Divergent actress Shailene Woodley has been arrested during a protest against the construction of a giant US pipeline.
The 24-year-old star was led away in handcuffs and accused of trespass and engaging in a riot.
But she didn’t go quietly. Police seized Miss Woodley as she was broadcasting the demonstration live on Facebook.
‘I was just told that the cops are following me,’ she told her livestream, as a helicopter circled above. ‘Send some prayers,’ she added.
The actress and activist, who also starred in ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and ‘Snowden’, said she was walking peacefully back to her car when police officers ‘grabbed me by my jacket and said that I wasn't allowed to continue and they have giant guns and batons and zip ties and they are not letting me go.’
‘Why am I being arrested and no one else is?’ she added in a video posted to her Facebook page. ‘It’s because I’m well-known, it’s because I have 40,000 people watching.’
Miss Woodley was at a building site in Sioux County, North Dakota, where hundreds of protesters were trying to halt the construction of a (pounds) 2.8 billion pipeline that will run 1,168 miles through Iowa, Illinois, and North and South Dakota.
Energy Transport Partners, the company behind the project, claims it will boost local economies and is safer than transporting oil by rail or road.
But environmental protesters believe the transporting of up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil a day will jeopardise local waterways and Native American tribes believe the pipeline would also damage historic sites.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request to block the development on Sunday.
Morton County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Rob Keller said Miss Woodley could face a maximum punishment of 30 days in jail and a £1,000 fine.
He said 27 people were arrested during protests at two construction sites that prompted the shutdown of a state highway for several hours. No injuries were reported.
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