Water Protector Convicted of Felony, in Action for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women

Press Release: First Trial from Red Dress Action Results in Conviction

Posted on January 4, 2018

Rodrick Joe in court today in Morton County, with his attorney Amanda Harris (seated)

By Water Protector Legal Collective

Censored News

MANDAN, North Dakota: The first of the trials from the November 15, 2106 action in commemoration of missing and murdered indigenous women concluded today. Water Protector Rodrick Joe was convicted of Tampering with a Public Service, a Class C felony.

“I was there to support my indigenous sisters,” said Joe upon sentencing. “There are still people out there killing and raping our women. It happens to all indigenous women everywhere. I want to bring awareness to it. People need to realize that this is happening in our country.”

On why he came to Standing Rock, Joe said: “Back on the Navajo reservation our water is already contaminated. I have relatives who got cancer from drinking that water. So I wanted to take this chance to stand with my people.”

Joe was sentenced to a 360 days deferred sentence with mandatory fees not to exceed the bond amount, and with credit for two days of time already served. He was released immediately after trial and sentencing.

Joe was the first of over 20 Water Protectors going to trial during the coming weeks from that arrest date. Most are facing felony charges. The next group of three will be tried tomorrow, January 5, 2018 in Morton County.

Over 300 Water Protectors are still awaiting trial on state charges in North Dakota, and six Water Protectors are preparing for federal criminal trials.

Update: Second felony conviction in trials:

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2018/01/second-felony-conviction-from-man-camp.html

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MNN. 1997 NYS ATTACK OF ONONDAGA IN U.S. SUPREME COURT

Mohawk Nation News

1997 NYS ATTACK OF ONONDAGA IN U.S. SUPREME COURT

1997 NYS ATTACK OF ONONDAGA IN U.S. SUPREME COURT Please post and circulate. JAN. 3, 2018. Remember when the New York State "Indian Detail" attacked the Onondaga ...

Read article at Mohawk Nation News
.http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2018/01/03/1997-nys-attack-of-onondaga-in-u-s-supreme-court/

Zapatistas Words on Anniversary, January, 1, 2018

Zapatistas in Sonora, Mexico.

Words of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee-General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, on January 1, 2018.
Espanol: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2018/01/01/palabras-del-comite-clandestino-revolucionario-indigena-comandancia-general-del-ejercito-zapatista-de-liberacion-nacional-el-1-de-enero-del-2018-24-aniversario-del-inicio-de-la-guerra-contra-el-olvi/

(English, computer translation)

24th Anniversary of the beginning of the war against oblivion.

GOOD EVENING GOOD MORNING:

COMPANIONS, COMPANIONS ZAPATISTAS SUPPORT BASES.

COMPANIONS, RESPONSIBLE LOCAL, REGIONAL COMPANIES AND AUTHORITIES OF THE THREE INSTANCES OF AUTONOMOUS GOVERNMENT.

COMPANIONS AND COMPANIONS PROMOTERS AND PROMOTERS OF THE DIFFERENT AREAS OF WORK.

PARTNERS AND PARTNERS MILICIANS AND MILITIANS,

INSURGENT AND INSURGENT COMPANIONS AND COMPANIONS WHEREVER THEY ARE FOUND.

COMPANIONS, COMPANIES OF THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SIXTH.

COMPANIONS, COMPANIES OF THE INDIGENOUS NATIONAL CONGRESS.

COMPANIONS, COMPANIES OF THE INDIGENOUS COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENT AND ITS VOCERA MARIA DE JESUS ​​PATRICIO MARTINEZ WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO US.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF ALL THE ORIGINAL PEOPLES OF THE WORLD WHO LISTEN TO US.

SISTERS AND SISTERS SCIENTISTS AND SCIENTISTS OF THE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES THAT ACCOMPANY US.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF MEXICO, AMERICA AND THE WORLD THAT TODAY ARE COMING WITH US OR LISTENING TO US FROM WHERE THEY ARE.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE FREE AND ALTERNATIVE MEDIA, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL.

