Indigenous-led day of action w 130+ arrests kicks off week of climate protests
Video: The CD, a police outrage, and the resulting near-battle 4min 23 sec
On Oct 11, while some settlers celebrated lost seafarer Columbus, Indigenous activsts and their friends descended on the White House for a massive civil disobedience demanding an end to Federal approval of any new fossil fuel projects. Police violated the usual rules of civil disobedience twice, leading to one extraneous arrest-and one unarrest after the supporters crowd fought back.
When activists arrived at the White House, behind them was some predawn paintwork targetting the Andrew Jackson statue. Back in Summer 2020, protesters nearly succeeded in removing this monument to the author of the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears.
The civil disobedience was so large cops could not transport arrestees, thus being reduced to processing and releasing them on-site. Fortunately, the scrums resulting from police violating the "Treaty of Civil Disobedience" by attemptting extraneous arrests did not blow back on the main CD. The first "extra" arrest was apparently by Secret Service (not Park Police) that of a young Indigenous women seen on the ground and crying out: “I don’t want to die!” She was in the press area, but police decided to target her for unknown reasons.
This unexpected attack outraged the crowd, leading to the crowd charging and pushing down part of the double fence cops had set up to separate the crowd of protesters supporting the CD from Penn Ave. This could easily have escalated into all-out battle but somehow did not. Perhaps police realized they had underestimated all the front-line Indigenous warriors from so many pipeline fights who were present?
The second time cops went for an "extra" arrest," again the crowd charged, this time with some people getting to the opening in the fence first and preparing to cut off their retreat. The cops released the person they intended to arrest, things cooled down-and the civil disobedience continued seemingly unaffected. The last to be arrested were Indigenous women and grandmothers.