By Claire Bernish

In an act of hubris defying logic, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department now claims Sunday night’s vicious offensive against water protectors opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline — during which two tribal elders suffered cardiac arrest, a rubber bullet struck a 13-year-old girl in the face, and a young woman carrying water to others had her arm nearly blown off — is the fault of the activists.

Worse, the sheriff claims officers did not use a low-powered water cannon against the unarmed crowd of around 400 people — despite live footage from the scene so explicitly proving that, even corporate media called the assertion to task.

Worse still, the sheriff balked at the accusation police used concussion grenades, and Sophia Walinsky — the water protector whose horrifically mangled arm might have be amputated — suffered that injury because she must have been incompetently rigging an improvised explosive.

“It wasn’t from our law enforcement, because we didn’t deploy anything that should have caused that type of damage to her arm,” contended Morton County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman, Maxine Herr, apparently ignoring the continual volley of various exploding canisters of tear gas and other grenades. “We’re not sure how her injury was sustained.”

The sheer audacity required for this level of blame-dodging would almost be humorous if it weren’t for the appalling reality that people’s lives transformed dramatically and permanently Sunday night.

According to the Los Angeles Times,

Herr suggested that the woman may have been injured while protesters were ‘rigging up their own explosives’ — propane bottles to be thrown at police. None of those propane bottles exploded, and ‘the only explosion the officers heard was on the protesters’ side,’ Herr said.