Photos and Video: Standing Rock Chairman Shops at Mall Just Before Dozens of #NoDAPL Protesters Get Arrested There

For months now critics of the #NoDAPL movement such as myself have been arguing that the Standing Rock Sioux tribe is little more than a figurehead for environmental extremists in their larger fight against oil development.

Today allow me to juxtapose two incidents which illustrate the point.

The first is the #NoDAPL movement’s on-going war on the Bismarck/Mandan community. One tribe involved in the movement has called for a boycott of Bismarck. Meanwhile dozens of #NoDAPL protesters were arrested at Bismarck’s Kirkwood Mall amid busy Black Friday commerce. Here’s video:

https://www.facebook.com/stevembakken/videos/10211251980474812/

What’s interesting is that on the same day protesters from the movement he helped create, the movement for which he serves as titular leader, were harassing shoppers and getting arrested Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault was in spotted in Scheels, a store in the Kirkwood Mall, taking advantage of some Black Friday deals:

“[H]ere’s a pic of Dave spending that gas station money with his wife at Scheels after there was a call to discontinue purchasing anything from Bismarck/Mandan,” a SAB reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes

Archambault is the owner of a gas station which has, ironically, done quite well amid the #NoDAPL protests.

The reader says the photo was taken about an hour before the protests at the mall began. He says he left the mall with his children once he heard the protesters were targeting it today, and that Archambault seemed to be trying to hide his identity. The reader says he didn’t notice Archmbault until someone came up and shook his hand.

Do you think Archambault maybe had a heads on up when the protesters were going to begin causing problems so he could schedule his shopping trip accordingly? If so, too bad other shoppers didn’t get the same courtesy.

The chairman may have helped sparked the #NoDAPL movement by joining his tribe to the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, and serving as the figurehead leader for the protest movement, but the idea that he’s actually leading anything just doesn’t seem to jibe with the facts.