Threatening and violent behavior by ETP mercenaries was commonplace during the pipeline standoff.

In recent weeks, whistleblowers have revealed documents and stories regarding renegade behavior by private security firms hired by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) to protect the Dakota Access Pipeline from protesters.  But the mercenaries went a lot further than that, creating military hype to demonize the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies, infiltrating their camps to plant weapons as a pretext for arrest, and deliberately setting the fire on the Backwater Bridge.  Here are the recent news stories:

1. The Intercept story (with leaked documents) Part 1.
2. The Intercept story (with leaked documents) Part 2.
3. High Plains Reader story about Kourtni Dockter, the former security guard who is speaking out about the unethical and illegal activities of the mercenary firms.

This previous blogpost, Red pilgrimage: right-wing counties send their cops to Standing Rock, documents how it was primarily the most conservative counties, both from local rural areas and from conservative suburbs of Chicago and even New Orleans, that sent their officers with surplus US military equipment to Standing Rock. The three progressive counties that sent law enforcement all recalled their officers as the police brutality became evident.