Police State In Republican Convention City (with video)
Rob Kall
Don't bother looking for this story on the front pages of the NY Times, Washington Post, Guardian or Wall Street Journal. Gestapo police state tactics apparently don't interest them.
For months, people most would describe as tinfoil hat wearers have been predicting the cancellation of the November 4th election. And gun ownership supporters have been fighting for their right to bear arms to protect themselves from a police state. Are they crazy?
There's something coming down in Minneapolis-St. Paul that looks very menacing-- real "Can't Happen Here" fascist, gestapo tactics that look they are coordinated from on high-- with FBI and Homeland Security participation.
Preventive strike forces by police have invaded homes of people planning protests, or even planning to protect protesters by video-taping police. The victims of these raids have been forced to lie face down on the floor, have been handcuffed, and then their computers, records and some money has been taken from them. This frightening abuse of constitutional rights has been done using vague claims that the police are preventing riots. Here's what Glen Greenwald reports:
Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.
Several of those who were arrested are being represented by Bruce Nestor, the President of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild. Nestor said that last night's raid involved a meeting of a group calling itself the "RNC Welcoming Committee", and that this morning's raids appeared to target members of "Food Not Bombs," which he described as an anti-war, anti-authoritarian protest group. There was not a single act of violence or illegality that has taken place, Nestor said. Instead, the raids were purely anticipatory in nature, and clearly designed to frighten people contemplating taking part in any unauthorized protests.
Nestor indicated that only 2 or 3 of the 50 individuals who were handcuffed this morning at the 2 houses were actually arrested and charged with a crime, and the crime they were charged with is "conspiracy to commit riot."
Greenwald updates his report, describing what a Democracy Now reported:
Live from the I-Witness Video Residence
This is Eileen Clancy, one of the founders of I-Witness Video, a NYC-based video collective that's in St. Paul to document the policing of the protests around this week's Republican National Convention.
The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16.
We are suffering a preemptive video arrest. For those that don't know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004 success.
We are asking the public to contact the office of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman at 651-266-8510 to stop this house arrest, this gross intimidation by police officers, and the detention of media activists and reporters.
That report was followed by this one:
Some Released: Some DetainedLive from the I-Witness Video Residence
This is Eileen. The house raid is over. We have been released from our cuffs and the police have left our house. Our belongings were searched. But we have not inventoried them so we do not yet know yet if something is missing.
5 other I-Witness Video folks were detained, both on bicycles and in a rental car. Moments ago, I heard that 3 were released. We do not know the status of the other 2.
Please keep phoning the St. Paul Mayor's office. Many thanks for your calls and ongoing support.
I will write later.
The New York Times reported, in an article on Saturday, titled,
Dozens Detained Ahead of ConventionST. PAUL, Minn. — On the weekend before the Republican National Convention, law enforcement agencies detained dozens of people and issued a series of search warrants aimed at groups believed to be organizing demonstrations while delegates and Republican officials are in town. On Friday night the Ramsey County sheriff's department, accompanied by the St. Paul police, detained people inside a building here that was being used as a headquarters to plan protests.
“They handcuffed all of us,” said Sonia Silbert, 28, from Washington. “They searched everyone.”
People who had been in the building said that officers entered shortly after 8:30 p.m. with a warrant and instructed them to lie on the ground, adding that they had been questioned and photographed before being released.
Jordan Kushner, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, said the two-story brick building had been rented by a nonprofit organization and was being used by several groups planning protests.
People who had been inside said teach-ins and legal training had been conducted there, and that the space was also a repository for such items as computers and bicycles.
The R.N.C. Welcoming Committee, a group that has said it wants to block roads during the convention, issued a statement Friday night that was read aloud outside the meeting place by a woman who identified herself as Sarah Coffey.
Ms. Coffey said that the officers, citing fire violations as the reason for their visit, “detained over 50 people in an attempt to pre-empt planned protests.”
The sheriff's department continued the sweeps on Saturday morning, executing warrants for three houses in Minneapolis and two in St. Paul, detaining more than 50 people and arresting 4.
A copy of a warrant at one house said the police were authorized to look for a laundry list of items, including fire bombs, Molotov cocktails, brake fluid, photographs and maps of St. Paul, paint, computers and camera equipment, and documents and other communications.
Residents of the houses where the warrants were served denied having any unlawful or dangerous materials.
A report by Minnesota Independent indicates:
The RNC Welcoming Committee issued a press release noting that four individuals were arrested in the raids: Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Nathanael Secor. The press release also notes that “Search warrants for 2 of the 3 raided houses listed only one name apiece, each of individuals not present at the houses and, thus, not arrested.”
