People are ignorant if they think just because someone is protesting that gives them the right to break the law, and trying to make the cops the bad guys for doing their jobs. Not all the cops are bad guys just because a few beat this kid down, those cops should be punished but he also shouldn’t have even been there, again poor parenting letting your kid go to something that could be dangerous.

Take your photos and your hospital report and your statement of the event and your son’s statement and all the other evidence you can gather (does your son have the “remember 9/11″ t-shirt? Bring it, blood stains and all–as if the Iraq debacle had anything to do with Osama bin Laden and 9/11….) and contact the law firm, Robbins Kaplan Miller and Ciresi in downtown Minneapolis. They are the best at exposing and fighting grave injustice. What happened to your son is outrageous and a disgrace to the Republic, the Constitution and the Founders of this great nation. The barking dogs who have criticized you above sing a different tune quick when police decide to kick their teeth in.

Good luck. Keep fighting. We don’t need another McCarthy era. Funny how many people forget that the Patriots were the rebels fighting British oppression. The Patriots were not toadies to the oppression but heroes who resisted it. Praising those who act like the very British we rose up to defeat is so un-American–and ironic…the mark of a population that doesn’t know and doesn’t care what justice and reason are.

No… incredibly unlikely. I was with the group that he was in for most of Monday… I remember multiple occasions when I saw him peacefully, quietly standing near the line of riot police. At times he would shake the bells in his hand… as other people had instruments or ways to make music, part of our attempts to reclaim the streets.

While you might say he looks like a punk, you might say he had been with the ‘anarchists’ prior to his arrest, and you might even say he was stupid for protesting, I respectfully, whole-heartedly disagree. He was one of those human beings that you distinctly remember… for his gentleness, for his good intentions, for his lack of fear. This was a boy–17 years-old!!!–who was not afraid of the police. He is an example of Nonviolence, and of a sort of Direct Action… even though he was not intended to get arrested, but merely targeted.

While I cannot speak for him, I will defend his actions–or his lack of action–where he quietly stood by the police, indicating that he was not afraid of the pepper-spray or tear gas or batons, and he had come to St. Paul to protest an unwarranted occupation of Iraq. He was not protesting by breaking windows or yelling. He was willing to sacrifice his own health and well-being, and risk arrest, to make a quiet, yet bold statement.

So for all you who post attacks on internet message boards after having spent no time organizing or taking a stand on the streets, I ask you:
If that is not standing up for what you believe in, and that is not a respectable act of non-violent self sacrifice, then what is?