Protestors against the Dakota Access Pipeline set fire to construction vehicles and piles of tires in a series of violent riots last fall. The protests repeatedly became violent, and cost North Dakota tens of millions in law enforcement costs. Protestors also left a mountain of garbage in their wake that now threatens to contaminate the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers when spring flooding begins.
This week, legislators in the Peace Garden State have begun the process of changing their state laws on rioting to discourage such behavior in the future and improve the state’s response if it occurs again. The excellent Say Anything Blog, which covers North Dakota politics with a level of detail that the local news usually doesn’t, reports that the state House considered several bills and passed a couple of them:
- One bill, the blog notes, “makes it a Class C Felony to purposefully cause economic harm with the commission of a misdemeanor crime. One example would be chaining yourself to construction equipment. The legislation has three requirements before it could kick in: 1) There must be at least $1000 in economic damages 2) there must be an underlying misdemeanor and 3) the activity in question cannot be constitutionally protected…This passed 72-19.”
- Another measure “makes it a Class A Misdemeanor to wear a mask while committing a crime….This passed 69-22.”
- The House passed another measure that increases criminal penalties for rioting in large groups, rioting with firearms or explosives, or disobeying a “reasonable public safety order” to move or disperse during a riot.
Finally, the hundreds of arrests during the pipeline fight placed an added burden on local courts — something that tougher criminal laws won’t make any easier. That’s why legislators also took up another bill that would reduce the penalty for trespassing. Under that bill, trespassing would no longer technically be a criminal offense. Trespassers could simply forfeit their bond in payment of the fine instead of appearing in court, if they so chose.
This year, we’ve already seen in Berkeley and in Washington D.C., that large groups of rioters can cause a lot of damage and hurt people. Unfortunately, it seems very likely during the Trump era that we’re going to see more rioting, not less. North Dakota probably won’t be the only state to revisit its laws on the topic.