Here are some responses from the Minnesota Independent site's commenters:
jhonny Welcome to the new fascist america. Check your civil liberties at the door please. Americans are now being treated exactly as the Iraqi people have been by our contracters and military. The next step is for the govt. to start contracting these raids out to NGO's like Blackwater. They will of course have sweeping powers far beyond our police forces and when deaths occur (and they will) the whole establishment media and pundit class will rally around the killers blaming the victims for having the audacity to challenge the STATE.
pat "This is America, come out with your hands up"
The last thing heard from the Philadelphia Police Commissioner, Gregore Sambor, by the Philadelphia political non-conformist group MOVE in 1985 before the police fired 10,000 rounds into the home killing 11 including 5 children and then burning down 61 urban homes to cover their actions.
Don't ever forget, because this is America:
"This is America, come out with your hands up"
"This is America, come out with your hands up"
"This is America, come out with your hands up"
"This is America, come out with your hands up"
"This is America, come out with your hands up"
Firedoglake.com is giving this story excellent coverage:
The History of Breaking Up Protests Before They Can Happen, How Cops Have Spent Years Squashing the Right to Assembly and Free Speech Today in the Twin Cities and last week in Denver—just as in New York and Boston in 2004 and LA and Philly in 2000—the nominating conventions pageants' "law" enforcement sit below the Department of the Treasury's Secret Service in the power pyramid. That's why every time local citizens and demo organizers go to Federal court to beg for some shard of the First Amendment to cover a "permitted" march route near the convention sites, their attorneys end up hearing the Secret Service has the final say in "security" decisions affecting the conventions. No surprise, then, that when local Twin Cities "law" enforcement went on a round-up rampage today, FBI and Fatherland Homeland Security were right there with the locals for (yet another) warrantless search.
RNC Stasi Sweeps: A Bob Fletcher Special?
When word first hit about the raids committed by uniformed officers against various sites in Minneapolis and St. Paul, it was really bizarre and confusing. Why were the cops staging raids against people like Food Not Bombs? Why did they shut down the RNC Convergence Center and take all their computer gear? What the hell were Ramsey County sheriff's department people doing invading houses in Hennepin-fricking-County?
That last question, as it turns out, helps to answer some of the others.
Bob Fletcher is the sheriff of Ramsey County. Bob Fletcher is a Republican from the formerly lily-white St. Paul suburb of Maplewood, which has for decades had an uneasy relationship with its southern neighbor. Bob Fletcher is also on the verge of losing his job, as a long-standing FBI corruption probe that has already taken out two of his buddies is drawing its net around him; he may well feel that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using extralegal methods to please his RNC pals.
Sheriff Fletcher justified his tactics by amping up the alleged threat posed by the media groups and protesters whose lodgings were invaded:
In a statement Saturday morning, Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said the St. Paul raid targeted the RNC Welcoming Committee, a group he described as "a criminal enterprise made up of 35 self-described anarchists...intent on committing criminal acts before and during the Republican National Convention."
"These acts include tactics to blockade and disable delegate buses, breaching venue security and injuring police officers," Fletcher said. Deputies seized a variety of items that they believed were tools of civil disobedience: a gas mask, bolt cutters, axes, slingshots, homemade "caltrops" for disabling buses, even buckets of urine.
Some folks begged to differ:
But the raids drew immediate condemnation from activists and St. Paul City Councilman Dave Thune, whose district includes the former theater at 627 Smith Avenue South, which was rented by activists as a gathering space.
"This is not the way to start things off," Thune said Saturday morning. "This is sending the wrong message. Regardless of how you feel about these people...they had a right to be there."
[...]
Thune was especially critical of Fletcher for taking action within St. Paul city limits.
"I'm really ticked off...the city is perfectly capable of taking care of things," Thune said. "If they had found anything that could have been used to commit a crime they would have arrested somebody."
Said Thune: "Unless they come up with anthrax or weapons of mass destruction, I think they came up short."
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out this article.
and there are Rob's quotes, here. To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
My radio show, The Rob Kall Show, runs 9-10 PM EST Wednesday evenings, on AM 1360, WNJC and is archived on www.whiterosesociety.org Or listen to it streaming, live at either www.wnjc1360.com or here.
Or check the archived interviews at: whiterosesociety.org
www.opednews.com/articles/Police-State-In-Republican-by-Rob-Kall-080831-839.html