Security firm hired by Dakota Access still won't admit wrongdoing

Wednesday, May 16, 2018  

A security firm hired by the wealthy backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline is still trying to secure a license to practice in North Dakota.

TigerSwan is trying to settle a complaint with the state's Private Investigation and Security Board. The firm is willing to pay a fine, as long as it doesn't have to admit to any wrongdoing, according to news reports.

And it wants that license because having a blemish on the record in North Dakota impacts its business in other states.

"Hopefully we can come to an agreement," TigerSwan Vice President Wesley Fricks told The Fargo Forum after the issue was discussed at a public meeting of the board on Tuesday.

TigerSwan showed up to North Dakota just as the #NoDAPL movement was heating up in mid-2016. But the board denied the firm a license in part due to the “positive criminal history“ of one of its associates, The Bismarck Tribune previously reported.

TigerSwan kept on working anyway and opponents of the pipeline suffered as authorities engaged in harsher tactics as the year progressed. Hundreds were jailed and were pelted with water cannons, rubber bullets, mace, tear gas and other weapons.

“I freeze up when I think about it. Everything changed after that day," Trenton Bakeberg, a young citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, told Indianz.Com last October. He was pulled out of a sweat lodge nearly naked and left in the cold for hours before being put in jail for three days, he said.

TigerSwan was hired by Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline, which became operational almost a year ago thanks to the Trump administration. A federal judge has refused to stop oil from flowing even as he agreed with tribes that the approval process was flawed.

Despite being ordered by the judge to produce an updated analysis of the pipeline's final portion in North Dakota, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to do so. The Trump administration has blamed tribes for the delay in the study.

After months of sparring, the Army Corps plans to meet with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Yankton Sioux Tribe before the end of the month, The Associated Press reported.

Read More on the Story:
TigerSwan to offer settlement after ND board's attorney calls previous proposals insufficient (The Fargo Forum May 15, 2018)
Security company seeks settlement in Dakota Access dispute (The Associated Press May 15, 2018)
Army Corps meeting with tribes on Dakota Access oil pipeline (The Associated Press May 3, 2018)
Judge Rules North Dakota Cannot Ban Security Firm From State (The Associated Press May 2, 2018)

The Intercept Series on Standing Rock / #NoDAPL:
Leaked Documents Reveal Counterterrorism Tactics Used at Standing Rock to “Defeat Pipeline Insurgencies” (May 27, 2017)
Standing Rock Documents Expose Inner Workings of “Surveillance-Industrial Complex” (June 3, 2017)
As Standing Rock Camps Cleared Out, TigerSwan Expanded Surveillance to Array of Progressive Causes (June 21, 2017)
Dakota Access-Style Policing Moves to Pennsylvania’s Mariner East 2 Pipeline (June 21, 2017)

Native American psychologists slam police tactics a year after Standing Rock (October 30, 2017)
Officials in North Dakota claim ignorance on Dakota Access security firm (June 29, 2017)
Dakota Access security firm was denied license but kept working anyway (June 28, 2017)