PIPELINE COMPANY KINDER MORGAN HIRED OFF-DUTY COPS TO “DETER PROTESTS” IN PENNSYLVANIA

Seems to me that this is simply a case of free-market capitalists looking out for the interests of their business...

"Kinder Morgan, the self-proclaimed “largest energy infrastructure company in North America,” paid $50,000 for off-duty police officers from a Pennsylvania department to patrol a controversial gas pipeline construction site. The hiring came after a request from the corporation for uniformed officers that could “deter protests and prevent delays,” according to a report by Earth Island Journal’s Adam Federman.

What’s unique about the case is not that a corporation paid off-duty officers to protect oil and gas infrastructure – a common but rarely-acknowledged practice – but that a document indicates that the explicit purpose of the police presence was to stymie dissent.

Federman published a May 2013 letter from Kinder Morgan’s manager of corporate security to the police chief of the Eastern Pike Regional Police Department, requesting use of its officers “to provide a visible presence in our construction areas to create a deterrent effect.” The corporation asked the department to monitor its Northeast Upgrade Project, an expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline, which would cut through environmentally sensitive areas of Pennsylvania. The officers were paid $54.80 per hour for their work."

Link to source: [link to firstlook.org (secure)]