A Seattle Cherokee asked what Standing Rock demonstrators want to say to the police
KUOW’s RadioActive youth producer Rachel Lam was on the front lines at Standing Rock, North Dakota last week, where thousands of people are protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The Army Corps of Engineers says they have to leave their biggest camp by Monday, December 5.
Lam, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, says she went because she "felt compelled to witness the largest gathering of Native nations in history rallying for treaty and human rights."
She watched demonstrators, who call themselves water protectors, try to pray at Lakota burial sites blocked by law enforcement officers.
Lam asked some of the 'water protectors' - Cheyenne, Gros-Ventre, Athabaskan, Diné, Shoshone, Spokane, Blackfeet, Lakota, Paiute, Choctow and non-Native people - what they want to say to law enforcement. Listen to what they said:
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