This morning. October 30 the Ohio State Patrol announced that it was sending 37 officers to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota to assist law enforcement personnel there in quelling the protests against the illegal Dakota Access Pipeline. They will be joining dozens of officers from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Lake County Sheriff’s Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Brookville Police Department, Griffith Police Department, Hammond Police Department, Michigan City Police Department, Munster Police Department and Schererville Police Department.
According to claims made by the Marion County Sheriff's department the cost is not going to be footed by either Indiana or North Dakota but “The federal government pays for it through FEMA.”
Fund normally used for cleaning up and housing people after hurricanes like hurricane Mathew which recently savaged the East Coast will be used to send officers over 1500 miles to beat, gas and shoot protestors with rubber bullets.
This use of federal funds is another indication that the Obama administration is quietly supporting what Hillary Clinton called a “federal infrastructure project.” This week the FAA instituted a no-fly zone over the Standing Rock Reservation in order to keep drones used by the press from filming human rights abuses as they happen on the ground.
The federal money will likely not cover the costs of incarcerating protestors, who are currently kept in dog kennels without bedding, phones, water, toilets or food. It is not clear if the Ohio State Patrol will be housed in FEMA trailers never delivered to displaced residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. This follows a national trend, led by the Clinton Foundation, to militarize disaster relief.
Although federal money to pay Ohio officers is available, the deployment is voluntary and based entirely on the discretion of Attorney General Mike DeWine, who oversees the department. Two different county Sheriff's departments from Wisconsin have withdrawn their officers from the Standing Rock Reservation due to public outcry.
The Hennepin County Sheriff's Department from Minneapolis Minnesota has kept it's officers in place citing a mutual aid agreement with the Morton County Sheriff's Department in North Dakota. The State of North Dakota has been paying for officers brought in to beat people from other jurisdictions.
This patch work of funding, agencies and authority across at least seven states gives the appearance of an effort to diffuse responsibility. The Obama administration is attempting to play both sides of the conflict, at least for the remainder of the election cycle. The Army Corp of Engineers has noted that there have been permit violations by the pipeline but has done nothing to enforce them while the Clinton Campaign has encouraged dialogue between Natives and their allies demanding that the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie be honored, Energy Companies who could care less about the treaty, and police who beat old women and lock them in dog Kennels.
At least five banks helping to finance what Clinton calls a “federal infrastructure project” have also contributed to her campaign or the Clinton foundation or both.
Ohio and Indiana police departments have no mutual aid agreement with North Dakota, thus their participation is voluntary even though it is at the expense of the federal government.