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Technorati250 protesters arrested, including Amy Goodman
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL - Police used pepper spray and tear gas to quell breakaway demonstrators from an otherwise peaceful anti-war demonstration Monday outside the Republican National Convention, after the splinter groups smashed department store and police car windows.
![[Police officers spray pepper spray at a group of protesters during an anti-war rally at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Monday, Sept. 1, 2008. (Matt Rourke / AP) ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/rncprotest.jpg "rncprotest.jpg")
More than 250 people were arrested - including Amy Goodman, host of the nationally broadcast television and radio program "Democracy Now"- as police clashed with roaming groups of protesters. Goodman was later released, and she was among those cited for various misdemeanors.
More than 2,000 federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, many in full riot gear, lined the parade route to keep the estimated 10,000 marchers from straying from their permitted march. Later in the day, police motorcycles escorted buses carrying convention delegates to and from the Xcel Energy Center, as police shut down large sections of downtown.
Earlier Monday, several groups of demonstrators - many who identified themselves as anarchists and covered their faces with bandanas - broke from the main march. They set a fire in a garbage Dumpster, damaged five police squad cars and smashed three giant display windows at a Macy's department store, police said. Store spokeswoman Jennifer McNamara said the store will increase security for the rest of the week in response to the vandalism.
Activists and civil rights organizations had criticized police for a series of pre-emptive raids on Friday and Saturday on the homes of suspected demonstration organizers and at the meeting place for the "RNC Welcoming Committee," an umbrella organization of dozens of activist groups and individuals from around the country. It has been planning convention demonstrations for over a year.
Police seized several laptop computers, digital cameras, schedules and 7,000 "welcoming guides" organizers planned to distribute to people coming to the Twin Cities for demonstrations. They also seized several gallons of urine and various tools activists use to link themselves together during protests.
"It wasn't chilling enough," said St. Paul Police Department spokesman Tom Walsh. "We had probable cause. We had obtained information in advance that some of these groups, maybe 10 or 12 of them, were planning to cause disruption and destruction. For us not to act on that would have been irresponsible.
"It made today less violent because of the action we took," Walsh said.
Asked whether law enforcement used undercover infiltrators to obtain information on the suspected demonstrators, Walsh said "that's an irresponsible question" and declined to answer.
"Certainly there were troublemakers (Monday), and they deserved to be arrested," said Teresa Nelson, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota. "But we're very troubled that the police were using heavy-handed tactics. We heard reports from people who were listening to music in the park and who were surrounded and detained."
Nelson's organization will be in court today to try to regain some of the material seized in the raids. "That is constitutionally protected material," she said.
The vast majority of the participants in Monday's demonstration were peaceful. They filled the lawn outside the Minnesota state capitol building and listened to speeches at an 11 a.m. rally before marching roughly 20 blocks to the Xcel Center. In addition to the smattering of Socialists and supporters of a variety of left-wing causes, the majority of participants were local families and college students spending their Labor Day holiday protesting the GOP and the Iraq war.
"I'm here to be a part of history," said Marisha Weihe, a 38-year-old restaurant manager who rallied with her mother and 7- and 16-year-old sons. "It's good to be out here with people who feel the same way. Yeah, you can send e-mails to each other, but it feels good to physically be present."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
12 Comments so far
Show AllI heard that they are now using CONCUSSION GRENADES. This must stop. These are American citizens, and this is my country. If this is not stopped now, and a deafening silence remains…we are then leaving the door open for a more dangerous, unnecessary and unconstitutional use of excessive force.
Like ants coming through the crack in the wall, if this is not squashed now, a beachhead will have been established and precedent will have been set. There will be no strength of authority left to change this lawlessness of a government out of control.
UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
AMENDMENT l
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.
"Certainly there were troublemakers (Monday), and they deserved to be arrested"
Most Repuk party members are troublemakers and deserve to be arrested. Most supported the Conquest of Iraq. One million dead Iraqis. Four million displaced. Another four million seriously injured? At least twenty million suffering a dead/injured relative. All 25 million Iraqis traumatized by war. All 25 million Iraqis exposed to depleted uranium and other war poisons. All 25 million Iraqis expose to the threat of losing their natural resources to western corporations. All 25 million Iraqis affected by either persistent 50% unemployment, inadequate sanitation and utilities, ethnic segregation, walls/checkpoint delays, etc, or all of the above.
