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Mass Show of Peaceful Dissent Soon Makes Violent Descent
A protester is arrested during an anti-war protest at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Monday, Sept. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/C. Rex Arbogast) Bolstered by emergency help from the Minnesota National Guard,
police in St. Paul arrested 284 people Monday after outbreaks of
violence and road obstructions linked to rogue bands of demonstrators
among an otherwise peaceful throng estimated at 10,000 people.
The demonstrations, on a steamy first day of the Republican National Convention, began with block after block of marchers -- far fewer than the 50,000 some had predicted -- chanting and peacefully waving signs on downtown St. Paul's narrow streets. As the day wore on, the carnival atmosphere turned ugly.
Before most of the demonstrators had finished their march, a few hundred protesters splintered off and became confrontational and sometimes violent. Some smashed windows at Macy's and a downtown bank building. Others challenged police by blocking roads.
Late Monday, authorities said 130 of the 284 people arrested may face felony charges. Dozens were pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed. One police officer was punched in the back and another suffered from heat exhaustion. St. Paul emergency rooms reported nine minor injuries and several heat-related cases.
Hundreds of police officers, sweltering in heavy riot gear, swept in to block streets and protect delegate buses. About 3 p.m., St. Paul police requested help from 150 National Guard troops.
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said officers showed restraint as a small number of law-breaking demonstrators marred an otherwise peaceful day of free speech.
"Their efforts were nothing short of heroic," Coleman said. "They did not fail. They did not take the bait."
But observers from the National Lawyers Guild took issue with police action.
"We think it's unconscionable. We think it's out of control," said Gina Berglund, an attorney and legal observer coordinator for the guild's Minnesota chapter. "The response by the police was completely out of proportion with what they were faced with."
- Posted in
154 Comments so far
Show AllAmy Goodman's arrest was deliberate. She's exactly the type of journalist that Democrats and Republicans can't stand and very dangerous. Goodman tells her wide audience on a daily basis that we have a one-party fascist state in the US today.
She must be silenced.
"a few hundred protesters splintered off and became confrontational and sometimes violent. Some smashed windows at Macy's and a downtown bank building. Others challenged police by blocking roads."
I see.
Any bets there were government agent provocateurs in those 'few hundred' who started smashing things?
Afterall, we didn't see anything like this happen at the DNC in Denver. At least I don't recall hearing any reports of vandalism or damage. Not that I'm saying the folks running the DNC are saints. Not by a long shot.
Walk in peace.
That would be a pretty sure bet.
Maybe like these guys?
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/spp_montebello_canadian_police_caught_stage_riots.htm
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Or perhaps they were our favorite anarchists who can't seem to say something without smashing a window.
Galen:
After the predictions you made for New Orleans, I'll take that bet. There were no agent provocateurs in that group of thugs. Double or nothing?
Sure, vandals should be punished. But pre-emptively raiding houses where protesters are gathering - and arresting law-abiding journalists - are blatantly unconstitutional acts.
"But pre-emptively raiding houses where protesters are gathering - and arresting law-abiding journalists - are blatantly unconstitutional acts."
Unless there is evidence of conspiracy, or if the journalist is actually commiting a violation.
Those journalists. Always conspiring.
Joe
"Those journalists. Always conspiring."
Sometimes.
When?
Evidence or examples must come from outside of your mind for arguments based on them to be valid.
I would cite the current case. Goodman is an experienced journalist. As such, she is being disengenuous that this policeman on the street has any capacity or obligation to answer questions on the status of her colleagues. For that she should head down to the station.
Yes, I just looked at the video. I think she intended to get arrested, and is disengenuous pretending she did not. They told her multiple times to go to the sidewalk and she refused. And that arrest was *not* "violent" IMO. Those cops handled the situation well.
Again you go pounding "your frame" away.
You want to isolate Amy's actions, AS IF they were independent of the two previous arrests of HER employees -- production assistants ( reporters ) -- who were OBVIOUSLY under her direction to investigate and report exactly where they were doing it.
The context of the interactions is part of the web of truth involved, and your blind wall between the two tightly interconnected events is -- JUST SADLT mistaken.
Namaste
Since when is conspiring to commit an act of journalism a crime?
Evidence of a conspiracy to exercise First Amendment rights? Committing a violation by exercising First Amendment? What?
Assuming your question has any relationship with reality (which it doesn't), how do you think law enforcement would have secured such evidence? (Answer: by infringing First and/or Fourth Amendments rights.)
It is grossly irresponsible to presume the legitimacy of police conduct or to assume citizens engaging in political activity are criminals.
Not if they obtained a search warrant and their search uncovered evidence if plans to commit illegal acts. Just playing devils advocate. My understanding is they obtained a search warrant. Of course, if the basis for the seach warrant was from wiretapping or intercepting emails without probable cause, that might be an issue, but Obama of course got that FISA bill passed, didn't he.
