Three Dakota Access Pipeline protesters were arrested Monday for rappelling from the roof of the U.S. Bank Stadium to hang a giant anti-DAPL banner during a Minnesota Vikings football game.
The banner, which included the “USBank” logo and “#NoDAPL,” urged Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank to sell off financial investments from the $3.8 billion project. Environmental activists and American Indian tribes believe construction of the so-called DAPL could trample ancient artifacts, and potentially poison the Standing Rock Sioux’s water supply.
Law enforcement officials said a 32-year-old man and 26-year-old woman were arrested Sunday on burglary and trespassing charges related to the stunt. Minneapolis police arrested another woman who allegedly obstructed the legal process.
The protesters rappelled down the rafters during the second quarter, and dangled 100 feet above the audience throughout the rest of the game until police corralled them during the fourth-quarter. The Vikings beat the Chicago Bears, 38-10.
Activists have made targeting the DAPL’s financial tools a major component of their mission to derail the nearly 1,200-mile-long pipeline.
Banks such as Citi Group, Wells Fargo, and TD Bank of Canada, among others, are being pressured by anti-fracking activists and members of the Standing Rock Sioux to halt any and all monetary backing of the company responsible for constructing the line.
A letter from BankTrack signed by environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace, was sent to the banks to browbeat them into stopping the money pipeline to Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the multi-state project.
Demonstrators tethered themselves to the TD Bank in Center City Philadelphia in December, for instance, in hopes of forcing the bank to immediately divest from and disassociate itself from the hotly contested oil line.
Several environmental activists tweeted photos of the Philadelphia group’s demonstration — actor Mark Ruffalo, for example, told his Twitter followers that “women shut down” the bank in “solidarity” with one of the American Indian groups protesting the pipeline.
President Barack Obama temporarily halted the project earlier in November, and the Army Corps of Engineers is determining whether there are any conceivable ways to reroute the Dakota oil pipeline.
The DAPL is currently winding its way through the court system.
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