The murders have come on the heels of a widely criticized report by the Department of Homeland Security, which described potential violence from people with extreme anti-abortion, anti-immigrant and white supremacist ideologies. Was the report accurate? And is the labeling of entire political groups and ideologies — such as the DHS report and the profiling of RNC protesters — an effective counterterrorism activity?

“There have been a lot of mistakes and problems with the way the so-called war on terror has been run domestically since 911,” former FBI agent Coleen Rowley said in an interview with the Minnesota Independent.

Rowley said the DHS report on right-wing extremism was wrong, but not for the objections that Republicans have raised.

“The reports contain almost no specificity but instead, make generalizations and stereotyped comments about large political or interest groups,” she said. “It’s true that individual loners or duos may be inspired by the extremist ideology stemming from any group, to include the ‘pro-life’ groups, but you need specific facts identifying the individual instead of stereotyped characterizations about the group.”

In a press briefing Thursday, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano said the recent murders didn’t vindicate the report and said it was problematic.

“I don’t look at those murders as anything other than terrible crimes and tragedies,” Napolitano said, according to Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman. “I do think, as I’ve said before, that the so-called right-wing extremist report was not a well-produced product,” she said. “It could and should have been done better. We’ve already taken steps within the department to improve that situation.”

Rowley said the overly broad efforts such as the extremist report exacerbate the difficulties in identifying those loners or small cells of extremists.

“When looking for a needle in the haystack, massive ‘intelligence’ collection about the members of the groups only adds hay to the haystack and also chills exercise of First Amendment rights,” she said. “Members of the larger, mainstream group, if not alienated by being smeared, will be in the best position to identify the ‘true terrorist.’”

Indeed that was the case with the recent shootings In Arizona committed by members of an off-shoot of the anti-illegal immigration movement, the Minutemen. Shawna Fordes has been arrested in the murders and anti-illegal immigration groups say that they had forwarded information about Fordes to law enforcement after kicking her out of the Minuteman organization.

Rowley said that alienating these groups could prevent them from going to law enforcement when a troublemaker is identified.

Minnesota saw its share of generalized profiling at the Republican National Convention in September 2008.

“The worst recent example of this overbroad targeting, as well as surveillance and infiltration, would be that directed against the RNC Welcoming Committee and other peace/social justice protesters,” she said.

Eight members of the Welcoming Committee were charged with “furtherance of terrorism” under the Minnesota Patriot Act because of damage to property of over $1,000. Rowley said that this new definition of terrorism is wrong.

“‘Acts dangerous to human life’ is supposed to be the definition of domestic terrorism not just ‘property damage,’” she said. “The use of the looser definition in the ‘Minnesota Patriot Act’ which includes mere ‘property damage’ of $1,000 or more contributed to the misdirection of resources by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the RNC.”

Attorney Jordan Kushner, who represented members of the RNC8, said charges were politically motivated. The terrorism charges were dropped, but not before having a chilling effect at the RNC protests.

“The fact that they were filed in the first place and pursued for a period of about eight months does show how much ‘terrorism’ is a political label,” he said.

Elko noted a then-staggering number of RNC-related tweets: 17,000. Last week, one estimate pegged the number of tweets related to Iran’s election and the subsequent protests at nearly a billion.

A MnIndy sampling of RNC tweets showed that St. Paul’s protests had some of the same confusion and enthusiasm, if not the gravitas, seen in recent demostrations in Tehran:

Police: “You must go to the left.” Protester: “Your left or ours?” 6:31 PM Sep 4th from web

Overheard at May Day cafe: “Dude, I totally got tear gassed. It was fucking awesome.” 11:57 AM Sep 3rd from web

Overheard from excited Mpls policeman, “So I shot him with impact round a[nd] he just fucking dropped!” 6:51 PM Sep 1st from web

Here’s one area in which St. Paul exceeds Tehran, for now. The roster of arrested journalists in Iran is as yet not quite half as long as those arrested during the RNC — though with much more serious implications for the people detained.

