The outcome? Police in St. Paul weren’t able to keep away determined anti-war protestors from the convention floor when Republican Presidential candidate McCain was speaking. But they did have ample opportunity to try out their new weapons on hundreds of people — including this journalist — and detain over 800 people in less than a week, some of them picked up in sweeping “pre-emptive” house raids even before the convention started. Most of those detained were slapped with “probable cause” felony charges of riot or conspiracy to riot. “Probable cause” allowed the police to hold people for a minimum of 36 hours — not counting weekends or holidays — without formally charging them. Among those targeted in the raids and arrests were journalists — including four of my colleagues, medics, legal observers, and anyone the police decided could be a “protester” or an “anarchist.” On Thursday local prosecutors charged eight people with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. Their crime? Helping activists from around the country coordinate their protests against the Republicans and their agenda. The father of one of the eight facing terrorism charges spoke of his 23-year-old daughter as a young woman moved by the injustice of poverty and war, “one of the best people in our society.”

Many of the 800 arrested complained of the excessive force police used. At least one person claims to have been tortured inside prison with a bag over his head. The nineteen-year old Minnesotan was arrested after he mistakenly crashed into a policewoman on his bicycle. I saw another man being dragged out of a crowd by police on horseback. He was stunned with an electroshock weapon or taser and then arrested. The police also forced one of my colleagues to lie face down on the ground and then dragged her by her feet across part of a parking lot even as she kept screaming “Press! Press!” Her camera was on and her calls for help have now been watched hundreds of times on Youtube.

... contd.