In Heat of Dakota Access Protests, National Sheriffs' Association Lobbied for More Military Gear

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By Steve Horn andย Curtisย Waltman

At the end of 2016, as a mix of sheriffs, police, and private security forces were clashing with those protesting the Dakota Access pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the National Sheriffs’ Associationย was lobbying Congress forย surplus military gear andย on undisclosed issuesย related to the now-operating oil pipeline.ย This information comes from federal lobbying disclosure forms reviewed byย DeSmog.

Theย National Sheriffs’ Association, aย trade association representing sheriffs’ departments nationwide,ย hired the firm Ervin Hill Strategy to lobby on its behalf during quarterย four of 2016 and quarter one of 2017.ย Lobbyist and former congressional staffer John Blount was assigned to the cause.ย Blount did not respond to a request for comment for thisย story.

The multi-state policing response at Standing Rock came under sharp criticism due toย its highly militarized nature against the Native American-led opposition.ย Spurred by theย North Dakota governor’s emergency declaration, law enforcement officials nationwide began pouring into North Dakota under the auspices of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC).ย 


Credit: U.S. House Office of theย Clerk

The lobbying disclosure comes as sheriff departmentsย in rural America now look to the Dakota Access response as a policing crisisย model, with some already bracing for similar demonstrationsย against the recently approved Keystone XLย andย Diamond pipelines.

โ€œProfessionalย Protestersโ€

Under what is known as the Defense Department’s 1033 program, state- and local-level law enforcement agencies have the ability to purchase unused military gear from the U.S. Department of Defense’sย Defense Logistics Agency. On its lobbying disclosure form, the Sheriffs’ Association cited 1033, which goes by the motto โ€œfrom warfighter to crimefighter.โ€

Throughout the duration of the Standing Rock encampment in North Dakota, the Sheriffs’ Association served as a vocal critic of those participating, writing in an October 2016 letter to then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch that those protesting were โ€œillegally preventing the completion of a project under the guise of environmental and cultural concerns โ€” an obviousย ruse.โ€

โ€œThey are threatening ranchers and farms and trespassing onto private property to intimidate and scare local citizens,โ€ wrote the association in itsย letter. โ€œIt is nothing less than lawless behavior perpetrated by professional protesters with no vested interest in the Pipeline nor any ties to the communities they claim will beย affected.โ€

TigerSwanย Funding

Founded in 1940 and headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, the Sheriffs’ Associationย has a $3.46ย million budget, according to its most recently filed taxย forms.

Some of the organization’s funding comes from corporate sources, according to its website, which includes the private security companyย TigerSwan. As DeSmog reported in October 2016, TigerSwan maintains offices in both Iraq and Afghanistan and is run by a special forces Army veteran. TigerSwan was put โ€œin charge of Dakota Access intelligence and supervises the overall security,โ€ according to an investigation conducted by Morton County in Northย Dakota.

James Reese, TigerSwan’sย founder and CEO, formerly served as an adviser to the multinational private security firm Blackwater. Dubbed โ€œthe world’s most powerful mercenary armyโ€ by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater was founded by Trump campaign donor and transition team memberย Erik Prince, the brother of U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsyย Devos.

Post-Fergusonย Lobbying

Beyond its lobbying efforts, the Sheriffs’ Association has also made a public call for President Donald Trump to reverse the ban on sending military gear to local police agencies. President Barack Obama enacted this moratoriumย in the aftermath of the chaos and violence that followed the police shooting ofย unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, inย 2014.

โ€œSheriffs will work closely with President-Elect Donald J. Trump to repeal Obamaโ€™s Executive Order,โ€ the organization stated in December. โ€œWe are hopeful the new administration is more supportive of law enforcementโ€™s important work to protect people in harmโ€™s way, instead of the previous administrationโ€™s repeated moves to cripple and prevent us from defending and helping citizens inย need.โ€

President Trump spoke to and met with representatives from the Sheriffs’ Association in February. At the White House meeting, the association showed its appreciation to Trump for helping push itsย agenda by gifting him a โ€œnew sheriff in townโ€ sculpture, which was reportedlyย itsย first time ever giving one to someone outside lawย enforcement.

โ€œLet me tell you the difference of six months,โ€ Sheriffs’ Association executive director Jonathan Thompson said at the meeting, according to a White House transcript. โ€œI sat in this room, in this chair, and I was pleading โ€” I was begging for help. Today, youโ€™ve invited us here to your home. You’re offering help. You’re delivering on that offer. And on behalf of our members across the country, thankย you.โ€

As an organization, the Sheriffs’ Association had remained dormant on federal-level lobbying activity until the aftermath of Ferguson, according to forms reviewed by DeSmog. Blount, the Ervin Hill Strategy lobbyist for the Sheriffs’ Association, also currently serves other military contractor clients including General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, and Aerojet Rocketdyne.ย 

Dakota Access Ownerย Coordinates withย Sheriffs

As protests heated up at Standing Rock in October, the Morton County Sheriffs’ Department requested support from the Sheriffs’ Association, which coincided with out-of-state cops floodingย the state inย assistance.

