“Obstruction of a police officer” led to the arrest of 5 people
On Wednesday, five people were taken into custody at a camp on traditional Wet’suwet’en land in northwest B.C.
A spokesperson for the Gidimt’en checkpoint, Sleydo’, said that Mounties came to the checkpoint in multiple police cars around 10:30 a.m. PT, but she wasn’t there when it happened.
“As far as we know, they started arresting people right away,” Sleydo’, also known as Molly Wickham, told CBC News.
According to something said byYintah AccessFive people were arrested. Most of them were Indigenous women, and one of them was the daughter of Gidimt’en Chief Woos.
Police got search warrants because of a “swarming incident.
In a statement, the Houston RCMP said that the arrests were made because of claims of violence against people working on the Coastal GasLink pipeline in the area.
But there’s nothing to suggest that the people who were arrested had anything to do with that event. Instead, they were arrested for refusing to “cooperate with police direction” and blocking a peace officer.
Police say they were trying to follow through on a warrant related to something that happened late Sunday night.
“On March 26, 2023, at 11:40 p.m., the Houston RCMP responded to a call from Coastal GasLink security saying that one of their employees had been attacked by a group of people wearing masks and camouflage at the 43 km mark of the Morice West Forest Service Road,” the RCMP statement says.
“The group used flares to scare the worker, who then left the area and let them into the work vehicle.”
The group is then said to have poured liquid on the car and stolen a chainsaw, according to the police.
The company that owns Coastal GasLink, TC Energy, says that no one was hurt on Sunday.
In response, police say they were given search warrants for two places on the Morice Forest Service Road. Both of these warrants were carried out on Wednesday morning, one at the Lamprey provincial campground site and the other at the 44.5-kilometer point.
A picture of the search warrant given by Yintah Access shows that police said there were good reasons to think a theft under $5,000 had happened.
Five people were arrested at the Lamprey Provincial Campground for obstructing a peace officer, according to police. Four of the people didn’t want to follow police orders, and one tried to stop police from carrying out the warrant.
The investigation is still going on, says the RCMP.
RCMP under scrutin
In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said that these latest arrests are part of a “troubling” pattern of police intimidation.
The arrests come as the RCMP in the area is being looked at for things they did in the past.
Last month, the federal agency that keeps an eye on the RCMPStarted looking into the Community-Industry Response Group., a special police unit in B.C. that deals with protests against resource extraction.
The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), which hears and handles complaints about the Mounties, said it would look into whether the unit’s actions are in line with the Charter, laws on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and the results of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
In a statement about the arrests on Wednesday, the RCMP said that they support peaceful protests, but “criminal acts by protesters, especially the violence shown by the suspects in this case, will not be tolerated.”