The document lists physical descriptions, phone numbers and other identifying information about activists in Iowa City.

Despite the infiltration, only one Iowa protester was arrested, activists say, and those charges were later dropped.

At least three other people connected to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s office were involved in infiltrating groups in Minnesota. “Norma Jean Johnson” also known as Ramsey County Deputy Sheriff Marilyn Hedstrom, infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee.

Rachel Nieting, a Ramsey County jail guard posed as Norma Jean’s niece, and Chris Dugger, was a confidential paid informant who now aspires to be a deputy.

Photo: stpaul.gov

“Shaken.” That’s one word Mayor Chris Coleman used to describe St. Paul during his State of the City address Monday. He said “a near-collapse of financial markets” has already forced him to make “significant cuts” to city services.

Coleman also had words of encouragement, but he cautioned that “there are no shortcuts to economic prosperity” — and said those who claim otherwise are either “lying to you … [or] fooling themselves.”

Still, he reminded citizens that St. Paul’s CIty Hall was built during the Great Depression and promised that even in “excruciating times,” the city would “refuse to be ordinary.”

Signs of hope Coleman cited ranged from the quaint to the depressing: downtown flower baskets, “dozens” of people who shovel their neighbors’ walks, and a tally of vacant houses that held steady — at 2,000 — from June 2008 to March 2009 (“arguably the housing market’s most challenging period”).

Coleman stressed that transportation infrastructure investment would be the big-ticket item that could pull the city through.

Coleman characterized the Central Corridor light-rail transit line as “crucial to future of city.” Without tooting his own horn for brokering a dispute over train noise between the Metropolitan Council and Minnesota Public Radio, he said, “One by one, obstructions to the Central Corridor have been removed.”

And Coleman called a proposed high-speed rail link from Chicago to St. Paul’s Union Depot “an opportunity we will seize and we will make a reality.”

Although the mayor was a late supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Coleman said the city is lucky to have the former Illinois senator in the White House. “We are fortunate to have a president who understands the importance of cities.”

The setting for the annual address — at one of St. Joseph’s Hospital’s ongoing expansion projects — was meant to show off the health sector as a backbone of the local economy. And he called education a “cornerstone” for St. Paul since its founding to the present day.

“Not only will our children be ready to work,” Coleman said, “… they’ll be ready to work in a global economy.” He bragged that St. Paul’s public school students speak 70 languages — a talent, he said, that employers increasingly value.

The health sector, education and the global economy were also themes for Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak in his State of the City address last month. By comparison, Coleman’s speech was shorter, generally lacked lofty policy rhetoric and was less a laundry list than Rybak’s speech. (True to its bigger-twin stereotype, Minneapolis claims that about a dozen more foreign languages are spoken in its public schools.)

Both mayors are running for re-election this year, but both have also shown interest in running for governor in 2010, using other occasions to show off their grasp of statewide concerns. But such ambitions weren’t evident at either speech.

Also not highlighted was the St. Paul’s hosting of last year’s Republican National Convention — a point of pride and shame for St. Paulites. City and Ramsey County officials have had to drop most charges that arose from mass arrests and pre-emptive raids, which dominated local news coverage.

“Safe we are but not naive,” was one standout line from a poem composed for the event that St. Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connolly recited before Coleman’s address.

Coleman had a new initiative to unveil that aims to promote greater involvement of residents in their community. The Volunteer-Inspire-Prosper Web page offers a comprehensive list of volunteer opportunities. Among them, the St. Paul Police Reserve, a group of reserve officers typically have duties like traffic control and barricade erection.

The video, taken by Twin Cities Indymedia, documents tour stops with cops-on-bikes in tow, a luncheon at a Minneapolis church with a parking lot full of police vehicles, and a musical (but “awkward”) petition-presentation to Ramsey County District Attorney Susan Gaertner with someone the TC Indymedia identifies as a plainclothes officer making his own video recording.

