Crossposted from Climate Progress.

If you want to know just how determined activists are to stop the proposed tar sands oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, listen to this:

Last Saturday morning, August 20th, more than 50 activists were arrested in front of the White House. They were handcuffed, stuffed into blistering-hot paddy wagons, and informed that they would spend two nights in a crowded, harsh DC jail. The U.S. Park Police

But that’s when the police gave up. They threw in the towel on the “hard way” approach. The Fantastic 45 were released by 3 pm Sunday and allowed to pay a $100 fine at the Park police station. No jail time.

Here’s what sources say happened:

The D.C. Metropolitan Police, tasked with actually housing arrestees turned over by the U.S. Park Police, said something like this to the Park cops on Saturday night: “What?!? What?!? You sent us 50-plus men and women environmentalists to be jailed on a Saturday night and there might be 50 more tomorrow and the next day and the next? We refuse!”

The DC police reportedly complained about this to the District Attorney’s office for D.C., which in turn told the Park Police late Saturday or early Sunday to stop it. The system can’t handle the number of arrestees who appear to be utterly determined to come to Obama’s House over the next two weeks nonstop. “Stop jailing all these people,” the message reportedly went from the D.A.’s office to the Park Police.

And so the jailing stopped Sunday.

Then, right on schedule Monday morning, another group of 52 protestors sat down at 11 at the White House and were handcuffed, fined, and released by 2 pm. Sixty more got arrested and fined Tuesday and another 56 Wednesday. That makes for a total of well over 250. The goal by September 3rd is to have close to 1,000 arrested over this disastrous and insane $7 billion tar sands pipeline proposal.

Who can name another environmental protest of this type and scale in U.S. history? Day after day. Wave after wave. It’s the first of its kind. That’s how big the tar sands issue is. And that’s why those arrested so far have all exited police custody with a similar message to supporters across the country: “We welcome your sympathy for what we’ve experienced here. But mostly we welcome your company. Please join us. Come to DC and be part of this history!” (www.tarsandsaction.org).

Again, special credit has to go to the “Fantastic 45” who got arrested Sunday despite the unusual threat of overnight jail time from the Park Police. (The vast majority of nonviolent civil disobedience protestors at the White House never spend a night in jail). The police strategy was completely dependent on the Sunday group giving up after the first Saturday jailings, thus causing the 15-day protest to crumble before it really got started. That threat