Aww, “shut it down!”
CANNON BALL, N.D – After seven months of protests, beating drums, freezing nights and canned chili, police began to shut down campsites once occupied by tens of thousands of environmentalists and Native Americans fighting the North Dakota Access Pipeline project.
Most of the 200 to 300 protesters who remained at the encampment walked out around 1 p.m. local time Wednesday. That was about an hour ahead of a deadline set by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the camp to close ahead of a spring flooding threat.
Law enforcement officials said nine people were later arrested in a confrontation outside the protest camp.