102 arrested at RNC after Rage concert Associated Press

Published: Thursday September 4, 2008





Print This Email This (Update at bottom - More than 800 arrests reported over week) ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  Police arrested 102 protesters in downtown Minneapolis early Thursday following a concert by the rock group Rage Against the Machine, raising to more than 400 the number arrested in demonstrations related to the Republican National Convention.



Police blocked off an intersection as they 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.



Protesters calling for an end to the Iraq war urged others to join their march Thursday night outside the convention as John McCain accepts his party's presidential nomination on its fourth and final night.



The Anti-War Committee denounced the increased presence of police in riot gear and acts of "intimidation" in the streets of St. Paul.



In a warmup to the main protest, about 50 college and high school students staged an anti-war rally at the Capitol at midday Thursday. Eight police officers watched the rally from afar, with most leaning against their cars. None wore riot gear.



Organizers said they were trying to put on a safe, nonviolent event for the whole family. When a musician singing and playing a guitar uttered a profanity, she was chastised by the crowd and quickly promised to clean up her language.



Minnesota 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."



St. Paul was quieter on Wednesday, the convention's third day, when four women from the peace group CodePink were arrested after crawling under a fence a couple blocks from the Xcel Center where the convention is being held. 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.



Associated Press writer Jeff Baenen contributed to this report.



Watch Rage Against the Machine play an acapella song for protesters after police barred them from performing on Wednesday night.





More than 800 arrests reported over week ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Percussion grenades, tear gas and nearly 400 arrests marked the final anti-war march during the Republican National Convention. More than 800 arrests were reported during a week of sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent dissent.



Anti-war protesters rallied Thursday at the state Capitol and then planned to march to Xcel Energy Center, where Sen. John McCain was due to accept the GOP presidential nomination. But their permit had expired, and police - in riot gear and using horses, snow plows and dump trucks - blocked their way.



For hours, police let the protesters amble from one blocked intersection to another. But then the arrests began in earnest. At least 19 journalists, including two reporters from The Associated Press, were among those held by police.



Anti-war protesters briefly interrupted McCain as he addressed delegates Thursday night. Three protesters, one with a sign that read "You can't win an occupation" on one side and "McCain votes against vets" on the other, were removed from the hall by security officers. McCain asked that supporters not be "diverted by the crowd noise and the static."



Earlier, the march to the Xcel Energy Center was relaxed at first and even festive.



Younger people did cartwheels. Tourists came by to check out the spectacle. The chants, which were political at the outset, turned silly a couple hours in.



"You're sexy, you're cute, take off the riot suit," protesters serenaded those blocking their path.



When police blocked the path to Xcel, a cat-and-mouse game ensued as protesters moved around the Capitol area, splintered, and then organized into a marching force again. The crowd varied from a high of about 1,000 down to a hundred and back to around 500.



About three hours into the standoff, about 300 protesters sat down on a major thoroughfare and police closed the four-lane boulevard. Officers then set off smoke bombs and fired seven percussion grenades, causing protesters to scatter.



Some of the scattering protesters entered a residential area north of the Capitol. Later, at least three smoke bombs were discharged in the area of apartments and houses.



The event ended with about 200 protesters, along with AP reporters Amy Forliti and Jon Krawczynski and other members of the media, trapped on a bridge. Officers ordered them to sit on the pavement on a bridge over Interstate 94 and to keep their hands over their heads as they were led away two at a time.



The arrests came three days after AP photographer Matt Rourke, also on assignment covering the protests, was arrested. He was released without being charged Monday after being held for several hours. Forliti and Krawczynski were issued citations for unlawful assembly and released.



Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said the St. Paul police department and its police chief decided that members of the media would be issued citations and released.



Fletcher said he expected most of the charges would be for unlawful assembly.



"Whoever got arrested was whoever didn't disperse and was still on the bridge," Fletcher said. "The tactic of blocking people on the bridge could very well have prevented a lot of activity later tonight. Clearly there were a number of people with no intention of being law-abiding tonight."



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