Online activists incorrectly claimed a group of military veterans opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) were arrested for carrying explosive material and body armor on their way to a pipeline protest.
A group calling itself Netizens for Progress and Justice posted stories on its website Sunday suggesting that three members of VeteransRespond were arrested on drug charges and for transporting military-style explosive devices to anti-DAPL protest sites.
The Morton County Sheriff’s office confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation that three veterans were apprehended for carrying small amounts of marijuana, but made no mention of finding any devices meant for causing harm to law enforcement.
Matthew Crane, a co-founder of VeteransRespond, was among those arrested in North Dakota. He was cited for possession of marijuana and later released.
“His (Crane) arrest follows the Friday arrest of two other VeteransRespond members in nearby South Dakota, who had drugs, explosive materials, gas masks, and body armor in their vehicles,” the Netizen post reads.
The group went on to suggest the veterans were arrested on their way to the Standing Rock Sacred Stone camp, a makeshift campsite DAPL opponents use as a base of operations for their demonstrations.
VeteransRespond members, Graeme Cabrera and Travis Biolette, were arrested Saturday by Mobridge Police Department and taken to the Walworth County Jail in South Dakota. Their protest gear was confiscated and placed into evidence, according to a press release by Morton County police.
Tens of thousands of environmentalists and members of Standing Rock have settled at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers to derail the highly controversial DAPL, which would shuttle 500,000 barrels of Bakken oil from North Dakota to Illinois.
The line’s opponents believe the DAPL could trample tribal artifacts and poison the Missouri River. Cultural surveys conducted last year by the Army Corps of Engineers, however, show the pipeline avoided tribal lands.
Netizens posted a photo on social media of gas masks, bullet proof vests, and what appear to be concussion grenades the veterans supposedly had at the time of their arrests. The group bills itself as a conservative online journalism outfit that supports Standing Rock and the DAPL.
VeteransRespond’s director, Mark Sanderson, meanwhile, told TheDCNF the group does not engage in direct action against the police and is not interested in becoming “Standing Rock’s great white hope,” despite its members opposition to the pipeline.
One of the directors for Netizen, Nate Netizen, did not respond to TheDCNF requests for comment in time for publication.
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