Hey Fedi folks,
I'm at the protest camp at Lochiel, Arizona. For 70 days, protesters have been occupying an ancient cottonwood tree as part of a blockade of border wall construction through this area.
This morning, at dawn, while protesters were conducting a sunrise ceremony in the middle of the wall road, Border Patrol showed up with overwhelming force to evict the protesters and the tree sitter, destroy the tree and blade the entire area flat. 100 agents is a very safe estimate.
These are a few of the photos I shot and edited. I'm going to post them with extremely brief captions and no alt text because I have very limited reception, I'm exhausted and I have a 4-hour drive home. I will try to come back and edit them with more data later.
Approximately 20 people were arrested, 10 taken to jail and 10 received citations and were released on site.
The protesters are even more determined now.
@Mikal this is beyond heartbreaking