And Amy Goodman is a controlled dissident. She does not cross the line, so is acceptable. Not saying she is a bad person, just that she knows where to stop. She gets arrested, treated nice I am sure, and her supporters get in an uproar. Entertainment. The whole thing is a show. Maybe thats why the TV writers went on strike, so they could write the script for 2008.
As long as the police arrest demonstrators in front of cameras we need not worry too much.
I don't understand why they don't use their own cameras, take the film back to the station, identify every demonstrator, and quietly 'disappear' them at two o'clock the next morning.
Maybe they haven't thought of it. Brains were never their strong suit.
I would be surprised if none of the video was destroyed.
Some may say its time for a revolution........
I contacted the Obama camp and I demanded his comments of this issue and Amy Goodman's arrest. A free-press in this country is our claim to democracy. Or is it?
While a free press is vital to the survival of democracy, so too is the matter of choice. While there are some major diff's between the pukes and the dims, it's the diff between an ultra right wing party and a right wing party.
Should you want to keep your claim to being a democracy you should also look at the issue of electoral integraty; one should be able to register to vote at the voting place; one's vote should be on paper; one's vote should be counted.
As for the article, I have no doubt that the instigators of the violence were the cops, or members of the puke party, acting as agents provacateurs. I am surprised that the article didn't damn all of the protesters for the actions of the 'violent few'.
rosie2731
And we are trying to teach our children and grandchildren that the police are our "friends" and "protectors"?
I don't think so!
"Amy Goodman's arrest was deliberate. She's exactly the type of journalist that Democrats and Republicans can't stand and very dangerous. Goodman tells her wide audience on a daily basis that we have a one-party fascist state in the US today.
She must be silenced."
Spoken like a true fascist.
Oregoncharles
Huh?
Any violence is unfortunate and trumps the reporting of a beautiful, peaceful, inspiring antiwar march. i was there, taking part as a proud citizen of the U.S.A., excercising my constitutionaly protected right of free speech. i will say this: we all better get our soft butts out there and peacefully excercise those rights because they are being eroded by the rising police state. many of the preemptive raids on private homes were done without warrants and with guns drawn. time to boot down the lap top and get the hell out in the streets of your town!
Thank you for being there and excercising our diminishing constitutionaly protected rights. Police are sworn to uphold the constitution. I would be bewildered by their behavior if not for the lessons of World history.
When we were in the process of getting an anti-"PATRIOT" resolution passed locally, the FBI sent out a representative to try to cut us off at the pass. He started out very polite and personable. Unfortunately, his sole point of argument was that they had "a job to do" and the "PATRIOT" Act was designed to help them do it. He was like a clod of soil or dead meat in his understanding of the Bill of Rights. I'm sure he had taken an oath to defend the Constitution, but he didn't have a clue of what it contained or that it had to do with real life. No matter how many of us pointed out the unconstitutionality of the "PATRIOT" Act, he always came back to "we have a job to do". That was it.
He became more and more sullen as the meeting went on (particularly as a number of participants in the meeting identified themselves as "anarchists") and when he left he was steaming. It was kind of funny in a sick kind of way. I'm sure he had it in for us after that. But our resolution passed and the local police are directed to adhere to their oaths of office in all cases and in any conflict with the "PATRIOT" Act.
Incidentally, I get the cop thing and have had a share of run-ins, but my father was a cop in Southern California in the '50's. He mostly dealt with drunks, burglaries, and family spats with an occasional murder or stint at the Rose Bowl. He was not a fascist and was a big FDR supporter and union man. He cheered on the civil rights movement. But, the police force has always attracted goons. Remember the movie LA Confidential? Well, LA in the '50's was a lot like that. My father protested the treatment of Hispanics by the police force and was shunned and threatened as a result. He quit the force and we moved to Colorado where he ran a feed and supply store, and I was fortunate enough to spend much of my early life in the beautiful Rockies before moving to the San Francisco bay area in '67.
I'm going off on a tangent, but I mean to say the power of "we have a job to do" to cut off thinking is strong. I read an interview with one of the mass murderers in El Salvador some time ago. You guessed it. "We had a job to do."
Stange coincidence-- I'm reading Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew too Much", a bio of one of the spooks involved with Lee Harvey Oswald and JFK's assassination plot.
Just last night I got to a part where the author is interviewing an ex-CIA spook in 1990 or so-- can't remember his name at the moment. This guy was in charge of a crew of serious "operators": saboteurs, snipers, hit men. At one point he informs the author that he personally hit Rafael Trujillo, the strongman of the Dominican Republic.
But the coincidence is that he tells the author that anyone who claims they do that kind of work for God and country and apple pie is full of crap. It's about getting a job done, and staying alive while you do it. Period.
This fits right in with your comment, I think.
Yes. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.
