RCMP used pepper spray and about two dozen officers to break a protester line at Fairy Creek Saturday as the number of arrests in the disputed logging area near Port Renfrew reached 740.
Several videos posted online Saturday show confrontations between police and protesters.
One seven-minute clip posted on YouTube shows police using multiple canisters of pepper spray on a group of about 60 protesters who had locked arms and refused orders to disperse at an industry gate at Pacific Marine and Gordon Main logging roads.
Police pushed into the crowd, spraying the protesters and dragging several out to make arrests.
“People were assaulted, punched and their limp bodies dragged across a dirt road … the police violence is horrendous,” said a statement from the Rainforest Flying Squad.
The Rainforest Flying Squad said police have repeatedly told protesters to stop resisting, even after “people were already on the ground with multiple officers on top of them, lying limp, as an excuse to use force.”
RCMP said in a statement there was “pushing and shoving and OC [pepper] spray was deployed when the crowd failed to comply with police directions and became aggressive.”
One officer was injured with a concussion and transported to hospital and one protester was assessed on site by emergency health services for undisclosed injuries and transported out of the area after Saturday’s clash, police said.
Police said several protesters perched on tripods and locked in devices anchored to the ground and underneath vehicles were removed from the logging roads and about 7,500 pounds of “structures and debris” were moved to a nearby parking lot by an RCMP helicopter.
Forty protesters were arrested on Friday and 33 on Saturday, including one minor, for violating a Supreme Court injunction, bringing to 740 the number taken into custody since May. Fifty-six people have been arrested more than once.
The injunction was granted to Teal Jones Group, which has logging rights near the Fairy Creek Watershed, and allows RCMP to make arrests for anyone interfering with operations. Environmental groups concerned about some of the last stands of old-growth trees on Southern Vancouver Island have been blockading areas in the area for 375 consecutive days.
Police said as of Saturday, 564 people had been arrested for breaching the injunction, 147 for obstruction, 13 for mischief, six for breaching their release conditions, five for assaulting a police officer, two for failing to comply with a court order, and one each for counselling to resist arrest and causing a disturbance.
In response to the weekend arrests, the Rainforest Flying Squad and a group called Elders for Ancient Trees is planning a series of protests Monday at RCMP detachments on Vancouver Island.
Note to readers: This story has been corrected. The Canadian Border Services Agency says nobody arrested was wanted on a warrant issued by the agency.
