In a perfect example of the violence escalating at the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota, video has emerged of a journalist being shot by a rubber bullet at “point blank” range by police.
In the video, activist and journalist Erin Schrode was conducting an interview near Cantapeta Creek when all of a sudden she yelled “Ow!” and fell to the ground after the audible crack of a weapon.
Posting on Facebook after the incident, Schrode said that she was shaken, but unhurt.
“My body will be okay, but I am hurting, I am incensed, I am weeping, I am scared,” Schrode wrote. “Peaceful, prayerful, unarmed, nonviolent people on one side of a river; militarized police with armed vehicles and assault weapons occupying treaty land on the other, where sacred burial grounds have already been destroyed.”
Speaking to Fusion on Thursday, Schrode said that although she didn’t fully comprehend what happened, she was in immediate “excruciating pain.”
“I couldn’t fathom that I’d just been hit. Why would they target me? Why would they shoot anyone?” she said. “There was absolutely nothing violent, aggressive, provocative going on at the protests yesterday.”
After reflecting on the incident, she developed a more empathetic perspective of what happened to her.
“Who am I to say I’m in pain?” she said according to Fusion. “Who am I to have a pity party around me when literally people are up there putting their lives on the line every day, when the land is being desecrated?”
Watch the video below:
I was shot by militarized police WHILE interviewing a man on camera at #StandingRock…and here's the footage. #NoDAPL https://t.co/FfWiSCbiKf pic.twitter.com/4DRwNPkfZ9
— Erin Schrode (@ErinSchrode) November 3, 2016
Follow @deadstatetweets Featured image: Erin Schrode (Facebook)
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