Seattle Doctor Visits Standing Rock: "Pretty Much Everyone Had a Concussion."

"Seeing that degree of violence inflicted upon unarmed Americans who are exercising their freedom of speech was really shocking," says a Seattle doctor who recently traveled to Standing Rock. Sydney Brownstone

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From the morning news dispatch:

Seattle doctor Robie Sterling recently traveled to the standoff in North Dakota and was in the medic tent Sunday when police started using rubber bullets, water, and tear gas on water protectors in freezing temperatures. Some people had sheets of ice hanging off them, he says. "Seeing that degree of violence inflicted upon unarmed Americans who are exercising their freedom of speech was really shocking," Sterling told KUOW. "And that it was done by police officers was all the more appalling. So that’s what’s been on my mind most since coming back."

North Dakota police clashed with water protectors, injuring 167 on Sunday Nov. 20. Sophia Wilansky, an activist camping at the Standing Rock Sioux camp, was struck by a concussion grenade, which caused a severe injury to her arm.

From The New York Times:

“From an inch below the elbow, to an inch above her wrist, the muscle is blown off,” her father, Wayne Wilansky, said from the hospital, Hennepin County Medical Center. “The radius bone, a significant amount of it, is blown away. The arteries inside her arm are blown away. The median nerve is mostly blown away.” As many as 20 operations lie ahead, Mr. Wilansky said, and it was unclear whether she would keep the arm.

The Wilansky family is looking for help paying for Sophia's medical bills. You can donate here.

The Morton County Sheriff Department denied using concussion grenades against the peaceful water protectors. The department also linked to videos of clash on its Facebook page, NYT's editorial board wrote.

The department’s video was meant to portray the protesters as dangerous troublemakers, but the photos and videos in news reports suggest a more familiar story — an imbalance of power, where law enforcement fiercely defends property rights against protesters’ claims of environmental protection and the rights of indigenous people. American Indians have seen this sort of drama unfold for centuries — native demands meeting brute force against a backdrop of folly — in this case, the pursuit of fossil fuels at a time of sagging oil demand and global climatic peril.

President Barack Obama and his administration, meanwhile, have remained mum on stopping the pipeline.