{"id":36964,"date":"2018-08-23T07:16:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T12:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36964"},"modified":"2018-08-23T07:16:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T12:16:00","slug":"recent-arrests-under-new-anti-protest-law-spotlight-risks-that-off-duty-cops-pose-to-pipeline-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36964","title":{"rendered":"Recent Arrests Under New Anti-Protest Law Spotlight Risks That Off-Duty Cops Pose to Pipeline Opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RECENT ARRESTS UNDER NEW ANTI-PROTEST LAW SPOTLIGHT RISKS THAT OFF-DUTY COPS POSE TO PIPELINE OPPONENTS<\/a><\/h3>\n
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OVER THE WEEKEND,<\/u> four opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline and an independent journalist covering their activities were arrested and charged under Louisiana House Bill 727, which <\/span>makes trespassing on \u201ccritical infrastructure\u201d facilities \u2014 a category that explicitly includes oil pipelines \u2014 a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine of $1,000, or both. A total of eight people have now been\u00a0charged under the law\u00a0since it\u00a0took effect on August 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

HB 727 is one of numerous<\/span><\/a> anti-protest laws that states have considered or enacted in the wake of the mass mobilization against the Dakota Access pipeline, which drew tens of thousands of people to gather near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation\u00a0in 2016 and 2017. The arrests also\u00a0expose\u00a0the blurred line between private security and public law enforcement that has become typical in the policing of anti-pipeline struggles. <\/span><\/p>\n

On August 9, the first three arrests under the law were carried out by probation and parole officers with Louisiana\u2019s Department of Public Safety and Corrections moonlighting as security guards for Bayou Bridge pipeline parent company Energy Transfer Partners. <\/span>Ken <\/span>Pastorick, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, told The Intercept that the department\u2019s director authorized the officers to work on behalf of the Bayou Bridge pipeline as a form of \u201cextra-duty employment.\u201d \u201cThey have the ability to enforce the law in Louisiana even when off-duty and working extra-duty security details,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the complex land ownership and public access rules that govern the bayou, handing discretionary arrest powers to a private company is particularly controversial. The off-duties\u2019 involvement deepened concerns by pipeline opponents that law enforcement favored the interests of the pipeline company over the first amendment rights of concerned citizens to protest, and the rights of landowners who never granted permission to the company to build at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RECENT ARRESTS UNDER NEW ANTI-PROTEST LAW SPOTLIGHT RISKS THAT OFF-DUTY COPS POSE TO PIPELINE OPPONENTS OVER THE WEEKEND, four opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline and an independent journalist covering their activities were arrested and charged under Louisiana House Bill 727, which makes trespassing on \u201ccritical infrastructure\u201d facilities \u2014 a category that explicitly includes oil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15271,21367,18966,21366,1998,3060,657,5567,17055],"class_list":["post-36964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-alleen-brown","tag-anti-protest-laws","tag-bayou-bridge-pipeline","tag-critical-infrastructure","tag-oil-pipelines","tag-protesters","tag-protests","tag-the-intercept","tag-will-parrish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36965,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36964\/revisions\/36965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}