RNC Notes by Larry McDonough

The St. Paul mayor and police chief, and Ramsey County sheriff describe a street war between police and violent outsiders during the week of the Republican National Convention. I have no doubt that they believe this to be true, but just like with weapons of mass destruction, the beliefs and repeated statements by government leaders do not make it so.

As a National Lawyers Guild legal observer and photographer, working long shifts on Monday and Thursday, and attending two raids over the prior weekend, I saw a completely different scene. I observed thousands of peaceful protesters and a few acts of peaceful civil disobedience. I saw no violence on the part of protesters, and saw evidence of just a handful of acts of property destruction.

On the other hand, I witnessed countless acts of police violence against peaceful protesters, and arrests of bystanders, observers and reporters. I carried no weapons and no signs, did not engage in any protests, and followed all police orders. All I had was a camera and bag with lens. Still,

I was threatened with arrest several times.

Monday

September 1, 2008

It is too bad that news coverage of the

peaceful march on Monday is being

obscured by coverage of violent acts by

a small number of people not connected

with the march. While I was disappointed

in the violence, I am even more

disappointed in the law enforcement

response.

I saw the police, looking like Star Wars

Imperial Storm Troupers, perhaps 100

strong, with automatic weapons, tear

gas and pepper spray, move in on

around 30 young men and women who

were marching on Kellogg without a

permit. While patience might have

allowed the group to do its thing and

move on, the response was to gas,

spray and arrest. I was unscathed,

other than some spray and gas blown

around by the wind, and some glass

scratches from lying down to take

some pics.

I saw a young thin man who peacefully

stood in the way of the police, pinned to

the ground by several larger officers for

at least 10 minutes, even though he

showed no signs of resisting, and when

they picked him up, he was scratched

and bruised, drooling, and incoherent.

He waited 20 minutes for a medical team.

The Prior Weekend

Even worse, I observed two raids over the

weekend that were complete overkill.

While police may have had some grounds

for some of its actions over the weekend,

these two did not. One was on Iglehart on

Saturday, where the handcuff detention of

search of a house full of independent

journalists led to no criminal activity.

Then early Monday morning, my

neighbors called at 2:00 am to say

police were outside their house,

where they were hosting some young

marchers from Iowa. The family and

their guests are pacifists. The guests

arrived that evening, and other neighbors

called the police when they saw someone

under the car with a package. The family

and guests were in the house at the time,

so it was not one of them. The person ran away when the neighbors came out of

their house.

The police came out and saw a gas mask in the back seat, as the Iowa guests had heard that the police would have tear gas and pepper spray at the marches. The police called in the bomb squad, leading them to block off the street and briefly evacuate some houses. After searching the car and breaking the window and

finding no criminal evidence, the police impounded the man’s grandfather’s car

because of the broken window. The person under the car and the package

were not found. The parents, who are not conspiracy theorists, wonder if the

person was with the police, perhaps trying to attach the global positioning

satellite devise to the car.

Thursday

September 4, 2008

I volunteered again in the afternoon, first interviewing people released from

jail on their treatment. One man was the first to be arrested on Monday,

John Doe #1. Part of his incarceration was in solitary, but he was in good spirits.

Another man showed me taser marks on his abdomen from his arrest on

Tuesday. He still was disoriented, so his girl friend helped with the interview.

I then was called to accompany 10

people going to a meeting with the

mayor’s staff over concerns about police

actions during the week and the march

permit for the evening. They all went

through mental detectors, and had no

weapons. While there, about 20 riot

sheriffs came and waited in the hallway.

At 5:00, the police blocked the previously

permitted march route down Cedar

Avenue with riot police and dump trucks,

and ordered spectators and

photographers like myself off of the

bridge or face arrest. I have heard

conflicting accounts on whether the

permit expired at 5:00, or whether it was

revoked.