The San Francisco Chronicle found the need to jab at "socialists and leftists" by describing the makeup of the attendees as EITHER leftists OR "families and college students".
Apparently in the SF Chronicle's view there cannot be leftist families. There cannot be leftist students. So is San Francisco losing its leftist credentials at a time when the planet is undergoing a major left shift?
The people that live here, in St. Paul, were already tired of the RNC before it even began. Our sweet little town has been taken over; the streets, businesses and peace of this city are under the total control of the machine. It's common knowledge that the police both in Minneapolis and St. Paul are uneducated thugs just waiting for an opportunity to mess with some one. This is clearly an opportunity to do so, with our government's blessing it seems. I wonder who, what individual, actually gave the police drones the "go ahead". Who's scheme was this? I understand the ACLU is sending help. I hope they can. All the people who lost their freedom and had their lives suspended for these 3 days deserve to have some purpose for their loss. Kudos to Amy for having the presence of mind under pressure to handle the situation. We need more of her.
Paul Siemering
one more reason to love Amy
Arresting people who are breaking windows and accosting people is a no-brainer. The anarchists are idiots.
But arresting reporters and photographers, that is another matter. Go to Democracy Now website for a full report on the chilling crackdown on the Press.
By the way, what are they thinking? If the press showed pictures of violent protesters, it might make the case for the excessive police force, but thugs aren't especially known for brains. Especially when a camera and press pass constitute inciting a riot, deserving of, should we say, "enhanced" arresting techniques by uniformed thugs (who don't give their names to the victims, the press or even the local police). Freedom of the Press anyone?
Who are they?
Secret Service? SS? Blackwater?
Of course this is after arresting some peaceful. (some perhaps not) groups in their homes, taking their literature, computers etc. Freedom of Speech anyone?
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary...
...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...
Corporations own the Government. Should we not expect that some are driven to violence?
Seriously people can't the anarchists say ANYTHING with smashing or breaking something. It becomes obvious that their parents didn't teach them even the most basic of manners and concern for property. They act with almost as little regard as the police they bitch about.
Get real and grow up. Bunch of faux Weather Underground wannabes.
p.s. If they're agents provocateurs then stop defending them.
Why didn't the other protesters prevent these "anarchists" from splitting off and smashing up the stupid Macy's?
Obviously coercive force would be off the table, but did they even try persuasion?
Its crap like this -however truly minimal or justified- that allows the propaganda machine to obscure the entire event and form it into the set story of "violent street protest/riot VS. brave police keeping the peace".
It won't matter how few these fake-anarchists were. It won't matter how little property was actually harmed. It won't even matter if objective reporters repeat over and over again how few "violent" people there were and how little they did.
It is the pictures that matter. The pictures are what people have blasted into their brains by the cathode-ray gun. And the pictures -the video loop- will show, over and over, the same footage of some masked kid smashing a window, or some brownshirt of a cop visciously macing some poor girl, and the People will get the message.
They will think they know what happened and why, and the will understand -get out of line like these people and you'll pay.
Easier to go back to sleep, easier to continue the work-consumption cycle and attempt to find joy in the hollow, inhuman, experiences that it offers.
Free, Self-determining, and actively opinioning Humans will be crushed, so the images say. All who fight the system of Power are masked Thugs who would gladly destroy your hard-earned wealth and property, why would you join them?
No, say the pictures, don't be such a fool. Turn off your mind and turn on your television, watch Jay Leno in bed, drift off to the relaxing sounds of the round World being flattened for your consumption, like the pre-digested meal of a baby bird.
Go to sleep and prepare for work tomorrow, you have a long commute ahead of you, and your boss is riding your ass, and you have to get off early to hit the mall before the traffic gets too bad. The kids need their "back to school" wardrobes -or so the TV told them, and so they told you.
Go to sleep, and fear no Tumult, fear no Terror, fear no drift into a fascist State.
You are all ready there, only the Fascists can save you from Terror, only the Fascists can sheild you from Tumult.
Go to sleep.
Have Fun,
-matti.
Asked whether law enforcement used undercover infiltrators to obtain information on the suspected demonstrators, Walsh said "that's an irresponsible question" and declined to answer.
...Get fucked, Mr. Walsh.
"It made today less violent because of the action we took," Walsh said.
Yes, it is important to preemptively fight the protesters in their homes so that we do not need to fight them on the street.
Where have I heard that mantra before?