WARNING: Video contains images that may be disturbing to some viewers
Chantelle Bellrichard · CBC News · Posted: Feb 14, 2020 3:40 PM ET | Last Updated: February 14
A video showing some tense moments of the RCMP injunction enforcement at a Wet’suwet’en checkpoint last Friday is circulating online.
The RCMP have been tasked with enforcing a B.C. Supreme Court injunction to ensure people are not blocking or interfering with construction of a natural gas pipeline through the Wet’suwet’en nation’s traditional territory.
Denzel Sutherland-Wilson, a 23-year-old Gitxsan man who recorded most of the footage, said the scene captured in the video took place hours after police first arrived to enforce the injunction against him and a handful of friends, including Eve Saint, daughter of the hereditary chief of that territory, Chief Woos.
The video was taken on Feb. 7, the day of the second wave of enforcement from the RCMP which resulted in four arrests, including Sutherland-Wilson at the Gidimt’en checkpoint at the 44-kilometre mark on the Morice West Forest Service Road.
The Gidimt’en checkpoint was one of several sites where the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters have been living and asserting that nobody could pass the checkpoint without the consent of the hereditary chiefs.
It was posted on the Gidimt’en checkpoint Facebook page on Wednesday.
Much of the video was shot while Sutherland-Wilson stood perched on top of a wooden tower that was constructed on top of a yellow school bus, surrounded by RCMP — including a canine unit and tactical police carrying semi-automatic guns.