Anti-fracking arrests continue on highway 126

Patles taken into custody. [Photo: M. Howe]

Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP confer. [Photo: M. Howe]

ELSIPOGTOG, NEW BRUNSWICK – About 25 RCMP officers in uniform, along with about a dozen police cruisers, today continued to flank equipment owned by gas exploration company SWN Resources Canada as they proceeded with their seismic testing of highway 126 in Kent County, New Brunswick.

Pushing the scattered crowd of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people back “50 metres distance” from the southward approaching seismic trucks – or ‘thumpers’ – the RCMP first arrested one demonstrator and chased another into the woods before arresting Susanne Patles.

Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman, had scattered a line of tobacco between herself and the approaching police, then proceeded to draw a circle of tobacco in the highway, where she then knelt and began to pray. After about two minutes, the police proceeded to arrest Patles. An officer Bernard noted that she was being charged with mischief.

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[hat tip: Louise Koster]

RCMP arrest Patles. [Photo: M. Howe]