Roughly half of RNC arrests have resulted in criminal charges

Last week when I called the St. Paul City Attorney’s office and ask that that all RNC related charges be dismissed, the staff person who answered the phone said all the charges have been dismissed. I didn’t think that was true, but thought maybe there had been some changes, unfortunately it doesn’t look true.
Both City and County are short of funds to have public defenders, and most of those arrested are already the poor and disenfranchised. This is going to be a stain on the democracy of St. Paul for a very long time. Maybe that was the true goal of the GOP having their Convention here.

What? “…most of those arrested are already the poor and disenfranchised”? Um, no… most of those arrested are middle-class white kids who simply think it’s hip to look unwashed and emaciated.

The truly poor and actually disenfranchised, in my experience, have the widsom, experience, and common sense not to pick fights they haven’t even the slightest chance of winning.

But, I’m not a trust-fund kiddie, so what do I know?

“what do I know?”

Good question. If you were actually on the streets you would show solidarity with the arrestees. Obviously you weren’t, so I would kindly suggest shutting the hell up until there’s a topic you know something about.

Choi is a dupe who will do and say whatever John Harrington and Bob Fletcher tell him to. The fact that so many charges have been dismissed, and so many others not pursued at all yet, is totally a reflection of the totally unjustified police state during the RNC and the misconduct of the officers and national guard there. When one or two cases are found to be not prosecutable, that may be an honest mistake on the part of officers. When upwards of half are found not to be, that points to a systemic failure in a criminal injustice system that has already proven itself useless for anyone except the rich and powerful, and needs to be destroyed now.

“When a police officer is on the scene they’re not thinking about whether or not this is a prosecutable offense,” he said. “They’re thinking about whether or not there’s probable cause to arrest this person.”

- John Choi
I would submit one correction. “They’re creating probable cause to arrest this person”.

Probable cause is an extremely grey area for the pigs and apparently “Choi Boy” as well.
A safety orange wallet or a cap gun with an safety orange tip could all constitute as probable cause if a cop was having a grumpy (or perfectly normal) day.

In the case of the RNC, probable cause to the form of flowers, banners, bull horns, ect. This of course resulted in the small scale bombing (and i do mean small… i dont mean to trivialize the real bombings the the state of Minnesota is complicit in CONSPIRING to reality everywhere but here… most of the time.), shooting, beating, pepper spraying, tear gasing, and the unlawful arresting of 650 some humyns on the streets of St. Paul.

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At the root of all this, lets make a comparison.

Banners – Concussion grenades
Bull horns – tear gas
Free Speach – Arrests
Chants – pepper spray

Broken windows of malicious capitalists/Cop getting checked – millions of broken windows… buildings…. and lives all across Iraq, Afghanistan, and the united states pursued by first world malicious capitalists/cops.

Cry for the fucking cops, prosecutors, feds, banks, or bob felchers/john choi’s of the world?
I’d rather be dead.

It is hard to have faith in the legal system when so many have been arrested or pepper-sprayed with no legal justification. It is hard to have faith in the legal system when documented and videotaped assaults by anonymous black-clad stormtroopers are allowed to go unchallenged under the law. It is hard to believe public officials when they won’t release the 6,000 plus hours of videotape that they used public money to collect, so that those falsely charged are unable to use those tapes to demonstrate their innocence. It creates a huge skepticism when incidents like the Macy’s window and patrol car vandalism are turned into photo icons, yet police present do not arrest the perpetrators and no charges are brought against the vandals. It is hard to trust public officials (like “Goldilocks” Chris Coleman, who thinks the amount of police violence during the convention was “just right”), when they dismiss concerns about police violence without even a cursory investigation.

Officials like Bob Fletcher have betrayed the public trust by creating and exaggerating a situation of violence. Prosecutors like Ramsey County Susan Gaertner and St Paul city attorney John Choi betray the public trust by accepting the wild paranoia of Fletcher without the slightest judgment, discernment or oversight. Public officials like mayor Chris Coleman betray the public trust by reflexively backing the most violent elements of the police without the slightest investigation or hesitation.

These actions create a much more dangerous society for us all. We need the rule of law to apply equally to all, even sheriffs and the police. We need to encourage the best and honest elements of our police, not the most violent, vengeful and out of control elements.

There’s been some good discussion from this article, which is odd since it’s so shoddy and lower in quality than the typical MN Independent article. The author, Paul Demko, has produced some decent articles about the RNC and its aftermath, but this is not one of them. For one, he violates a basic rule of journalism by only quoting one source, which is equivalent to becoming the mouthpiece for Choi, and thus the state.

This article shouldn’t receive any more attention than it already has, which should be true of the MN Independent as well if they continue to publish shoddy articles like this one.

what I would like to know is how can defense defend their clients when the city won’t release the 6000 hours of tape during RNC?
and 2nd, many of us saw with our own eyes the abuse by law enforcement, and you can see for your own eyes also on “Terrorizing Dissent”.

I want to know when are they going to prosecute the abuse of law-enforcment, the illegal search and seizure of citizens, starting with Bob Fletcher?

These arrests and convictions are not Justice, the make a joke of Justice.. they are just a political game.

I, like the vast majority of my fellow Minnesotans, think the police did an excellent job in St. Paul.

We’re also confident our judicial system will do it’s job and hand out very lengthy prison sentences to the 8 terrorists being tried in Minneapolis and of the corrections system that will return the eight to the streets in ten years or so singing a very different tune.

Icecycle: Seems to me that you, like the courts, might save sentencing until, y’know, evidence is presented at actual trials. That innocent-until-proven-guilty thing can be a pretty pesky dictum.

Arrest is based upon probable cause. This does not necessarily indicate a case can be prosecuted. Mr. Demko needs to understand this.

Charles wrote:
“Officials like Bob Fletcher have betrayed the public trust by creating and exaggerating a situation of violence.”

Chuck can justify threats of violence against Republicans peacefully asserting their political rights. Just wait until a Green Party or DFL Convention is subject to the same threats of violence.

You’ll hear the whining for years.