Remember when we first invaded Iraq, there were all those soldiers who said, "I don't particularly want to be here, but I have a job to do." Generals were saying, "We'll get the job done."
"You know what you have to do. Lets' roll."
It is comforting to shut out complications and it is a primary characteristic of fascism as has often been pointed out...the "bureacratic" nature of totalitarianism.
It is a stratum that feeds our decline and it is clear and present.
sierra7
This is my latest letter to editor written days before the Democrat convention to a regional paper: (Just as applicable to the Rebup one)
"Forty years ago at another political convention in Chicago, anti-war protestors took to the streets to protest an illegal war brought on the American and Vietnamese people by a multitude of lies. Forty years later in the streets of Denver, anti-war protesters took to the streets protesting an illegal war brought on the American and Iraqi people by another criminal administration by a multitude of lies.
Have we not learned anything in the ensuing forty years? Apparently those politicians responsible for those lies have learned how to take the streets back from the protesters. “Free Speech” zones (behind chain link fences) and police armed enough to the teeth to beat anyone to a pulp. Reminds me of our armed forces with all the technology beating down some third world country (Like we perceive Iraq to be) that is armed in a “third class fashion.”
We have Obama with a “choice of wars,” and McCain for war seemingly in perpetuity. We have both Obama and McCain increasing the already obscenely bloated war budget while our social infrastructure from health care, education, clean energy are rated as ordinary Americans, second class citizens.
We have learned nothing in those forty years."
I wrote a more lengthy one to a local paper regarding the last signing of the FISA bill.....
Write letters, speak to your neighbors and exercise your rights of free speech and assembly...
sierra7
Are these police or Black Water types? This does not make sense that these people should be treated so brutally and with such malice. This is not good police work.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/02-0
Why are we NOT able to comment on the above story?
AMY GOODMAN & PRODUCERS RELEASED AFTER ILLEGAL RNC ARREST
Published on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 by Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC
I wondered about that too.
Oh... I guess you noticed already; comments are now available on this story.
Being "out of control" and violent--ISN'T THAT THE POINT? That way YOU know how to STAY HOME where it's SAFE.
If the German police had thumped Hitler's Brownshirt "protesters" more back in the early 1920's, the world would be a far better place. These "rogues" are no better; the convention is just an excuse to break bottles and fight the police. Smash them.
Huh?
Are you that uneducated or just stupid? Go to night school, study history and civics then get back to me!
The name seems "trollish" to me.
The only way to deal with trolls and other fairy-tale creatures is to ignore them, then they go away.
Damn, why is it that those with names like this always spurn the truth and attempt to make complicated issues quite simplistic...go away and let the adults converse.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
As someone who had the misfortune to get caught up in several anti-punk rock police riots in Southern California during the 80's (all of which the news media parroted the police line, unless they actually happened to be there), I treat any report of American "police restraint" with extreme wariness. Now the enemies the police choose to riot on has moved on to hip-hop fans and political opponents the likes of Amy Goodman. In fact, the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles featured the LAPD using tear gas and batons on the crowd while Ozomatli & Rage Against the Machine played in the fenced off "protest zone." The tear gas actually managed to waft its way to the Staples Center; System of a Down wrote a song about it, "Deer Dance" (its' the third song on Toxicity).
The MSP StarTribune has a picture of idiots trashing a department store in my favorite city of St. Paul. St. Paul is one of the most liberal cities in the country so why are left wing anarchists trashing it? Many leftists aren't even adult enough to show their faces behind their masks. Leftists need to grow up.
yes lefties, you are making quite an impression here in the liberal Twin Cities. It will make more people here vote Republican.
I hear some of you outsiders don't even know there is a difference between Minneapolis and St. Paul. LOL!!
go away.
It wouldn't surprise me if your "lefties" are police dressed to wreck havoc. It's a favorite tactic of the police state. It wouldn't be the first time.
"It wouldn't surprise me if your "lefties" are police dressed to wreck havoc. It's a favorite tactic of the police state. "
Can you cite an example of this?
Try doing something about injustice sometime and you will find your own examples.
Joe
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070824/Montebello_undercover_070824/20070824
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/090700-01.htm
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/08/26/youtube-clip-reveals-undercover-police-officers-joined-protest-demonstration/
http://www.privacylives.com/aclu-maryland-lawsuit-uncovers-maryland-state-police-spying-against-peace-and-anti-death-penalty-groups/2008/07/18/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion/25infiltrate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/373539.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,926417,00.html
I already know that the police sometimes infiltrate protest groups. Not one of those pages show an example of police commiting violent and destructive acts while acting as protesters. That's what I asked for in case it wasn't clear.
Oh,
I see, you mean there are few examples of the police holding and charging their own agents, so that means they are only acting as "psychological" provocation on the other side to cause those already obviosly violent people to do violent things....
What the hell? It takes all kinds!