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Native American Wellness Practitioner Describes Scene At NoDAPL

From Daphne Singingtree's Facebook album.

Confrontations between local police and activists have left many injured, as the winter continues to turn frigid at a protest encampment on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

A Native American Eugene resident has just returned from the North Dakota pipeline site. 

Daphne Singingtree says there’s been instances of tear gas, rubber bullets, and other crowd control measures used against hundreds of “water protectors”, straining available medical staff.

“…Physicians, nurses, paramedics and integrative healers," describes Sittingtree.  "Police continually assaulted demonstrators with up to three water cannons, in subfreezing temperatures, dipping to 22 degrees.”

Singingtree – herself a member of the Standing Rock Sioux – says more than two dozen people went to hospitals.  She says activists are motivated to stay put to help protect the water and earth.

Brian Bull is a part-time reporter for the KLCC News department, and first began working with the station in 2016. He's been a senior reporter with the Native American media organization Buffalo's Fire, and a journalism professor at the University of Oregon.

In his 30 years working as a public media journalist, Bull has worked at NPR, Twin Cities Public Television, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Wisconsin Public Radio, and ideastream in Cleveland. His reporting has netted dozens of accolades, including four national Edward R. Murrow Awards (25 regional), the Ohio Associated Press' Best Reporter Award, Best Radio Reporter from the Indigenous Journalists Association, and the PRNDI/NEFE Award for Excellence in Consumer Finance Reporting.
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