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One of four Lake County sheriff’s officers on special assignment with Homeland Security in North Dakota accidentally shot himself in the foot Oct. 25 while checking his department-issued rifle, an official said.*

The officer received medical treatment and is recovering, sheriff’s spokesman Mark Back said.

The officers are among about three dozen from Indiana who responded to the state of North Dakota’s request for assistance in Morton County under an Emergency Management Assistance Compact contract. In addition to the Sheriff’s Department, officers from Munster, Hammond, Schererville, Griffith and Michigan City are part of the Region contingent.

Protesters trying to stop construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline were bracing for a confrontation with police Thursday after the demonstrators refused to leave private land in the pipeline’s path, The Associated Press reported.

A months-long dispute over the four-state, $3.8 billion pipeline reached a crisis point when some 200 protesters set up camp on land owned by pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners. The disputed area is just to the north of a more permanent and larger encampment on federally owned land where hundreds of protesters have camped for months.