police intimidation and raids on protestors at the RNC

click here for the full email from starhawk, writing about the insane police intimidation and raids on protesters at the RNC in st. paul/minneapolis... and this was only on Friday... it's been getting worse all weekend.

if you feel so moved, please call the mayors' offices to voice your opinion on this:

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman
651-266-8510

Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak
(612) 673-2100
(612) 673-3000 outside Minneapolis

some excerpts:

It's Friday night. Our Pagan Cluster is sitting on the bluff of the Mississippi having our first real meeting, when Lisa gets a call. The cops are raiding the Convergence Center, where we're organizing meetings and trainings for the protests against the Republican National Convention. It's not a role play, the caller says. It's real.

... We wait. That's what you do when the cops have guns trained on kids inside a building. You wait, and witness, and make phone calls, and try to think of useful things to do.

... Through the kitchen door, we can see young kids sitting on the floor, handcuffed. We walk across the street, back, made more phone calls. An ambulance is parked in front, and the paramedics head into the building, leaving a gurney ready. Susu, from her car around the corner, reports that the cops have been grabbing pedestrians from the street, forcing them down to the ground, handcuffing them.

... One by one, protesters trickle out. Now we get more pieces of the story.

The cops burst in, with no warning. They pulled drew their guns on everyone - including a five year old child who was there with his mother, forced everyone down on the floor. It was terrifying.

They had a warrant, apparently, from the county, not the city, to search for 'bomb making materials.' They were searching everyone in the building, then one by one releasing them as they found nothing.

They continue to find nothing, as we wait through long hours. Meanwhile, more and more media arrives. These cops are not as creative as the DC cops during our first mobilization there against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Those cops confiscated the lunchtime soup - which included onions and chili powder, claiming they were materials for home made pepper spray.

We wait until the last person gets out. He's a twenty year old who the cops have accused of stealing his own backpack, but apparently they relented...

via Kitsap River at dailykos.com