I WAS THERE: The protest march on the RNC in Saint Paul 9-2-08: FULL REPORT, page 14

THE ST. PAUL RNC

I Live in St. Paul In the Grand Avenue area and I planned joining the protestors on Monday at The State Capital until The Ramsey County Police Department conducted pre-raids the Sunday before the Republican Party kicked-off it's convention. People were arrested because police feared that they might be in the Monday Protest at the Capital (they became the thought police). Five seperate raids were conducted Sunday night at five different locations throughout St. Paul and one was in Minneapolis.
The police used this has a scare attactic and it worked in decided not to go to the protests Monday. Peaceful protestors were repeatly hit with night sticks, rubber bullets, tear gas and sprayed with mace. These protestors had a legal permit to protest and were treated like mindless thugs by the St. Paul Police that used Storm Trooper attactics and it looked more like a 1930's pre-Nazi Germany than The United States. Word has it that the 3,300 plus police force there wasn't even from the twin cities area and small town cops from even out of state who weren't properly trained for crowd control.
I have lost total respect for the police and at least the Ramsey County Sheriff who ordered this nonsence should be immediately fired (he still has his job) and criminally charged for violating the rights of the people. I also suspected that Minnesota is a military State and now I know that it is. Most of the 850 protestors were released because the St. Paul City Council was in fear of a barage of lawsuits. Two are still being held and have been charged under the "united States Terrorism Act," for weapons in their posession that were never used. Onething is certain a host of rights were violated by the Police and a blackeye was put on the city of St. Paul that will never leave has long as we have a gun-hoe St. Paul Police squad.