Police violence against peaceful protesters

During the month of November a group of Olympia protesters set up a camp on the railroad downtown to stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux who are protesting the North Dakota Access Pipeline.

The Olympia protesters were there to block a train carrying fracking sand from getting through. At night and during the day people would come and bring food, give out information, and watch over the camp. They had different groups working at different spots, a medic group, a patrol group etc.

However early in the morning on Nov. 18 a group of Transunion police came and harassed the group of protesters. Twelve were arrested and many were pepper sprayed, jabbed by batons, hit by rubber gun pellets, and dragged across the ground. The police told many lies about what happened downtown. They said that the group of protesters started a bunch of fires which in fact they didn’t, they started one to distract the police officers who were being overly aggressive.

The protesters stayed completely peaceful the entire time and only held their ground by standing and not moving while the police were very violent towards them. The police wouldn’t let the media come in and film any of it either. The police handled this situation very inappropriately and I definitely don’t think that the people that supposedly are "protecting" us should be lying or hurting peaceful protesters.

I stand with Standing Rock.

This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Police violence against peaceful protesters."