The events were in support of the RNC8, the eight individuals who face felony terrorism conspiracy charges from arrests made at pre-emptive raids before the RNC took place. Friends of the RNC8 are asking Gaertner to drop the charges.

In the video, famed FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley presents Gaertner with an appeal from famed Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, among others. Don Olson, a member of the Minnesota 8, a group who vandalized a Vietnam War-era draft office, told Gaertner, “We actually did something, but they didn’t do anything.”

TC Indymedia said 50 riders (not “rioters,” as it sounds like on the video) took part in the Tour de Fletcher, named for Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, the man behind much of the law enforcement at the RNC.

After estimating the post-luncheon contingent at seven or eight remaining bicycles, a St. Paul police officer is shown issuing a radio message: “They’re not very forthcoming on information so I guess they don’t want to be safe on their bicycle ride.”

Police made one arrest for disorderly conduct, according to the video.

In a letter to Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan, bike-tour participant Nigel Parry wrote:

You are making the Cities a scary place to live. We should be able to go about our Constitutionally-guaranteed business, our political associations, and our vegan potlucks without this kind of—frankly—pervasive and fascist intervention.

The overwhelming majority of these — roughly 85 percent — have since been dropped owing to insufficient evidence. This includes the cases of 323 people who were picked up in a mass arrest on the final day of the convention and 39 journalists who were detained. In addition, as of last month, another 52 defendants had either pleaded guilty or paid a fine.

But of the small number of misdemeanor cases that have proceeded to court, the city attorney’s office has yet to secure a single conviction. The latest setback occurred Thursday when a jury acquitted two RNC protesters — Ilana Radovsky and Gracia Logue-Sargeant — of seven charges, including unlawful assembly and fleeing police, as reported by the Pioneer Press. In addition, two of the four charges facing Sean Patrick McCoy were dismissed by Ramsey County District Court Judge Edward Wilson owing to insufficient evidence. He was slated to be back in court today on the remaining counts.

In January, charges against seven protesters were dismissed after the prosecutors completed their case. Ramsey County District Judge Michael Fetsch determined that no jury could reasonably convict the defendants based on the evidence presented.

Here is the court schedule for the RNC8 hearings. All will take place at the Ramsey County Courthouse, 15 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul (courtroom assignments listed on screens in the lobby).

Max Specktor: Feb. 24, 1:30 p.m.
Monica Bicking: Feb. 24, 2:30 p.m.
Luce Guillen-Givens: Feb. 27, 9:30 a.m.
Eryn Trimmer: Feb. 10:30 a.m.
Erik Oseland: Monday, March 2, 9 a.m.
Rob Czernik: Tuesday, March 3, 9 a.m.
Nathanael Secor: Tuesday, March 3, 10 a.m.
Garrett Fitzgerald: Tuesday, March 3, 1:30 p.m.

An additional 20 cases stemming from the mass arrest on the final day of the gathering are still being investigated.

“There was a lot of confusion for a lot of people that night,” said City Attorney John Choi in announcing the decision.

“Ultimately this decision reflects specifically our prosecution standard: Can we prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt at trial? We’ve come to the conclusion that, for the cases involved the Marion Street bridge and the Cedar Street bridge, that would not be the case.”

However, Choi defended the St. Paul Police Department’s decision to arrest nearly 400 people on Sept. 4.

“There was probable cause to arrest, but there wasn’t probable cause to prosecute,” he said. “Those standards are very very different. It is our obligation not to proceed on cases where we believe that we would not succeed at trial.”

Local civil rights activists said the failure to press charges is just the latest evidence that many of the arrests during the RNC were frivolous.

“The reality is that those arrests should never have been made,” said Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

“Much of the alleged disorder is directly attributable to the police presence and police overreaction.”

“They should never have arrested them in the first place,” added Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “I believe that they were arbitrary and capricious arrests.”

The city attorney’s office has now processed roughly 90 percent of the 672 potential misdemeanor cases stemming from RNC activities. Of those cases, 52 have resulted in guilty pleas or fines. An equal number of cases are currently pending in the court system. However, the overwhelming majority of arrests — 490 — have either not resulted in charges or the cases have been dismissed by the courts.

