Source: thefreethoughtproject.com
by Claire Bernish

In a recent interview, Indigenous Environmental Network coordinator and activist, Dallas Goldtooth, revealed startling information about unwelcome people present in the encampments supporting the Standing Rock Sioux in their opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline — infiltrators.

And not just typical government moles, either — though undoubtedly, as was the case with Occupy, they have also staked a claim in the Oceti Sakowin, Sacred Stone, and other camps. As Goldtooth explained, Energy Transfer Partners, the company constructing the pipeline, has deployed infiltrators to the camps to purposely heighten tensions with police and ruin the water protectors’ established policy of nonviolence.

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman originally interviewed Goldtooth a few weeks ago, but did not publish the full interview until yesterday — and the information would be good to keep handy when someone claims water protectors have been violent and thus deserve brutality wrought by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and the other law enforcement agencies guarding the pipeline.

Goldtooth began his discussion about agitators in the context of a troubling incident which occurred in late October — in the exact location, Highway 1806’s Backwater Bridge, where a number of confrontations between water protectors and police have taken place.

Although some details remain sketchy, on October 27, water protectors spotted a man in a Chevy Silverado with an AR-15 rifle in the passenger seat speeding down Highway 1806 toward one of the camps. Worried for people’s safety, tribal members and other water protectors jumped in their vehicles, chased the man down, and forced the Silverado from the road near Backwater Bridge.

Multiple eyewitnesses said the man, later identified as Kyle Thompson, got out of his vehicle, brandishing the rifle and a 9mm pistol — and aimed the AR-15 at the head of one of the people who had chased him down.

“You can’t kill all of us,” one person told Thompson. “You’re just going to make things worse.”

Thompson wore clothing mimicking a water protector — as if he intended ultimately to infiltrate the camp to cause violence and make it appear as if the water protectors weren’t peaceful opposition to the pipeline.

After exiting his vehicle, Thompson waded into the water and refused to hand over his weapons — but the tribal members managed to keep him at bay for half an hour until Bureau of Indian Affairs police arrived to make the arrest.

Once Thompson was taken into custody, water protectors scoured his vehicle for information — and discovered a DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) security badge with his picture and vehicle insurance held by Dakota Access LLC.

Goldtooth told Democracy Now! that Thompson admitted to tribal security he was, in fact, employed by Dakota Access — likely as a security contractor, though that remains unclear.

“I think that it’s pretty terrifying to know that there—that Dakota Access has infiltrators within our camp, is paying for individuals like this, armed individuals, to create situations of escalation, potentially creating very, very dangerous situations by—you know, we don’t know what his intention could have been,” Goldtooth explained. “He could have, you know, fired upon police, creating a situation where the police think it’s coming from our protectors when it’s not. I mean, it goes hand in hand with this series of mysterious situations that really paints—creates a situation where we have to feel suspicious about what Dakota Access’s intentions are.”
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