I then learned that the marchers would try

John Ireland Blvd, so I went there to find

that route blocked by the police

(meaning mixture of police, sheriffs, state

Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, national

guard, and feds) as well. I took some nice

pics of the police blockade of the marchers

with the capital building in the background.

Fitting.

I left the standoff to pick up my daughter

Rosie from the Jewish Community

Center (JCC) after school teen center,

and dropped her with my neighbors,

whose guest’s car was impounded

over the weekend. I know, I should

not leave Rosie with such enemies of

the state.

I returned to the standoff, which went on

for sometime. I took some pics of the

Ramsey County sheriff joking with his

friends. Then the march moved to the

nearby Sears parking lot, with the police

in chase by foot, car, bike, and horse.

The police began shooting compression

bombs and gas, which broke up most

of the crowd. The police selected

some marchers to chase down

and arrest, one of which I photographed

when he was pinned to the ground.

They then cornered remaining marchers

on the Marian Street bridge, and brought

in busses to take them to jail.

Several times police would tell us

bystanders and photographers to move

from one vantage point to another, and

threaten arrest if we did not move fast

enough. It often was hard to tell where to

go to avoid arrest. I did not get arrested,

and the gas fumes did not reach me this

time, but there were several close calls.

There were hundreds of officers involved,

and the whole confrontation went on

for 6 hours.

Thoughts.

This was quite a week. I think the city

and police could have avoided most

of the confrontations by being more

liberal in granting march permits, and

picking battles over control more

rationally. Downtown St. Paul streets

are quiet in the evenings on normal

days, and also during the RNC because

many of the locals were avoiding the

area because of how the convention

divided the downtown. Allowing more marches to go through would not have stopped anything.

The overwhelming majority of marchers stayed completely within the law. A smaller number of marchers did not, but still engaged in nothing more that peaceful civil disobedience by not following all of the rules get by the city and directives of the police. They had much in common with the lunch counter sit-ins and civil rights marchers in the 1960s segregated South.

City and police officials have stood behind police actions as a response to outside violent agitators, unfortunately reminiscent of the claims of Bull Connor and the white Southern power structure in the 60s. Just as back then, the tiny violent minority was a justification for violent police actions against the peaceful majority. All of the detentions and arrests I witnesses were peaceful marchers, bystanders, legal observers, medics, and the press.

Not all of the police acted without restraint. While several of the riot police threatened me with arrest if I did not follow their directions fast enough, some of the regular police officers respected our rights. When the riot police ordered marchers to disperse and some did not leave fast enough, I observed bicycle police chasing a marcher who was trying the leave the area. I gave chase to photograph the arrest and came across a police officer and asked if I could follow, and he said yes.

While those who committed crimes of violence should expect arrest and prosecution, those who did not should not. I have been in Downtown St. Paul on St. Patrick’s Day, and I have witnesses more illegal activity then than I witnessed during the RNC marches. Regretfully, the police viewed almost everyone was a suspect. They saw shadows everywhere, and connected dots which had nothing to do with each other.

I have heard officials say that detaining and arresting bystanders, observers and reporters was justified because it was hard to tell who were the “trouble makers” and who were not. It is sad to think that in the country which tells the world that freedom and freedom to assemble and speak are some of the most important rights, people have to prove their innocence to avoid arrest when exercising these rights.

There is a good chance that police or sheriffs from around Minnesota and other states were part of this, as well as state and federal officers. I am sure that any comments to relevant government officials about conduct of law enforcement would be useful.

Bureau of Criminal Apprehension

1430 Maryland Ave. East

St. Paul, MN 55106

651-793-7000

http://www.bca.state.mn.us/bca.asp

For those of you in cities and counties outside of St. Paul and Minneapolis, go to http://www.state.mn.us/cgi-bin/portal/mn/jsp/content.do?subchannel=-536879913&id=-8494&agency=NorthStar

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For those in St. Paul, you can contact:

Mayor Chris Coleman

390 City Hall

15 W. Kellogg Blvd.

Saint Paul, MN 55102