People coming to the aid of the Wet’suwet’en nation to stop a pipeline are using direct action that is prompting terror charges – No shit!
The night of 28 November, Samantha Brooks, 24, hunched over the railway tracks near Bellingham, Washington, about 32km (20 miles) south of the Canada-US border and installed a “shunt,” according to trial documents obtained by the Guardian.
A shunt is a wire stretched between the tracks that mimics the electrical signal of a train, causing oncoming trains to engage their emergency brakes. Shunts can cause derailments, which is especially dangerous for trains carrying explosive materials.
As Brooks installed the shunt, a Burlington North Santa Fe (BNSF) railway officer received an alert and photo from a game camera (a motion-sensing camera) near the tracks. Police arrived and found Brooks and another woman, Ellen Brennan Reiche, on the tracks with a bag containing a drill and wire, and arrested them.
