Thursday, September 4, 2008

LiveWire - Breaking news from the streets (Twin Cities Indymedia)

Sep 4, 2008 11:51 am US/Central

Antiwar March Planned For Last Day Of RNC

ST. PAUL (AP) ― As John McCain accepts his party's presidential nomination Thursday night, protesters calling for an end to the Iraq war plan to march outside the Xcel Energy Center.

The Anti-War Committee, which is organizing Thursday's march, urged others to join in and denounced the increased presence of police in riot gear and acts of "intimidation" in the streets of St. Paul.

Tracy Molm, a member of Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota, urged students to get involved.

"Students in this country are angry. We're angry because it's us that are asked to fight and die in this immoral and unjust war," Molm said Wednesday. "Bring that anger to the streets, because that is how social change in this country happens."

St. Paul police Chief John Harrington told high school and college students to ignore calls to walk out of school Thursday to protest the Republican National Convention.

He said his department is in contact with school administrators to discourage a walkout and is prepared to respond if one happens.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty blamed the violence this week on a small group of "anarchists, nihilists, and goofballs who want to break stuff and hurt people."

"They need to be dealt with," Pawlenty said in an interview with WCCO-AM of Minneapolis. "When you want to break stuff and hurt people, you can't do that."

Police arrested 102 protesters in downtown Minneapolis early Thursday after a concert by the rock group Rage Against the Machine. Of the arrests, 100 were for misdemeanors and two were for gross misdemeanors. Eighty-seven of those arrested were tagged and released; 15 were booked.

Police earlier had expressed concern about the possibility of trouble after the concert. A couple hundred people lingered outside the Target Center after the concert. Police eventually ordered them to leave. A smaller group chanting "Whose streets? Our streets" then headed toward the main part of downtown.

A downtown Minneapolis intersection was blocked off as police processed those arrested. Young people sat on a sidewalk, their backs against a building, or stood quietly in line, their hands in plastic cuffs behind their backs.

Including the Minneapolis protest, police have arrested 422 people since Saturday in pre-emptive raids and at protests in downtown St. Paul that were marred by violence. St. Paul was quieter on the convention's third day, when four women from the peace group CodePink were arrested after crawling under a fence a couple blocks from Xcel. They were released.

CodePink also took credit for disrupting Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's speech on Wednesday night. The group said two of its members were given tickets to the speech by a Republican delegate who was frustrated with the party and Palin.

The CodePink members, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, were escorted from the Xcel Center after yelling and displaying a banner. They said they were held until after her speech but not arrested.

Police said they broke up more serious plans to disrupt the convention.

Search warrants and other police documents made public this week claim that anarchists discussed plans to throw Molotov cocktails, sabotage the Xcel Energy Center or the St. Paul Downtown Airport, stretch metal chains across freeways and kidnap delegates.

Authorities filed felony charges Wednesday against eight people they said were core members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a group that has worked to plan and support efforts to attack the convention. The eight, swept up in weekend police raids at houses and a Welcoming Committee workspace, were each charged with conspiracy to commit riot.

Four remained in custody Thursday while four were released, according to Celia Kutz with the Welcoming Committee.

Members of the Welcoming Committee denied committing any violence.

"There are no terrorists up here. There are no terrorists in the Ramsey County Jail," said Betsy Raasch-Gilman with the group. "There are terrorists in the Xcel Energy Center. There are terrorists in the White House."

Also Wednesday, federal authorities announced charges against another man accused of planning to use Molotov cocktails to attack the Xcel Center.

Larger view
A man is arrested as Rage Against The Machine fans protest after a show outside the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
by Brandt Williams, Minnesota Public Radio
September 4, 2008

Minneapolis police arrested 102 people last night after a crowd leaving the Target Center staged an impromptu march, according to the law enforcement Joint Information Center. That brings the total number of people arrested in conjunction with the Republican National Convention to more than 400, with one more day of protests to go.

Two anti-war marches are scheduled for this afternoon in downtown St. Paul, and police expected the protests to mirror those of the past week.

In other words, mostly peaceful but not without provocation.

"Usually there's a few that are bent on civil unrest that mix in with the parade or the march," said Pete Crum with the RNC's joint law enforcment unit.

"We will be ready, just as we have been."

Youth Against War and Racism plans to rally at the Capitol at noon. The Anti-War Committee will rally at the Capitol at 4 p.m., then march to the Xcel Energy Center.

Last night, police arrested more than 100 protesters in downtown Minneapolis following a politically charged concert.

It's not unusual for fans leaving a Rage Against the Machine show to come out chanting some of the band's defiant choruses, like "All hell can't stop us now," or 'F- you I won't do what you tell me."

Last night, instead of going home, about 250 amped up fans stayed in the street in front of Target Center. They remained for at least an hour after the show marching up and down 1st avenue right in front of the arena.

Police Chief Tim Dolan was on hand to watch the operation. For a while, it looked like concertgoers would leave on their own.

"We're OK, they're thinning out a lot." Dolan said.

But they didn't thin out fast enough. Soon dozens of police on foot, horseback and bicycles -- most in riot gear -- pushed the revelers out of the area, down 7th St. The crowd of marchers dwindled along the way and several blocks from the Target Center, police officers closed in around the remaining marchers, even some observers, like Dan Kriske.

"We were watching the convention at about 10 p.m. and we saw, people gearing up for protest rides," Kriske said. "And we're like, 'oh we should actually check this out, because it might be cool. Like a history in action kind of thing."

Kriske and two of his friends were originally placed under arrest with the rest of the marchers, but the police let them go. He said the officers used pepper spray on some of the concert goers.

The police brought in two city buses to haul away people headed for jail. Of those 102 people arrested, 87 were tagged and released, and 15 were booked.

The arrests are the first big law enforcement event to occur in Minneapolis since the beginning of the RNC in St. Paul earlier this week. But the situation did not involve the violence and property damage that marked the largest protest of the week last Monday.

(Minnesota Public Radio News reporter Tom Weber contributed to this story.)

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