by Miles Howe

Elsipogtog, New Brunswick – It has taken three days, but sadly there is now the potential of a very serious injury arising from last Thursday's early morning RCMP attack on the anti-shale gas encampment that occurred on a piece of Crown land adjacent to highway 134.

Tyson Peters, a member of the Mi'kmaq Warriors Society, today appeared at a community meeting in Elsipogtog using two friends for support. His left leg was heavily bandaged. He tells the Halifax Media Co-op that after being shot in the leg by a 'rubber bullet' shotgun blast, fired by an RCMP officer at close range, there is extensive internal bleeding in his leg. Doctors have advised him that they will know better tomorrow whether the leg will require amputation.

Peters, who was asked by his uncle to join the Warriors Society, was amongst several people shot by the RCMP with rubber bullet shotgun shells during the violent arrest of 40 people on Thursday. Peters was at the second confrontation between anti-shale gas activists and police, which occurred after an RCMP tactical squad arrived in the pre-dawn hours with about 60 guns drawn to serve an SWN Resource's Canada injunction to about 15 odd people.

“I had to jump in front of a woman and take a rubber bullet,” says Peter. “I didn't go for help for two days. I was walking on it for two days and couldn't feel it. I was in too much shock.

“[Doctors at St. Anne hospital in New Brunswick] told me I might be losing my leg.”

While the RCMP has been very forthcoming in their public display of three apparently-seized rifles from the Warriors encampment near highway 134 (none of which were ever used at the encampment), the police have remained totally mum on their use of rubber bullet shotgun shells during both confrontations with anti-shale gas activists on the 17th. Numerous incidents of maiming and blinding by rubber bullets and slugs have been documented over the history of their use.

The Halifax Media Co-op will update this story as new becomes available.