#NoDAPL Activists Protest Federal Grand Juries in Bismarck Today

The photo above was sent in by a SAB reader. It shows a group of #NoDAPL activists protesting a grand jury outside the federal court house in Bismarck today.

Here’s another one which was sent in:

I’m told there are about a dozen or so protesters on site in today’s frigid, sub-zero temperatures.

Per Facebook the effort was organized by the Water Protectors Legal Collective, a name being used by the far-left, pro-Castro National Lawyers Guild. They’ve got a website set up with hotlines for those arrested during the protests.

So which grand juries are they protesting? All of them targeting alleged crimes committed by #NoDAPL activists, I guess. Federal grand juries are secret, but I can think of two #NoDAPL cases which are in federal court off the top of my head.

Red Fawn Fallis, who allegedly fired a handgun during her arrest at one of the protests earlier this year, is facing federal charges. Also it was reported last month that the feds had convened a grand jury to probe the Sophia Wilansky incident.

She was the protester who had her arm blown off while #NoDAPL activists attacked law enforcement manning a bridge blockade near the protest camps. The protesters have claimed that her injury was the result of grenades or some other explosive device used by cops. The cops have said they didn’t use any weapons which would have caused that horrific an injury, and suggested that she was injured by an explosive device being deployed by the protesters themselves or while working with chains to pull burned trucks off the bridge.

The Wilansky case in particular could be interesting. The #NoDAPL crowd invested a lot of effort into promoting the idea that it was the cops who blew her arm off. I suspect – just suspect, I don’t have any inside information – that the evidence is going to show that Wilansky was injured by actions of the protesters themselves.

That would be very damning for protest movement.

UPDATE: The Bismarck Tribune has more on the grand jury situation. I guess the proceedings today were related to Wilansky, and one of the #NoDAPL activists subpoenaed in that case doesn’t want to cooperate. From the Tribune:

In the motion, Hurvitz argues the summons restrains Martinez’s freedom of association under the First Amendment, because he would be required to testify about his fellow political activists. It may also make others fear participating in the protest, because they might be required to testify about their associates.

“People who might otherwise be enthusiastic about working on causes like protesting environmentally risky projects or police brutality while maintaining a certain amount of anonymity may hesitate or disengage altogether if they believe that their associates are feeding information to the government,” Hurvitz wrote. “They may also fear the daunting prospect of being served with subpoenas themselves.”