Foley Square Standing Rock Pipeline Protest

Leena and I went to the Protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Foley Square on November 15th, and interviewed protestors, organizers, and Policemen as well as participating in the protest ourselves. Below are our interviews, img_6684                        img_6686

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We also interviewed two police officers who declined to being video taped, and who couldn’t comment on anything political but they seemed very friendly and they were just out there trying to keep people safe and do their jobs. It was interesting talking to them because police have been vilified a lot in recent media coverage, and it was nice to just take a step back and remember that they are people too.img_6691

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http://https://vimeo.com/192044334

Shea O’Reilly works for the Sierra Club as his day job, as well as being an organizer with the Spectrum Pipeline in West Chester, and organizing with the Evangelical Lutherin Church of America; he has most recently been working to counter Fascism efforts through organized protests such as this one. O’Reilly is here to stand with Indigenous people to help defend their rights, and to get the army core of engineers to rescind the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline. He brings up the frightening statistic that “any more pipelines and we shoot above 2 degrees Celcius which means billions of people will die”.

 

Ed Goldman and Sam Koprak are friends who are activists are are very concerned with climate change, and  environmental issues. They are part of a peace and justice group from Brooklyn, and are also here to stand with Native Americans for their rights. By attending this protest they are trying to just keep the pressure and awareness in the general public-we can’t stop fighting, and standing up for what’s right.

I felt like the whole atmosphere of the protest was very loving and supportive, there was a real genuine concern that everyone there had, and you could tell that everyone was just trying to be incredibly supportive and educate the public. I think it’s incredibly important to keep the focus and pressure on the government and make sure that this pipeline absolutely does not get built-it would have catastrophic environmental results, as well as social repercussions further increasing the animosity between the Native Americans.

 

 

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