"They came, it seemed, prepared to quell an uprising.
As many as 50 patrol cars, more than police the entire state at any given time, showed up at a small, organized and peaceful protest of a hog confinement facility near Wagner this week.
The number of protesters barely exceeded 100.
South Dakota still struggles with a tense relationship between our races and cultures, and overreactions such as the state's strain that relationship even further.
Certainly, some law enforcement presence at a potentially contentious protest is justified.
But unless the state received a threat, which if it did, it has not yet made public, the unnecessary show of force felt like an intimidation tactic.
Members of the Yankton Sioux Tribe organized the protest, and most of the protesters were Indian. That seems sadly relevant now. Would a legal and peaceful protest of this scale have drawn the same response had it taken place in Sioux Falls or, more to the point, involved primarily non-Indians? Doubtful."
Get the Story:Editorial: Intimidating tactics (The Sioux Falls Argus Leader 4/19) More News:
Farm Protest: Public Meeting Set For Monday (AP 4/19) Related Stories:
Yankton Sioux Tribe sues to block hog farm (4/18)
Yankton Sioux Tribe continues hog farm protest (4/17)
Arrests made at Yankton Sioux protest of hog farm (4/16)
Yankton Sioux protest against hog farm continues (4/15)
Yankton Sioux to block access to hog farm site (4/11)
