Publisher’s Note: This is the 4th installment in our ongoing series exploring how the mainstream corporate commercial US media misrepresented 10,000 #NoDAPL peaceful water protectors over the course of this past fall and winter.

Here are installments 1, 2 and 3.

This was the most intriguing and upsetting of all the claims, for it’s always distressing when animals, which have no voice, must bear the brunt of human conflict or misconduct. Indeed, it is the emotional aspect of this particular claim that seemed to be most damaging to protester repute.

Research revealed a number of narratives from residents living near the protest site who were simply fed up with the protest. And why not? If a couple thousand strangers suddenly came to camp in one’s county from all over the country, from all over the world, and stayed there for the better part of a year, no matter how lovely the people, no matter what the reasons for the encampment, quite simply an influx of that many people could not help but have an effect. Think garbage, port-a-potties, food needs, traffic, drain on supplies in local stores, and it’s easy to see how the frustration level of the North Dakota residents might run high regarding DAPL demonstrators. Months later taxpayers are bemoaning the cost of cleaning up piles of garbage, remnants of shacks, and forgotten tents, and this despite articles that tell about the concerted efforts of protesters to clean up and donate items left behind. Recent commentary on The Women’s March echoed this same issue: “They left their garbage in the streets.” While this claim may be true and less than ideal, how is it different than the garbage left behind in parking lots after tailgate parties at large sports arenas? Does this mean sports fans should not be allowed to tailgate or attend games? Still, resident frustration and the resulting remnants of the encampment are poignant reminders of the responsibility of demonstrating, of how every action and choice is viewed under a magnifying glass, sometimes with the aim of scorching the protesters and their message—how careful demonstrators must be.

The primary details of claim #4 seem to be thus: protesters cut ranchers’ fences, trespassed, and stole and/or butchered 30 cattle, 4 horses, and 3 bison, or more, or less, depending on the source. It would be quite an irony if the people there to “protect the water” mercilessly slaughtered innocent animals for no apparent reason. One theory put forward by believers of this claim is that the protesters were running out of food and needed meat, yet various sources within the protest said that a large number of the protesters were vegetarians or vegans.

The most damaging story was from the Washington Times. It is mainly an anecdotal piece about two ranchers—a woman and her husband. The article “Reservation Ranchers Struggle to Keep Buffalo Alive Amid N.D. Pipeline Protests,” by Valerie Richardson, reads as very plausible and very tragic. It is quite moving. Richardson’s opening line is, “The anti-pipeline protesters descending by the hundreds on rural North Dakota in support of the Standing Rock Sioux aren’t necessarily standing with Beverly Fischer. Or her dead buffalo.” Ms. Fischer and her husband Ernie claim that, “at least 13 of their bison have been butchered, barbecued and eaten by some of the hundreds of activists trespassing through the livestock pastures of Cannonball Ranch since the protests erupted in August.” The Fischers live on the Standing Rock reservation and Ms. Fischer is a tribal member. (Note: the demonstration began in April, not August.)

Representatives of the demonstration condemned the acts and denied protester involvement. But ranchers are convinced that some of the “more belligerent protesters are responsible” (Richardson). The North Dakota Stockmen’s Association, an organization in support of the ranching and beef industry, agreed and issued warnings to ranchers to look out for their livestock and offered rewards, up to $14,000, for information about the killings. This giant reward sum indicates that some livestock must have actually been killed. The N.D. Stockmen’s website chronicles a number of animals missing, shot, butchered, and burned in a span of 2 months beginning around October 2016. Their website still says the investigation is ongoing: “The NDSA and the Morton and Sioux County Sheriff’s Department investigations of five cases of violence against livestock, including the killing of two horses, four cows, one bull and three bison and 30 missing cows and calves are ongoing. Two cows were also reported injured with gunshot and arrow wounds in the same area.” These atrocities apparently took place in both Sioux and Morton Counties.

However, in November, the Stockmen’s Association notes that Republican Senator John Hoeven and the Stockmen’s Association Vice President Julie Schaff Ellingson went to Washington to meet with Army Corps officials and the Interior Secretary to press for completion of the pipeline. They made a plea that completion of the project was needed for the killings and other deviant protester behavior towards ranchers to stop.

