A Colorado woman accused of shooting a gun at police officers during the Standing Rock protests now wants out of jail as she awaits her July 15 trial, the Bismarck Tribune reports.
Red Fawn Fallis, 38, is a flight risk, the assistant U.S. attorney’s office said. But the woman’s lawyer said that having his client behind bars has made it too inconvenient to prepare for trial: “"In a noncustodial setting, we can better go through videos, pictures and have open discussion. It gives the defendant more of an equal footing," he told the Bismarck Tribune.
So far, the legal proceedings have turned up some harrowing testimony of the day Fallis allegedly fired her weapon while protesting the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota:
Prosecutors allege she fired a gun three times while officers attempted to arrest her for instigating the crowd as Dakota Access Pipeline protesters were cleared from a northern "front line" camp on Oct. 27 in southern Morton County.
At a detention hearing, a South Dakota officer testified to seeing the gun go off as he tried to arrest her, then struggling to pull the pistol from her grip.
"I still recall seeing somebody with a flex cuff, about to put it on her wrist, and — when I heard a couple of gunshots ring out. At that point I looked down, and there's another gunshot rang out, and I could actually see the round impacting the ground right next to my knee," Pennington County Deputy Sheriff Rusty Schmidt said at a detention hearing on Dec. 15.
Authorities dropped attempted murder charges over the incident in November. But Fallis faces several charges, including a felony charge of discharging a firearm in relation to a felony crime of violence (civil disorder, in this case); that charge alone carries a minimum 10-year prison sentence, the Tribune reports.
Fallis also faces a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and the Tribune has the details on her criminal past:
Hagler cited testimony that Fallis had brass knuckles and pepper spray when she was arrested and a 2003 criminal record from Colorado. According to Arapahoe County court records, Fallis was accused of driving the car for a shooter in Denver. She pleaded guilty to being an accessory to an attempted murder and served 30 months on probation, according to the records.
Sure sounds like a “peaceful and prayerful” protestor, right?