If corporations with a history of property theft, and property, human and ecologic destruction came through my neighborhood, I hope my neighbors would join me in protest too.
The pipeline was specifically routed AROUND native land, and was indeed even placed exactly on top of an existing 40 year old pipeline.
When a pipeline spill destroys people's stuff, do the police then inflict a proportionate amount of violence on the pipeline's owners?
If a broken window's worth a tazing, an arrest, two nights in jail, a single court date, and a short or suspended sentence, how many thousands of years of prison should, say, the Exxon-Valdez spill have been worth?
Also, there are plenty of fines and enforcement actions on spills.
Police would inflict violence on corporations if corporations break the law. ...which is why they don't. Protesters should try that simple trick.