This public appeal by Hoeven and Ellingson to Washington was based upon an assumptive leap on the part of Senator Hoeven and the Stockmen’s Association that these appalling acts of livestock abuse—of which the numbers and details are murky —were in fact carried out by Standing Rock demonstrators, and that pushing the pipeline through would magically address the issue. Meanwhile, the Stockmen’s Association’s own website shows that authorities are still looking for evidence and have no idea who carried out the acts. It states, ““We are working hard to identify those who are responsible and would appreciate any information that the public may have to help us solve these cases and bring forth justice for the victims.”

In an article on DESMOG, also by Steve Horn, titled “Senator Promoting Dakota Access Pipeline Invests in Bakken Oil Wells Named After Indian Tribe,” Horn notes that Hoeven not only supports DAPL, but the Keystone XL pipeline, and according to Hoeven’s congressional disclosure form has, “personal investment in 68 different oil-producing wells in North Dakota under the auspices of the company Mainstream Investors, LLC.” According to Mainstream Investors’ website, the firm “was launched in 2012 to invest in and capitalize [on] the unprecedented economic activity taking place throughout western North Dakota. This activity is driven by oil and gas production in the Williston Basin and, more specifically, in the Bakken Formation” (“Company”). In addition, Hoeven’s stock portfolio is available on OpenSecrets.org where it notes that in 2014 Hoeven had $1 million to $5 million in share value in Mainstream Investors, as well as $100,000–$250,000 in Energy Transfer Partners. Hoeven also sat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Conflict of interest perhaps?

It might be worth noting that one member of the Stockmen’s Association, Randel Christmann, who was a North Dakota republican senator for several years until 2012, received a public service award from the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers’ Association in 2007. The Stockmen’s Association website also had a link to Governor Jack Dalrymple’s December 4, 2016 letter to President Obama which condemned Obama’s role in delaying the pipeline, and especially the decision by the Army Corps in early December to halt construction. Governor Dalrymple’s campaign finance information shows that his top contributors include the North Dakota Petroleum Council, Occidental Petroleum, Marathon Oil, and Senator John Hoeven to name a few. In the list of industry contributions to his campaign, oil and gas are listed second (“Jack Dalrymple”).

For visual evidence, there was only one very poor-quality photograph, posted by the National Sheriffs’ Association, of a dead cow to support the claims.The photo is indeed tragic. But it is unclear from the photograph, which is an aerial view likely taken from a small plane, exactly where the cow was found or how it died. It could have been near the protest, or in another location, or state, altogether.

The paper which carried the article on the Fischers, The Washington Times, is a well-known conservative movement paper that was founded in 1982 by Sun Myung Moon. It is now owned by Operations Holdings, which is strongly tied to the Unification Church. The Washington Times bills itself as “America’s Newspaper.” In an article in Harper’s Magazine, historian Thomas Franks notes that this paper is “…published strictly for the [conservative] movement’s benefit, a propaganda sheet whose distortions are so obvious and so alien that it puts one in mind of those official party organs one encounters when traveling in authoritarian countries… [and is] a crucial training ground for many rising conservative journalists.”

For this segment of the livestock-slaughtering story, the numbers of dead or missing animals are inconsistent, the evidence available by searching online was anecdotal, and the players involved have a conservative bias.

Leaving the story on the Fischers, there is a second riveting story about the supposed livestock killings. In the Bismarck Tribune, November 6, 2016, an article written by Mikkel Pates lays out what appears to be a good old-fashioned land feud. The story involves 49-year-old Jack Paul Thomas, his Sioux fiancée, 31, and LaDonna (Brave Bull) Allard. Allard is the Native American woman who began the Sacred Stone Camp to create a space where those opposed to the DAPL could pray. The livestock killings have reportedly occurred mostly on a 360-acre tract of land adjacent to the Sacred Stone Camp; it is the tract upon which Thomas says he has lease rights to run his cattle (Pate).

Thomas claims that he has long leased the Brave Bull land for livestock grazing from Allard’s cousin’s husband, David Archambault, II. Together, Thomas and his Sioux fiance, whose tribal affiliation facilitates Thomas’s ability to gain leases, own about 400 cattle and 200 horses (Pate). Mr. Archambault, chairman of the Standing Rock tribe, was instrumental in filing the lawsuit over the location of DAPL. Allard, who desires to build a youth camp on the Brave Bull land, has been vocal about wishing to terminate Thomas’s lease, and even claims she’s never seen a lease for him and that his cattle just appeared on her land.

