Sheridan County Sheriff Terry Robbins says two law enforcement officers were assault Monday morning when an anti-alcohol protest in the border community of Whiteclay turned violent.

Neither man was seriously hurt, but one of them…a Sheridan County deputy…was taken to the hospital to be checked out after being punched in the face and suffering what Sheriff Robbins describes as tissue damage.

No arrests were made, but the investigation is continuing and Robbins says arrests could occur in the future.

Beer trucks had been vandalized during previous protests, leading Robbins and the Nebraska State Patrol to have officers on hand for deliveries. Three deputies, 3 reserve deputies and 6-to-10 troopers and investigators from the patrol were on hand Monday.

There were actually 3 protests on the day, intended to keep beer trucks from making deliveries to one of the 4 stores in Whiteclay that sell alcohol.

Robbins says the first began about 9:00 when protesters came from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and blocked Highway 87 in Whiteclay to keep trucks from reaching the store.

The sheriff says he contacted Oglala Sioux Tribal President Bryan Brewer to get his help in clearing the highway, but deputies ended up arresting Brewer on an outstanding warrant for an insufficient funds check.

Brewer was taken to the courthouse in Rushville where he paid the $191 for the check, a $10 fee, and was released with the charge to be dropped.

Sheriff Robbins says that 45 minutes to an hour after Brewer was taken away, things “got kind of ugly” and went “horribly wrong” as protesters began pushing and hitting the officers as a truck tried to reach the Arrowhead Inn.

Robbins put out a mutual aid call for help and 11 more officers responded, but the incident had pretty much ended by the time they arrived.

The additional officers included 2 of his off-duty deputies and 2 more reserve deputies, 3 members of the Dawes County Sheriff’s Office, 2 Gordon police officers, a Chadron police officer, and a Nebraska Game and Parks Conservation office.

Robbins says the third protest was in the afternoon and entirely different than the first two. He says activists came quietly and peacefully into Whiteclay, spoke briefly, and returned across the state line to the reservation.

Whiteclay has only about a dozen residents, but the 4 stores with beer licenses sold the equivalent of 4.3 million 12-ounce cans of beer in 2011…mostly to residents of the adjacent reservation, where alcohol is banned.

Critics blame the beer stores for most of the alcoholism and bootlegging problems on the reservation, leading to periodic protests over the past decade that have been growing more frequent and confrontational.

The Oglala Sioux tribal council earlier this month voted 9-7 to put the issue of legalizing alcohol on the tribal ballot next year.