacred Stone Camp replaced it the next day with two flags, and filmed the tire tracks showing evidence of snowmobiles and a Humvee coming from the drill pad area and returning. This is a small video on FB showing the tracks, as well as the general area: https://www.facebook.com/tawasi/videos/10212016033538215/

Yesterday was a national day of action, against several pipelines, in conjunction with Martin Luther King Day, in solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. There was a much larger group than recently, on the Missouri River side of the drill pad area, outside the concertina wire. As near as I can tell, one man defied the concertina wire, and stepped across it, and stood. Praying. With no weapons. He was met by a phalanx of National Guard troops in riot gear (to protect themselves from a man standing. And praying. With no weapons.) Behind them, a ND cop with a rifle found the very best place to shoot from, combining protection from the praying man with a range that complemented his level of marksmanship and manliness. Ten feet or so. Once he found a position he was comfortable with (it took a few minutes...no hurry after all, his victim was just standing there, praying,) he shot the man in the forehead, just above the right eye. While he was standing. Praying. With no weapons. There is video...I just can't find it again. Searching on Facebook... ugh. Anyway, here are a collection of stills: https://www.facebook.com/wicohan.lakol.7/posts/118038098704306?pnref=story

Meanwhile, over at the "Backwater Bridge" (which was recently tested, core sampled, and certified to be safe for vehicular travel...but is still roadblocked. A State Highway; public access to Bismarck shopping, food, hospital, etc. Closed for DAPL convenience. Closed, as an economic sanction against the Standing Rock Tribe.) ...Where was I? Oh yeah; meanwhile, at the bridge, there was a larger group gathered to pray, and met with all the things you would expect to meet a prayer group (with no weapons); tear gas, rifles, "non-lethal" weapons, armored cars, giant floodlights, LRADs, etc. https://www.facebook.com/chrisjohn12205/videos/10210373647849887/

And then, somewhere...I have no information as to which site, a cop ran over a water protector with a snowmobile. I had an image, but apparently I can't post images any more. Here is the text from the image:

This is not a rumor: one of our water protectors was hit by a cop on a snowmobile ...hard. Medics couldn't reach her. Police called an ambulance, and it appears that she has been transported off site. PLEASE, PLEASE pray for this young woman. --Linda Black Elk, Indigenous healer, herbalist, and activist

(just like her great-great grandfather, probably)

Well, there is no one that I am comfortable praying to, in the traditional sense. So I bring it to you, good people. Who would have thought that someone would just run over a person like that...a cop, no less? http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/65-2017/documents/17-0351-01000.pdf