Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis [updated below (with

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Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis [updated below

(with video) -

Update II - Update III - Update IV]

 

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.

 

Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning -- one which had

just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of

the raided houses is known by neighbors as a " hippie house, " where 5-10

college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with

said

that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that

they were filled with " peaceful kids " who are politically active but entirely

unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including

various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going

on here.

 

In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of

roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat

gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the

floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused

to

state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether

they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45

minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual

journals,

and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting

the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others

described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such

as

" Do you have Terminator ready? " as they lay on the floor in handcuffs. The 10

or so individuals in the house all said that though they found the experience

very jarring, they still intended to protest against the GOP Convention, and

several said that being subjected to raids of that sort made them more

emboldened than ever to do so.

 

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. " Nestor,

who has practiced law in Minnesota for many years, said that he had never

before heard of that statute being used for anything, and that its parameters

are so self-evidently vague, designed to allow pre-emeptive arrests of those

who are peacefully protesting, that it is almost certainly unconstitutional,

though because it had never been invoked (until now), its constitutionality

had not been tested.

 

There is clearly an intent on the part of law enforcement authorities here

to engage in extreme and highly intimidating raids against those who are

planning to protest the Convention. The DNC in Denver was the site of several

quite ugly incidents where law enforcement acted on behalf of Democratic Party

officials and the corporate elite that funded the Convention to keep the media

and protesters from doing anything remotely off-script. But the massive and

plainly excessive preemptive police raids in Minnesota are of a different

order altogether. Targeting people with automatic-weapons-carrying SWAT teams

and

mass raids in their homes, who are suspected of nothing more than planning

dissident political protests at a political convention and who have engaged in

no illegal activity whatsoever, is about as redolent of the worst tactics of

a police state as can be imagined.

 

UPDATE: Here is the first of the videos, from the house that had just been

raided:

 

VIDEO

 

Jane Hamsher has more _here_

(http://cliffschecter.firedoglake.com/2008/08/30/video-food-not-bombs-protesters\

-raided-in-minneapolis/) , and The Minnesota

Independent has a report on another one of the raided houses, _here_

(http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/6158/breaking-food-not-bombs-house-among-sa\

turday-

raids) .

 

UPDATE II

: Here is the video we took from the second house as the raid was occurring.

We were barred from entering but spoke with neighbors outside as well as

with Bruce Nestor, the President of the Minnesota Lawyer's Guild, regarding

these raids:

 

VIDEO

 

Over _at FDL_ (http://firedoglake.com/2008/08/30/inside-an-rnc-raid/) ,

Lindsay Beyerstein spoke with the property owner whose house -- the fourth one

we

now know of -- was being raided while the raid was in progress, and Lindsay

has details _here_ (http://firedoglake.com/2008/08/30/inside-an-rnc-raid/)

( " About an hour and a half ago 20 to 30 heavily armed police officers

surrounded

the house. One of my roommates said 'I want to see a warrant' and she was

immediately detained " ). Meanwhile, Indy Media of Twin Cities -- an association

of independent journalists in the area -- just told me that several of their

journalists have been detained while trying to cover these raids. Their site,

with ongoing updates, is _here_ (http://twincities.indymedia.org/) .

_The Uptake_ (http://theuptake.org/) also has several reports of the

various raids, including _video of the raid_ (http://qik.com/video/249011) at

the

property whose owner Bernstein spoke with as the raid occurred. That video

includes an interview with a lawyer from the National Lawyer's Guild who was

detained and put in handcufffs, explaining that the surrounded house is one

where various journalists are staying. Additionally, a photojournalist with

Democracy Now was detained at that house as well. So, both journalists and

lawyers -- in addition to protesters -- have been detained and arrested even

though

not a single violent or criminal act has occurred.

 

UPDATE III

: FDL has the transcript of part of my discussion about these raids with the

National Lawyer Guild's Minnesota President -- _here_

(http://cliffschecter.firedoglake.com/2008/08/30/more-protesters-arrested-in-the\

-twin-cities/) .

The Uptake has _this amazing video interview_ (http://qik.com/video/249562)

with the Democracy Now producer who was detained today. As the DN producer

explains, she was present at a meeting of a group called _ " I-Witness " _

(http://iwitnessvideo.info/) -- which videotaped police behavior at the 2004

GOP

Convention in New York and helped get charges dismissed against hundreds of

protesters who were arrested. The police surrounded the St. Paul house where

they were meeting even though they had no warrant, told them that anyone who

exited the house would be arrested, and then -- even though they finally, after

several hours, obtained a warrant only for the house next door -- basically

broke into the house, pointed weapons at everyone inside, handcuffed them,

searched the house, and then left. Here is a _blog post_

(http://iwitnessvideo.info/blog/index.html) from one of the members of

I-Witness asking for help

during the time when they were forced to stay inside the house (see the second

post -- it reads like a note from a hostage crying out for help). This is

truly repugnant, extreme police behavior designed to intimidate protesters,

police critics and others, and it ought to infuriate anyone and everyone who

cares

about basic liberties.

 

UPDATE IV: More _here_

(http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/index.html) , including

on the Federal Government's role in these raids.

 

 

 

 

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