Three people face charges after a disturbance at an anti-pipeline encampment on the Fond du Lac Reservation led to a scuffle with police on Tuesday night.
Authorities said neighbors reported "louder than normal" activity at Camp Makwa, north of Cloquet, shortly after 7 p.m. Officers arriving on scene reportedly found an assault victim and encountered several combative protesters.
A statement from the Fond du Lac Band said tribal police officers were "threatened and assaulted by several individuals in the area." St. Louis and Carlton County deputies also were dispatched to the scene, as were Cloquet police officers.
Hennessey Michelle Beaulieu, 33; Fernando Homer Manakaja, 35; and Jared Bryce Shabaiash, 27, were arrested at the scene and charged Thursday with misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor offenses.
A fourth arrestee, a 37-year-old man, was released from the St. Louis County Jail without charges on Thursday morning.
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Court documents state that they found a male assault victim who was bleeding from the mouth. He reported to police that a woman, later identified as Beaulieu, had pushed him, causing him to fall on a bed. He said she then began punching him and pulling on his lip, according to a criminal complaint.
As they were attempting to investigate the assault, police said they were accosted by a group of several men. Shabaiash is accused of shoving a Fond du Lac sergeant, and then becoming "dead weight" as officers attempted to place him under arrest. Manakaja also allegedly interfered, trying to prevent officers from handcuffing a friend and then resisting his own arrest.
Shabaiash and Manakaja were each charged with a gross misdemeanor count of obstructing the legal process. Beaulieu was charged with a gross misdemeanor count of giving an officer a false name and misdemeanor fifth-degree assault.
Camp Makwa was established last summer in response to the planned replacement and reroute of Enbridge's Line 3 across northern Minnesota. This week's arrests came a day after an administrative law judge recommended that pipeline move forward, but only if it replaces the current 50-year-old pipeline right in its existing trench.
The camp is located along Brevator Road, north of Cloquet, in St. Louis County. The land is within the reservation but is privately owned.
"The Fond du Lac Band does not support or endorse this camp, but respects the rights of individuals to make public comment in a respectful, safe and law-abiding manner," spokesman Tom Jollie said in a statement to the News Tribune.