Today, January 1, 2018, we are here to celebrate the 24th anniversary of our armed uprising against the bad government and the neoliberal capitalist system causing all kinds of deaths and destruction.

As well as the native peoples, for more than 520 years they have subjected us under exploitation, marginalization, humiliation, contempt, forgetfulness and dispossession of our lands and natural wealth throughout the Mexican territory.

That's why on January 1, 1994, we said ¡ALMOST! to live with so many injustices and death, and so we made known to the people of Mexico and the world our demands for Democracy, Freedom and Justice for all, that we said in our demands for land, work, decent housing, food, health, education , independence, democracy, freedom, justice and peace.

And now that violence is everywhere and murders women and children, the elderly and young, and even Mother Nature is a victim.

That is why we say that our struggle is for life, for a dignified life.

And capitalism is the system of violent death, of destruction, of exploitation, of theft, of contempt.

This is what we need all the indigenous peoples and the vast majority of the inhabitants of this country Mexico and around the world.

Because I ask you, who has a decent life? Who does not have the anguish that can be killed, robbed, mocked, humiliated, exploited?

If there is someone who is calm and does not worry, well, these words are not for you.

But maybe it is that you do see and feel that everything is getting worse and worse.

It is not only that the work is poorly paid and does not reach the pay to live more or less.

Now it is also that criminal groups, especially those that are governments, steal or, worse, kill us just because they do, because that's how they feel good.

So, if you think that this is the case because your god wants it, or because it is due to bad luck, or because it is the destiny that touched you, then these words are not for you either.

Our demands are fair and, as we said publicly 24 years ago, they are nothing else for us indigenous or indigenous peoples, but any people who are not criminal or stupid, or both, know that they are just demands and that each they are more necessary and urgent.

But the response of the bad governments was: well there you have a handout, and be satisfied, because if you keep demanding and demanding, here I have my big armies, my policemen, my judges, my prisons, my paramilitaries, my drug traffickers, and you only have your cemeteries.

So we, Zapatistas, told you: we are not asking for alms, we want respect for our dignity.

And the bad governments said they do not know what dignity is. That if that word is maya or it is from another planet, because it is not in its dictionaries, neither in its head, nor in its life.

And yes, they've been slavish and smelly for so many years, they've forgotten what dignity is.

As those bad governments are found to surrender, to sell themselves, to give in, because they think that this is the way all the people are, that this is the whole world, that no one says, thinks, struggles, lives and dies of not surrendering, not selling, do not give up

That is why they do not understand Zapatismo. That is why they do not understand the thousand names that resistance and rebellion take in many corners of Mexico and the world.

And this is the system, companion, companion, brother, sister, that what he does not understand is what he wants to persecute, imprison, murder, disappear.

Because he wants the world tamed, as if people were a beast of burden that has to obey what the master says, the bossy, and if he does not obey, then whip, stick, confinement, bullet.

So, like for the cap

DEMOCRACIA

LIBERTAD

JUSTICIA

Por el Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena – Comandancia General del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Desde Oventik Caracol II zona Altos de Chiapas, México.

1 de enero del año 2018.

FBI Informant's Misconduct Continued after Red Fawn was Jailed

Informant Heath Harmon of Fort Berthold, North Dakota, owned revolver Red Fawn is charged with firing.

Update 2021: Red Fawn served her prison  sentence and was released. Read how paid FBI informant Heath Harmon pursued a romantic relationship with her at Standing Rock Camp in 2016. As police swarmed and arrested Water Protectors, Harmon insisted she wear his coat that secretly had his revolver in it. Harmon was paid $2,000 as an FBI informant.
https://atavist.newspackstaging.com/red-fawn-fallis-standing-rock-pipeline/

Update by Will Parish on Dec. 31, 2017

Paid FBI informant engaged in intimate relationship with Red Fawn and continued intelligence gathering after Red Fawn was jailed

