Watch: Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters Block Elevators at Wells Fargo in Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Protesters hoping to end the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline entered the lobby of Wells Fargo's downtown Minneapolis offices Thursday morning and began blocking employees on their way to work. At 7:51 a.m. demonstrators were seen locking arms to keep employees from using the building's elevators. A banner carried by activists reads "Wells Fargo Funds Genocide."

In recent weeks, Dakota Access Pipeline protesters have called on both President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump to halt construction of the pipeline, which runs through North Dakota. Members and supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe believe the pipeline threatens Standing Rock’s water supply and will destroy ancient burial sites, places of prayer and other significant cultural artifacts of the tribe.

Several Wells Fargo employees successfully bypassed demonstrators Thursday morning using force, but since then workers have been rerouted to alternate entrances.

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Police arrived on the scene at about 8 a.m. but did not make any attempt to remove protesters, who demanded that a Wells Fargo employee with the power to "divest" the company's funding from the Dakota Access Pipeline project come down and meet with them.

Protesters and law enforcement were involved in negotiations from 8:30 a.m. until the early afternoon, using a police liaison in hopes of finding an agreement that would end the standoff.

At 10:45 a.m., demonstrators said Jon Campbell, an executive vice president and head of government and community relations at Wells Fargo, met with them and said he would push for a meeting between activists and the company on the pipeline. Campbell later provided them with a formal letter stating as much.

Thursday's incident was one in a series of pipeline protests to take place in the Twin Cities in recent months. In October, protesters packed the Minneapolis City Hall after it was announced that Hennepin County, which encompasses the western half of the Twin Cities metro, sent members of its law enforcement to North Dakota to help quell protests.

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith took to Facebook to publicly criticize Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek over the pipeline involvement.

"I do not support Sheriff Stanek's decision to send his deputies to North Dakota, nor did we approve his decision to begin with," Smith said. "I do not have any control over the Sheriff's actions, which I think were wrong, and I believe he should being his deputies home, if he hasn't already. I strongly support the rights of all people to peacefully protest, including, tonight, the Standing Rock protest."

Smith was one of many public officials in Minnesota to take aim at the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. In a Facebook post, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said sheriffs’ deputies were deployed at the request of the state of North Dakota only after the state of Minnesota authorized the deployment, signed the contract, secured the reimbursement agreement and approved the plan.

Image via Fibonacci Blue, Flickr, used under Creative Commons