RNC protesters decry convention police tactics

Protesters blame police for violence that broke out at the conclusion of last night’s protest parade organized by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. The group’s national organizer, Cheri Honkala, spoke to reporters this morning at Bushville, the temporary encampment set up by activists at 400 Western Ave. in St. Paul. “As a resident of Minnesota, I’m incredibly ashamed,” Honkala said. “I think our security team did a pretty damn good jop keeping the peace yesterday.”

Indeed the march was largely without incident until arriving at the Capitol. There it converged with the Ripple Effect concert where Rage Against the Machine was slated to perform. As documented by Jeff Severns Guntzel in this space, events quickly spiraled out of control with tear gas and explosive sound devices utilized by cops.

Honkala said anarchists, who have been blamed for much of the tumult on the streets of St. Paul during the RNC, were not at fault for last night’s trouble. “No fringe group took away from what happened yesterday,” she said. “It was those guys dressed all in black — I mean the police officers all dressed in black — that took away from our message.”

More than 300 people have been locked up during the first two days of the RNC, but Honkala dismissed the arrests as primarily trumped up allegations. “I highly doubt that they’ll get any convictions from any of these arrests,” she said. “Most of the folks were participating in using their First Amendment rights and practicing their right to assemble.”

Her comments were backed up by others at the press conference. Shamako Noble, an activist from San Jose, California, said police actions actually prevented the crowd from peacefully dispersing last night. “They almost trapped people in,” he said. “It seems to me that you have to justify $50 million somehow. I don’t think it was anything that we actually did.”

At a series of press conferences this week, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington has defended the tactics utilized by police. “They did a great job in the face of a lot of challenges,” he said after the first day of disturbances. “They did not overreact.”

As this morning’s press conference took place, volunteers were packing up the remnants of Bushville. People filled trash bags and stacked mattresses. A couple couches still sat on the otherwise near empty lot. Honkala was leaving for a funeral in Philadelphia immediately after speaking with the press. But she vowed that the group will be planning more protests down the road to highlight poverty and economic injustice. “We do marches because we don’t have the money for lobbyists, we don’t have the money for billboards,” she said. “All we have is our voices and we will continue to insure that our voices are not taken away from us.”