ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images(BISMARCK, N.D.) — An activist at the Dakota Access Pipeline protest got an unwelcome surprise in the middle of filming an on-camera interview, when she was shot in the back with a rubber bullet.
Erin Schrode, who describes herself as an activist journalist, said in a Facebook post on Thursday, “I was standing innocently onshore, not making any aggressive gestures, never exchanging a single word with the police who fired at my lower back from their boat.”
Schrode complained about what she called “the indiscriminate use of excessive force,” in the post.
“Authorities used less-than-lethal ammunition to control the situation,” the Morton County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. The Sheriff accused one protester of throwing bottles at police and another of refusing to disperse and charging at a police line.
“No lethal shots were fired from law enforcement,” the statement emphasizes.
For months, protesters have been demonstrating on and around the private land owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, which is seeking to complete a 1,200 mile pipeline that will bring oil from North Dakota to Illinois. This week, the protesters took to the waters of Cantapeta Creek, just outside of the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.
The shot and Schrode’s reaction can be seen and heard in a video she posted to Twitter.
Dakota Pipeline activist shot in the back with rubber bullet during on-camera interview. https://t.co/NSvcyAhYgb pic.twitter.com/teMggHHDts
— ABC News (@ABC) November 4, 2016
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