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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (April 19, 2017)
e PRINT o © CLACKAMA STORY A N D PHOTO BY COLLIN BEREND Vanessa Castle is a student at Clackamas Community College studying to be a lawyer. She left CCC during fall term to protest and stop the Dakota Access Pipeline in Noth Dakota and returned for spring term. Castle served as a water protector who endured harsh, cold winter nights and crowd-control chemicals like pepper spray but also a community where many across the country were brought together. The Clackamas Print: W hat was the catalyst th at m ade you decide to go to N orth Dakota? Vanessa Castle: I left for North Dakota after seeing the October 27 north camp take over unravel online. I specifically saw one o f m y friends on the frontlines, who I knew went out there from the Pacific Northwest, get thrown down by the police and, you know , hurt and then seeing the police turn around and release a statem ent saying that he attacked them w hen I watched it on live feed unfold. TCP: How different was it from seeing it firsthand and w atching through a livestream? VC: Night and day. W hen you watch things unfold online, you feel compassion and you feel the sym pathy for those people, but it’s not like experiencing it in real life. Cam p was a very beautiful and spiritual place, all o f the tim e and it w asn’t until we went to the frontlines that we made the news, because we were getting hurt and we were getting shot at. But the rest o f that, the rest of cam p, the beautiful ceremonies that were happening every day, the beautiful water ceremony every m orning at m orning. W e would sing and do round dances every night. Then feeding thousands o f people. There were multiple kitchens that would feed thousands o f people for free. Everybody cutting firewood and pitching in to survive. Those are the things you didn’t see on the news and online. So, it was a very spiritual thing thatyou could never teach anywhere. So, I’m very thankful that I decided to leave and go there, even though, I gave up a lot by leaving. TCP: The news outlets showed w hat looked like police firing w ater at protestors at night. Were you there at that tim e? VC: 1 w as, that was November 20. That was water cannon day and I’m actually writing about that right now. W riting, for m e, is a form o f therapy. Getting it out and telling people. Not being specific, but getting it out. But yeah, I was there and that’s the night that haunts m e the m ost. TCP: Has there been any form o f repercussion for the Morton County Police? VC: Not as far as I know. The way that unraveled, the Morton County S h e riffs Department had told us that they were going to open up that bridge for weeks if not m onths, and that it needed to go through some structural testing with the department o f transportation to make sure the bridge was structurally sound. But they stalled and stalled and stalled and they wouldn’t open it. And there two burned vehicles on the bridge and a few water protectors took it into their own hands to remove those burned vehicles from the bridge. You know, trying to speed up the process. OK, we’ll remove the debris, you get the testers in here to test this and let’s getth is bridge open. Because it’s lim iting out access to emergency services. W hen we had an emergency in camp, it would take an extra 40 minutes for an ambulance to get there if Standing Rock wouldn’t send theirs, because it was out o f their jurisdiction. TCP: W hat m ade you com e back? VC: W e thought that things would change. There was a huge division in camp w hen the Standing R ock Sioux Tribe decided to pull their support out after Decem ber 5 w hen the easem ent was denied by the Obam a adm inistration. I originally m oved dow n here to help w ith m y sister and child , and now that I ’m b ack, I can h elp. This story was edited fo r clarity and space. Read the complete interview online at www.theclackamasprint.com. EDITORIAL Co Editors-in-Chief Blake Swan Victoria Tinker chiefed@clackamas.edu Copy Editor Merari Calderon Ruiz copyed@clackamas.edu Photo Editor Sam Weston | photoed@clackamas.edu News Editor Collin Berend newsed@clackamas.edu Arts & Culture Editor Nick Allison aced@clackamas.edu Sports Editor Doug Fry sportsed@clackamas.edu Web Editor Alexis Wagar webeditor@clackamas.edu Design Editor Chelsea Pagan Ad Manager Elizabeth Kessel ' admgr@clackamas.edu STAFF WRITERS & PHOTOGRAPHERS Ian Van Orden Kristen Wohlers Ahmed Almarai Linda Barnett PRODUCTION Jeffrey D’Auvergne JOURNALISM ADVISER Melissa Jones melissaj@clackamas.edu The Clackamas Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased and professional manner. Content published in The Print is not screened or subject to censorship. Email comments, concerns or tips to: chiefed@clackamas.edu or call us at 503-594-6266 Roger Rook Room 135 ;- 19600 Molalla Ave. I Oregon City, OR 97045 O N THE COVER: April is sexual assault awareness month. Cover design by Chelsea Pagan; 2 Clackamas Print APRIL 19,2017 theclackamasprint.com The Oackamas Print is free, but please take only one copy. Any person removing our papers in bulk will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