As the number of protesters at the Standing Rock camp grew, so did Mr. Thomas’s claims that cattle, calves, and horses had gone missing or been murdered. According the the Tribune article, Allard made quite clear that she would like the cattle, who apparently trampled her family grave site, off her property. Thomas alleges that Allard publicly invited people on Facebook to come and take his cattle, and Allard admits she did indeed make such a post. Both parties claim the other is responsible for fence cutting and property damage.

Two things which deepen the plot are that Mr. Thomas has prior convictions for livestock theft for which he served jail time and that some of his missing livestock eventually showed up unharmed.

Allard dismissed the accusations that protesters were to blame for whatever livestock have truly gone missing or been killed. The Tribune article notes that she said in so many words that, “it’s preposterous to think the camp members killed the animals for food. Butchering the animals would have been obvious and would have taken time for unskilled protesters. Many are urbanites who are vegetarian. She says the area is under constant surveillance from law enforcement” (Pate). In order to carry out a number of cases of livestock slaughter, to cut up the meat for a barbecue, and haul it back to camp, the protesters would have not only needed special knowledge of evisceration techniques, but special tools, brought with a premeditation to carry out the acts.

The Thomas–Allard land feud raises possible explanations for at least some of the alleged livestock killings. One theory is that Allard’s Facebook post prompted ne’re-do-wells to arrive on the scene and carry out the egregious acts against the ranchers making a living nearby. Facebook post aside, any large gathering, especially one charged with conflict, will attract unsavory sorts with malicious intent. Sadly, this is reality. Thus it is possible that whoever has done this is not connected with the protest at all. Another plausible theory is that the supposed killings were instigated by proponents of the pipeline who wish to make the protesters look bad. An ugly accusation, but many situations in history have illustrated the probability of such dirty dealings. An interesting idea is that perhaps Thomas, in order to discredit Allard and the protest and retain hold of the lease right he claims to hold, has himself carried out, or instigated, or lied about the livestock abuse. It is clear that whoever did the acts has a dark heart, and it is unlikely that the people who left behind their lives to stand with the tribe at Standing Rock in growing winter conditions would carry out such cold, unfeeling killings. With dollars and supplies rolling in, it is unlikely the protesters needed the meat as some ranchers have said. Again, we have a claim that dissolves into a number of narratives that don’t add up.

It Gets Muddier

Shortly after these four negative claims appeared, on December 4, 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers surprised everyone by denying the easement for completing construction of the pipeline across the disputed area, saying that after conversations with tribal leaders, it seemed best to reroute that section. The first news story on the morning of December 5 about the Army Corps’ decision presented the celebratory reactions of those against DAPL, while those in favor used words like “lawless” regarding the decision, and stated that it rewarded the “criminal behavior of violent protesters.”

The fight is not over however. The newly elected Trump swiftly reversed the Army Corps easement denial, construction of the last stretch of pipeline resumed, and the oil poised to flow any minute; it may even be flowing already. Trump’s motivation to see completion of the pipeline construction as soon as possible is not surprising since he owns stock in Energy Transfer Partners.

Shortly after the Army Corps’ December decision regarding DAPL, Trump chose Myron Ebell as the controversial head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team. Ebell would lead the EPA transition with conflict of interest due to his affiliation with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). According to Sourcewatch, CEI is an “advocacy group based in Washington, DC with long ties to tobacco disinformation campaigns and more recently to climate change denial.” The Competitive Enterprise Institute touts that it is dedicated to mass deregulation and little government intervention in environmental policy, fuel emissions, rent control, and prescription drug control. They are also “associates of the State Policy Network,” which is a far-right think tank with a 4-million-dollar budget that includes funding from two Koch Family Foundations (“Competitive Enterprise Institute”). The Koch brothers, who have deep interests in all things oil, have become notorious billionaires at the center of Big Oil conspiracy theories. Much of their money runs through the various people and organizations that would like to see DAPL and other controversial pipelines completed post haste.

And then of course there is the notorious new head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, who has spent much of his career suing the very entity which he now heads. The fact that key environmental protections are slated for reversal and the EPA itself faces an uncertain future rolls neatly into the narrative that fossil fuel development must occur quickly and ubiquitously, regardless of the harm it will cause. The narratives that surround negative claims about the Standing Rock demonstrators, many of which weave through and around politicians, organizations, and media outlets with a stake in fossil fuel development, illustrate that the demonization of Standing Rock protesters is suspect, revealing a complexity of human interests at work, many with motivation to muddy the message of the demonstrators.

Kylee Mabel Cushman is a writer, editor, adjunct professor and citizen activist based in central Vermont. Look for #NoDAPL, installment 5, next week.