The Battle for St. Paul
Pictures from Monday at RNC
'Started out friendly enough, but they got downright squirrely as the day went on. Still though these troops, err...make that police, from St. Paul were better than the Ramsey County Sheriff deputies later in this set.
Not really having a plan or a group to meet up with, I mostly spent afternoon wandering around, making myself useful here and there.
All in all it was a lot quieter than i was expecting
An hour or less earlier the official protest march some blocks away had ended. A number of demonstrators were apparently unsatisfied that their message was getting through to the handful of delegates attendees at the convention center, sending a mass of demonstrators in a circle around the blocks bordering the site. A couple of minutes earlier, several buses of National Guard troops pulled up to the convention center to the left of where this picture was taken.
Amongst the weapons of the Revolution are MIA, Land of Talk, Doomtree and Billy Bragg... These people had the mobile disco. Despite a valiant effort, they couldn't get the cops to dancing.
Amongst the weapons of the overlords are...actual weapons
But it's OK because we have lawyers refereeing the thing. Lots of these folks hanging around the front lines taking careful notes.
Just one of day's skirmishes. There's at least three kinds of tear gas, the white kind, the fire extinguisher liquid kind, and the blue kind.
Towards mid afternoon the cops were complaining to each other about running out of supplies like tear gas. This seems a little baffling considering the all time it took to prepare for this show, but i guess that's budget cuts.
At least two people were arrested in this skirmish. This guy either took a tear gas blast to the face or was shot with rubber bullets, it wasn't clear at the time, but he was on the ground for a long time.
And once again the land is safe for happy smiling Republican delegates!!!
One of the funny things was the mixture of people milling about through even the skirmishes. delegates, anarchists, protesters, cops and LOTS of bystanders taking pictures made for the scenes in which people seemed to arbitrarily end up on one side or another. Although as has been reported there were some attacks by anarchists on delegates, i didn't see anything even hinting at psychical conflict between groups.
Also, lots of bicycle cops acting as light infantry for the riot cops.
These guys (and gals) were getting increasingly jumpy as the day went on.
Around late afternoon a large group of protesters marched along River Road and attempted to turn left into the city where they were stopped by a trigger happy detachment of Ramsey County Sheriff deputies.
In addition to tear gas they also were throwing stun/flash bang grenades
There might be some National Guard in here too.
After a series of "preemptive raids" of peaceful gatherings in the days before the RNC was to start, the Ramsey County Sheriff's department hasn't exactly won friends in the civil rights community.
The number of protesters in this group must have alarmed officials because right after this a HUGE number of cops in vehicles joined the initial group.
Up ahead down this sidewalk in a sort of park/green space area is where the largest single group of arrests was. After driving the protesters back, they mass arrested 50 people including Democracy Now host Amy Goodman and producers and an AP photographer. According to Ramsey County Sheriff Fletcher (as reported by StarTrib) "The mass detention was meant to sort out peaceful people from troublemakers." Most were actually charged with "unlawful assembly," which is apparently a crime in Minnesota.
"But...but...I don't want to go to jail!"
----
Edit: One thing i forgot to mention (having posted this at 4am) is that the reason the woman and others are holding their faces is that they were just forced to walk through the cloud of tear gas that the police fired into the crowd.
'Started out friendly enough, but they got downright squirrely as the day went on. Still though these troops, err...make that police, from St. Paul were better than the Ramsey County Sheriff deputies later in this set.
Not really having a plan or a group to meet up with, I mostly spent afternoon wandering around, making myself useful here and there.
All in all it was a lot quieter than i was expecting
An hour or less earlier the official protest march some blocks away had ended. A number of demonstrators were apparently unsatisfied that their message was getting through to the handful of delegates attendees at the convention center, sending a mass of demonstrators in a circle around the blocks bordering the site. A couple of minutes earlier, several buses of National Guard troops pulled up to the convention center to the left of where this picture was taken.
Amongst the weapons of the Revolution are MIA, Land of Talk, Doomtree and Billy Bragg... These people had the mobile disco. Despite a valiant effort, they couldn't get the cops to dancing.
Amongst the weapons of the overlords are...actual weapons
But it's OK because we have lawyers refereeing the thing. Lots of these folks hanging around the front lines taking careful notes.
Just one of day's skirmishes. There's at least three kinds of tear gas, the white kind, the fire extinguisher liquid kind, and the blue kind.
Towards mid afternoon the cops were complaining to each other about running out of supplies like tear gas. This seems a little baffling considering the all time it took to prepare for this show, but i guess that's budget cuts.
At least two people were arrested in this skirmish. This guy either took a tear gas blast to the face or was shot with rubber bullets, it wasn't clear at the time, but he was on the ground for a long time.
And once again the land is safe for happy smiling Republican delegates!!!
One of the funny things was the mixture of people milling about through even the skirmishes. delegates, anarchists, protesters, cops and LOTS of bystanders taking pictures made for the scenes in which people seemed to arbitrarily end up on one side or another. Although as has been reported there were some attacks by anarchists on delegates, i didn't see anything even hinting at psychical conflict between groups.
Also, lots of bicycle cops acting as light infantry for the riot cops.
These guys (and gals) were getting increasingly jumpy as the day went on.
Around late afternoon a large group of protesters marched along River Road and attempted to turn left into the city where they were stopped by a trigger happy detachment of Ramsey County Sheriff deputies.
In addition to tear gas they also were throwing stun/flash bang grenades
There might be some National Guard in here too.
After a series of "preemptive raids" of peaceful gatherings in the days before the RNC was to start, the Ramsey County Sheriff's department hasn't exactly won friends in the civil rights community.
The number of protesters in this group must have alarmed officials because right after this a HUGE number of cops in vehicles joined the initial group.
Up ahead down this sidewalk in a sort of park/green space area is where the largest single group of arrests was. After driving the protesters back, they mass arrested 50 people including Democracy Now host Amy Goodman and producers and an AP photographer. According to Ramsey County Sheriff Fletcher (as reported by StarTrib) "The mass detention was meant to sort out peaceful people from troublemakers." Most were actually charged with "unlawful assembly," which is apparently a crime in Minnesota.
"But...but...I don't want to go to jail!"
----
Edit: One thing i forgot to mention (having posted this at 4am) is that the reason the woman and others are holding their faces is that they were just forced to walk through the cloud of tear gas that the police fired into the crowd.