In December, DeSmog reported on an audio recording first obtained and published by New York Daily News writer Shaun King, in which Energy Transfer Partners executiveย Matthew Ramsey said that the Sheriffs’ Associationย worked in close coordination with his company, the pipeline’s majority owner,ย against those opposing itย at Standingย Rock.ย 

โ€œWe met with some of the officials in North Dakota [during a recent trip to the state],โ€ said Ramsey in the recording. โ€œWe met with the National Sheriff’s Association. People are tired of this. They’re tired of seeing what’s going on in the community and we think that the tide has turned and people are understanding what a great project this would be for the State of Northย Dakota.โ€

Indeed, the Sheriffsโ€™ Association did send training staff and office personnel to Standing Rock. The group tasked Dane County, Wisconsinย Sheriff Dave Mahoney with training North Dakota agencies, which had little experience policingย protests.

โ€œWhen the situation in North Dakota began over the pipeline, I had been asked by the National Sheriffโ€™s Association and by the Department of Justice to travel to North Dakota to speak to the sheriffs who didnโ€™t have much experience with large gatherings,โ€ Mahoney said in anย interview.

While adamant his police force handled the response in Standing Rock in the same peaceful way as in 2011, when the Dane County Sheriff’s Office handled over 100,000 people protesting Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill, the results in North Dakota tell a different story.

Greg Champagne, president of the National Sheriffs’ Association and sheriff of St. Charles Parishย in Louisiana, was also intimately involved in Standing Rock. In late October, Champagne traveled there for a publicity appearance, which was funded by the EMAC agreement. He was toured around the police lines and the construction sites, afterwards posting on Facebook a lengthy rebuttal to protesters and the media, which received 46,000ย shares.

The St. Charles Parish Sheriffโ€™s Officeย also sent two cameramen to video the cleanup after the eviction of demonstrators at one of the Standing Rock encampments. An open records request for that footage is stillย pending.

For its part, the Sheriffsโ€™ Association told DeSmog, โ€œWhat we were trying to do was help the local sheriffs, as a national organization, to coordinate the actions through the EMAC to get them people that would make themselvesย available.โ€

The associationย added that although the intent of its coordination was not to train law enforcement officials present at Standing Rock, that โ€œper things like this, there is always training going on and coordinated tactics between North Dakota, Wyoming, Wisconsin or whoever else was there. We are also helpful with guidance and coordinating the knowledge as well by having people there like Dave [Mahoney, the Dane County Sheriff] who have better knowledge of large protestย gatherings.โ€

Sheriffs Tackleย Bayouย Bridge

In the aftermath of Standing Rock, the Sheriffs’ Association has remained active on pipelines owned by Energy Transfer Partners, including its proposed Bayou Bridge pipelineย throughย Louisiana.

As DeSmog previously reported, Joseph Lopinto โ€” an attorney with the Jefferson Parish Sheriffโ€™s Office in Louisiana and former Republican state legislatorย โ€” criticized the federal government’s Standing Rock response while speakingย on behalf ofย the National Sheriffsโ€™ Association at a February public meeting related to the Bayou Bridgeย pipeline.

โ€œThe federal government failed to provide local law enforcement [in Standing Rock, North Dakota] with support to control hostile, often violent protesters that caused millions of dollars in property damage and shot at law enforcement officers,โ€ he said at the convening. โ€œThe federal government failed to provide local law enforcement with the resources they need to deal with violent and unrulyย protests.โ€

Policingย Protest

The intervention of the Sheriffsโ€™ Associationย in social justice movements, such as the one at Standing Rock,ย is notย unprecedented.

During the civil rights era, the Sheriffs’ Association policed protests in Alameda County, California, which housesย the City of Berkeley and the University of California. The association’s California state representative, Alameda County Sheriff Frank Madigan, described these policing efforts during a 1970ย congressional hearing about the Black Pantherย Party.

โ€œPrior to World War II, I worked in the field as an investigator of subversives and now I am seeing the children back in the scene, what we call the Red-diaper babies getting into the act,โ€ remarked Madigan. โ€œSince Berkeley has become a Mecca we are getting dissidents from all over theย country.โ€

โ€œRed diaper babyโ€ was a term applied to the child of socialists or communists (either self-described or as described by law enforcement officials), and was generally meant as a pejorative and to discredit. The Black Panther Party and campus-based antiwar movement, which were the subject of the 1970 hearing, were at the time the target ofย extensive surveillance and attempted disruption under the FBI‘s COINTELPRO (short for Counterintelligence Program).ย COINTELPRO eventually was scrutinized inย a U.S. Senate probeย known as the Church Committee investigation (named after then-U.S. Sen. Frank Church), andย nominally came to anย end.

Alex Vitale, a professor of criminology at Brooklyn College and author of the forthcoming book The End of Policing, told DeSmog that Standing Rock and the role of the Sheriffs’ Association serves as a case study of broader policing trends seen during socialย movements.

โ€œThe 1033 program [lobbied for by the Sheriffsโ€™ Association] should be understood in two ways,โ€ saidย Vitale.

โ€œFirst it is a cynical form of corporate welfare to the defense industry. It has opened up vast new federally subsidized markets by normalizing the idea that local police departments, no matter how small, need vast arsenals of military gear to defend themselves from the exaggerated threats of hidden terrorist cells and rampaging drug gangs. Second, it is part of an ideological worldview that the threats we face as a society are best dealt with by ever more policeย power.โ€

Main image: Oregon’s Marion County SWAT team prepares for an exercise.ย Credit: Oregon Department of Transportation,ย CC BYย 2.0

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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