No ‘anarchist KOA’: Cops in Minneapolis plan to boot would-be RNC campers from city parks

By Chris Steller
Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 10:15 am

No one knows how many protesters will descend on the Twin Cities for the Republican convention—the most common estimate is in the range of 50,000 to 100,000—but one thing’s for sure: Many if not most of them will have no place to sleep at night. And the Minneapolis police want them to know that the MPD and the city’s Park Police will use stepped-up patrols to ensure the city’s nationally renowned public park system won’t be an option.

A half-dozen police officers were on hand at a community meeting in northeast Minneapolis’ East Side Neighborhood Services building to assuage residents’ fears that rowdy convention protests downtown might spill illegal activity into surrounding areas. Neighbors cited rumors about “anarchists using parks as residences,” pointing out that the east side of the central riverfront alone has 28 acres of parkland, and that effective policing in the downtown area often pushes trouble to its fringes.

Minneapolis Park Police Lt. Rob Goodsell promised his force would “vigorously enforce” park rules, including a ban on camping as well as park closing times of 10 p.m. for undeveloped areas and midnight for developed parks. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board maintains its own police department—distinct from the city’s—and will be at full force during the RNC, Goodsell said, with no officers on loan to St. Paul for RNC security. That’s by design, he said, to allow for the fullest possible police coverage in city parks. It won’t be a matter of rousting tent cities, MPD Deputy Chief Rob Allen told the gathering: “Twenty-four-hour coverage won’t allow camping in the first place.”

Also, Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies will patrol the Mississippi by boat, Allen said, watching for activity at bridges and riverbanks.

Resident Jeremy Wieland asked where, say, 1,000 ousted campers might go after parks close. Allen said police would be ready to offer information on legal campsites in the metro area and said the city communications office was preparing a flier.

But a police-distributed flier listing such places wasn’t practical, a city communications staffer told the Minnesota Independent, since the only legal metro-area campsites are outside Hennepin County—likely making them unappealing to people inclined to stay closer to RNC-related events and in many cases lack transportation anyway. A proposal to allow camping in a big downtown-area park such as Loring had been “kicked around” by authorities, the staffer said, but was ultimately rejected.

Meanwhile in Colorado, the same concept has received a more extensive public airing in the Democratic National Convention’s host city—but with the same result. This week Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper put the kibosh on plans by Tent State University, a student protest organization, for a Tent City in Denver’s City Park. Hickenlooper promised the park’s sprinkler system would disperse wannabe campers.

A Denver resident who lives near City Park disputed the effectiveness of that method, in a comment at the Rocky Mountain News Web site: “Here’s what I’d do: Get a couple of my fellow Tent Staters to roll one of the many dumpsters (already in place all around the Park) over a few centrally located sprinkler heads. … This simple strategy would prevent the sprinklers from popping up, and the Tent Staters stay dry. … It took me all of 2 minutes to come up with this plan. Think any of the 50,000 people descending on my neighborhood will think of it?”

Back in Minneapolis, the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War doesn’t have a stance on possible protester camping, according to organizer Doug Michel, who said the group tries to match people who need housing with places to stay via its Web site. The RNC Welcoming Committee maintains an online message board for the same purpose.

Comments

16 Comments

hartman_john
Comment posted August 12, 2008 @ 9:56 am

As long as they don’t bother the lefse bakers, the cops can do as they please.

robmpls
Comment posted August 1, 2008 @ 12:57 pm

Chris-

Thanks for that. “Cleaning up camps” is certainly not the policy of the MPD, nor that of the Park Police as far as I know. I checked with the officers who were there and no one remembers saying that.

The reality is that in both Minneapolis and Saint Paul we are not interested in “moving the homeless out of the area,” despite repeated rumours that we are doing just that. We enjoy a pretty good relationship with the majority our homeless population and they are often good neighbors who report when there are problems in their community. We don’t want to jeopardize that.

chrissteller
Comment posted August 1, 2008 @ 7:14 am

Commenter kcmpls raised a question that wasn’t the focus of the meeting or of my story but seems worth asking. At the meeting, it was one of the other members of the Minneapolis police force who talked about “cleaning up camps that are forming” and also about what sets the seed for locations where people coming to protest the RNC may try to camp. I heard that as referring to existing camp sites, occupied or not, which might appear to visitors as good camping sites. If I misunderstood that and my comment response here are wrong, I stand corrected and thank you, Dep. Chief Allen, for the chance to clarify in any case that the speaker was not you or Lt. Goodsell, who I named in the story.

robmpls
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 10:03 pm

Chris-

You wrote:

Chris Steller
Posted jul 31 2008 11:44am with +0 votes

kcmpls, that came up briefly at the meeting. The police said they

hartman_john
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 4:51 pm

“Minneapolis Park Police Lt. Rob Goodsell promised his force would

kcmpls
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 1:17 pm

That makes me pretty mad. We already fail them by not having enough beds for those who want them, now we are going to take away the only semi-safe places they have to sleep.

I’m going to have to do some research and see if any local advocacy groups are going to try and open temporary shelters.

chrissteller
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 11:44 am

kcmpls, that came up briefly at the meeting. The police said they’d be “cleaning up camps that are forming” and that existing (homeless) camps would set the seeds for locations where new RNC campers might go. It sounded to me like camps that might be tolerated at other times would get broken up with greater enforcement of the camping ban during the RNC.

kcmpls
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 10:29 am

So, what happens to the many homeless Minnesotans who sleep in the parks and along the riverfront? Will they too be displaced? Where will they stay?

kcmpls
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 5:29 am

So, what happens to the many homeless Minnesotans who sleep in the parks and along the riverfront? Will they too be displaced? Where will they stay?

chrissteller
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 6:44 am

kcmpls, that came up briefly at the meeting. The police said they'd be “cleaning up camps that are forming” and that existing (homeless) camps would set the seeds for locations where new RNC campers might go. It sounded to me like camps that might be tolerated at other times would get broken up with greater enforcement of the camping ban during the RNC.

kcmpls
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 8:17 am

That makes me pretty mad. We already fail them by not having enough beds for those who want them, now we are going to take away the only semi-safe places they have to sleep.

I'm going to have to do some research and see if any local advocacy groups are going to try and open temporary shelters.

hartman_john
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 11:51 am

“Minneapolis Park Police Lt. Rob Goodsell promised his force would

robmpls
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 5:03 pm

Chris-

You wrote:

Chris Steller
Posted jul 31 2008 11:44am with +0 votes

kcmpls, that came up briefly at the meeting. The police said they

chrissteller
Comment posted August 1, 2008 @ 2:14 am

Commenter kcmpls raised a question that wasn't the focus of the meeting or of my story but seems worth asking. At the meeting, it was one of the other members of the Minneapolis police force who talked about “cleaning up camps that are forming” and also about what sets the seed for locations where people coming to protest the RNC may try to camp. I heard that as referring to existing camp sites, occupied or not, which might appear to visitors as good camping sites. If I misunderstood that and my comment response here are wrong, I stand corrected and thank you, Dep. Chief Allen, for the chance to clarify in any case that the speaker was not you or Lt. Goodsell, who I named in the story.