(PatriotWise.com) — Tribal police in Nevada shut down a group of climate change activists who attempted to block the only route to the Burning Man Festival on Sunday, NBC News reported.
The activists, who call themselves the Seven Circles Alliance, set up the blockade to protest Burning Man’s alleged consumerism, which they argued contradicted the festival’s counterculture origins.
Some activists chained themselves to a trailer blocking the road and carried signs reading, “Mother Earth needs our help” and “Abolish capitalism.”
A video posted by journalist Michelle Lhooq shows a Pyramid Lake ranger driving his pickup truck through the blockade. In her subsequent article, Lhooq wrote in the UK Guardian that the activists’ blockade only lasted 36 minutes before tribal police intervened.
In a longer video posted by FreedomNews, angry drivers are seen arguing with the activists and attempting to move the blockade themselves. One of the Pyramid Lake rangers is seen handcuffing the activists. As two rangers hold one activist on the ground, another is heard telling the rangers that the group is “nonviolent” and “environmental protesters.”
In a statement on Monday, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe said the rangers were notified that the activists had blocked the highway. One ranger used his pickup truck to move the blockade off the road to allow traffic to Burning Man to proceed. Five of the activists were cited and released, and the conduct of the ranger who moved the blockade is “under review,” the tribe stated.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Seven Circles Alliance claimed that the tribal police’s “excessive response” is an example of the “police brutality” and “institutional violence” shown to those who seek “systemic change” in the United States.
The group also claimed that the responding ranger who pointed a gun at them told them that he was “going to take you all out.”
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