The Indiana Department of Homeland Security has provided us with a remarkably unredacted look at their EMAC (Emergency Management Assistance Compact) agreement with North Dakota. 37 sworn law enforcement officers from nine different Indiana agencies including Indianapolis Metropolitan PD, were deployed to Morton County. Their mission lasted for 18 days and went through late October to early November.
Along with an identical EMAC request to the one we saw from the Governor of Wyoming, we also got more detailed information about what North Dakota was actually paying for. Like in the case of Dane County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin, Indiana DHS provided North Dakota with estimates for how much things would cost- $50,814 for travel, $277,694 on equipment, and $399,928 to the responding officers. That breaks down to a grand total of $727,808.
This was just an estimate, and we haven’t been able to track down how much North Dakota actually ended up paying - it is possible that North Dakota hasn’t been able to reimburse some agencies thus far. Dane County Sheriff’s Office, for example, went significantly over budget - after just one week of deployment, they already had cost North Dakota taxpayers $2,000 more than the IDHS estimate.
In a marked difference between this response and others we have received, we also received a detailed list of the equipment that the Indiana contingent brought with them, and how much North Dakota was charged for them.
Here are some of the highlights:
- 42 “sidearms” (judging from the individual officer’s paperwork, these are various Glock models): $16,464
- 37 (one for each officer!) Bushmaster AR-15’s: $14,504
- 16 outfits of riot gear: $9,408
- 23 shotguns: $9,016
- 21 pairs of Gen III night vision goggles: $8,232
- 37 seemingly department issued cell phones: $6,160
- 21 pairs of binoculars: $1,029
- 10 spotting scopes (possibly used as part of a sniper team): $490
- 2 tear gas launchers of different sizes: $784
- 1 TAC 700 pepper ball launcher: $392
- 1 thermal imaging camera: $784
In addition to all this gear, Indiana law enforcement agencies brought seven ATV’s (two models), 23 pickup trucks which cost North Dakota $117,208 (three models), five Ford SUV’s and two Dodge Chargers. This convoy cost North Dakota $149,000, and that isn’t including actual fueling costs.
We at MuckRock are currently working to figure out just how much cash North Dakota invested on suppressing the Standing Rock protests.
Read the full equipment list embedded below, or on the request page.
Image by RedHawk via Standing Rock Rising