From a local reporter on the ground…

RCMP bring 60 drawn guns, dogs, assault rifles, to serve injunction on the wrong road

After van, main blocker, removed the night before, RCMP seem hell-bent for violence in early dawn encounter with Warriors

…Through a police loudspeaker towards the highway 11 off-ramp, an officer began reading the injunction against the blocking of SWN’s seismic equipment. This was all before dawn.

Still in the pre-dawn dark, about seven molotov cocktails flew out of the woods opposite the police line stationed in the ditch. I cannot verify who threw these cocktails. They were – if it matters – lobbed ineffectively at the line of police and merely splashed small lines of fire across the road. A lawn chair caught fire from one cocktail. Two camouflaged officers then pumped three rounds of rubber bullet shotgun blasts into the woods.

Shortly after, three so-called warriors with a journalist in tow – who claim to have arrived two nights ago from Manitoba – appeared to have determined that the situation was too extreme for them. Two of them have since been identified as Harrisen Freison and ‘Eagle Claw’. They promptly ran down the road towards the far end of the police blockade. Until last night no one had ever seen these individuals before. {…}

Again, one must wonder at the RCMP’s pre-sunrise, decidedly violent, means of attempting to enforce an injunction against blocking SWN’s equipment. Again, one must reiterate that neither members of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society nor anyone else was anywhere near the newly-unblocked compound gate. Nor were they at all capable of re-forming any blockade style formation.

Again, it must be reiterated that Lorraine Clair’s van, the main impediment to accessing the equipment, had been removed the night before.

Instead, with guns drawn, the RCMP appeared intent on provoking a violent climax on the near three-week blockade.

I say in no uncertain terms that it is miraculous that no one was seriously injured yesterday, indeed killed. The RCMP arrived with pistols drawn, dogs snapping, assault rifles trained on various targets, and busloads of RCMP waiting from across the province and beyond.

As solidarity actions spring up across the country, yesterday’s actions have perhaps invited a far greater climax to New Brunswickers’ fight against shale gas.

Finally, while the mainstream media will go far to paint this as a “Native” issue, it is vital to remember that the blockade, until yesterday, had been supported by various allies from across the province. It is also key to note that an original 28 groups, representing New Brunswickers from all walks of life, had demanded an end to all shale gas exploration or development.

This all occurred long before images of bandana-ed Indigenous people, whose veracity as true grassroots activists and not provocateurs is now being closely examined, ever set fire to a single RCMP squad car in Rexton.

#Elsipogtog #CdnPoli Apparently This Is The #RCMP Provocateur A.K.A. Harrison Frieson pic.twitter.com/u84BA51w5S

— TerryX (@_TerryX_) October 18, 2013

[cont’d.]