Heath Harmon

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Updated Dec. 22, 2017

The misconduct of paid FBI informant Heath Harmon, 46, of Fort Berthold, North Dakota, has been exposed by The Intercept.
Harmon was a paid FBI informant in Standing Rock water protector camps, giving the FBI regular reports from August to October, while in camp, court documents show.
It has just been exposed that Harmon owned the revolver that Red Fawn Fallis is charged with firing during her arrest.
Harmon engaged in an intimate relationship with Red Fawn, while concealing the fact that he was an undercover FBI agent in Rosebud Camp at Standing Rock.
Even after Red Fawn was in jail, Harmon continued to call her, and withheld the fact that he was an FBI informant. The information from those phone calls was shared with local and federal police officers and prosecutors.
Red Fawn's supporters are now calling for an investigation into the ethics of an FBI informant engaging in a sexual relationship with a target while concealing his identity. Similar cases have successfully been filed in court against undercover officers in England.
In England, after an undercover officer had relationships with women, the women sued. Among the charges they filed were assault, negligence, deceit and misconduct by senior officers.
Harmon's intelligence gathering and deceit did not stop when Red Fawn was arrested on Oct. 27, 2016. Harmon continued his work as an undercover government spy.
The Intercept reports:

Harmon spent the day of October 27 with Fallis and was nearby during her arrest. He continued to withhold his FBI affiliation from his then-girlfriend in phone conversations with her while she was being held at the Morton County jail in Mandan, North Dakota, records show. Investigators’ notes on those calls were distributed to the ATF, two local sheriff’s departments, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Bismarck, among others.

In Florida, prosecutors dropped and reduced charges against defendants, after finding out undercover detective had sex with targets, which violates Florida law, according to case law.

"Having sex with the suspects in the cases constitutes entrapment and violates the defendants’ due process rights, according to Florida case law cited by defense lawyers. Also, any sexual relationship between an informant and a target violates the rules of nearly every law enforcement agency, federal, state or local."

"Prosecutors are dropping or reducing felony drug charges against more than a dozen people who bought Oxycontin from an undercover detective, after learning that the police informant who set up the drug deals had sex with some of the defendants."http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20121108/police-informants-misconduct-leads-to-dropped-drug-charges

In England, women sued after an undercover cop had relationships with women, and fathered children. One animal rights activist sued alleging assault, negligence, deceit and misconduct by senior officers. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-who-child-undercover-cop-4496691
The targeting of Red Fawn by the FBI comes as no surprise.
 Red Fawn's mother Troy Lynn Yellow Wood was active in the American Indian Movement and was among those targeted, before she passed to the Spirit World.
Documents from the Denver Police Intelligence Department exposed a massive spy operation targeting the American Indian Movement in the 1990s. It stretched from Denver  throughout the country, with police and federal agents tracking anyone affiliated with AIM, even those who simply had a Free Peltier bumper sticker on their car.

The Intercept reports:

Federal prosecutors are charging Fallis with civil disorder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and discharge of a firearm in relation to a felony crime of violence — perhaps the most serious charges levied against any water protector. If convicted of discharging the weapon, she faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and the possibility of a life sentence. She has pleaded not guilty.

Read article at The Intercept by Will Parrish:
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/11/standing-rock-dakota-access-pipeline-fbi-informant-red-fawn-fallis/

Water Protector Legal Collective attorneys exposed today that the government is withholding documents in the Red Fawn case:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2017/12/attorneys-government-withholding-key.html

Notes
It is no surprise that Red Fawn was targeted by the FBI. Her mother was also targeted before she passed to the Spirit World, along with all those affiliated with AIM in Denver. The facts were exposed in the 1990s that Denver Police Intelligence Dept. tracked and spied on everyone associated with AIM, even a grandmother who simply had a Leonard Peltier bumper sticker on her car. This spy operation spanned the entire country and was exposed during a court case in Colorado, when boxes of spy files became public. It was only one of these that tracked and targeted. There was also COINTELPRO and the international spy operation Operation Chaos, targeting AIM and other movements and their supporters in other countries. Denver Police agreed to change their policies after the exposure, but of course the spying and targeting continued by the joint task forces. My articles on this are on the web. -- Brenda Norrell