So far no civil litigation has been brought against the city for police actions during the four-day gathering. Anti-war protester Mick Kelly has sent the city a letter stating his intent to sue for alleged civil rights violations, but has yet to file a case.

The city has a $10 million insurance policy, paid for by the Minneapolis St. Paul 2008 Host Committee, to cover litigation costs. However, numerous lawsuits are expected in the coming months.

“We’ve got a bunch of cases we’re looking at,” said Samuelson.

“Attorneys have been engaged in active information gathering in consideration of civil litigation related to the pattern of mass arrests and excessive use of police force,” Nestor confirmed. “I would think that planning can now go forward.”

He writes:

Was the act pre-meditated? Yes.
Was it a felony? Yes…if charged with felonious assault.
Was their violence to persons or property? Yes. (property damage)
Was the act intended to “terrorize, intimidate, or coerce a considerable number of members of the public in addition to the direct victims of the act”? Yes. Intended to affect all supporters of Roe v Wade.
or
Did it significantly disrupt or interfere with the lawful exercise….of lawful commerce? Yes.

Here’s the language in state law that Mindeman cites:

“a crime is committed to ‘further terrorism’ if the crime is a felony and is a premeditated act involving violence to persons or property that is intended to: (1) terrorize, intimidate, or coerce a considerable number of members of the public in addition to the direct victims of the act; and (2) significantly disrupt or interfere with the lawful exercise, operation, or conduct of government, lawful commerce, or the right of lawful assembly”.

Gaertner is running for governor in 2010.

One place to compare notes on the line between protest and terrorism is at a 3-6 p.m. town hall meeting on Sunday, Jan. 25 at Walker Church, 3100 16th Ave. S., Minneapolis, to discuss the defense of the eight RNC protesters charged with terrorism. Speakers will include retired FBI agent and TIME Magazine 2002 Person of the Year Coleen Rowley, state Rep. Phyllis Kahn, Macalester College professor Peter Rachleff.

Nearly 800 people were arrested. Pepper spray and flash-bang grenades were repeatedly used to disperse crowds. Store-front windows were smashed and vehicle tires slashed. If nothing else, the four days of the Republican National Convention certainly succeeded in bringing some excitement to the normally sleepy streets of downtown St. Paul.

Before a sometimes rambunctious public audience today, a seven-member panel, led by former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andy Luger, presented an 82-page report on policing during the Republican National Convention to the St. Paul City Council. While the panel generally concluded that the St. Paul police acted appropriately in overseeing security arrangements during the four-day gathering, it did offer numerous criticisms of the department’s preparations and tactics. Among the shortcomings outlined in the report:

• The cops should have done a better job of preparing the public for the police presence during the RNC. In numerous community events leading up to the convention, police officials emphasized that they intended to utilize a friendly and low-key approach to law enforcement. In reality, there were scores of cops in riot gear lining parade routes and protests on all four days of the convention, leading many observers to characterize it as a police state. “We take fault with the city for not preparing the community better,” Luger told the city council.

• The St. Paul Police Department was slow in working out “joint-powers agreements” with more than 100 outside law-enforcement agencies deemed necessary to staff the event. This led to uneven training for officers and a “slow and disjointed response to anarchist activities” on the first day of the convention.

• There was no established protocol for dealing with journalists who got swept up in unlawful assemblies and other events. This led to the arrest of more than 40 reporters who were attempting to do their jobs. “Both the media and the SPPD struggled with the question of who was a journalist and whether journalists (however defined) should be afforded some form of special treatment should they find themselves detained or arrested,” the report concludes.

• The use of “mass arrests” to deal with disturbances should be further reviewed. In particular, the report raises questions about the detainment of roughly 350 people on the Marion Street bridge during the final night of the convention.

Despite these criticisms, the panel concluded that the threat of violence from protesters during the convention was significant and that there were credible plans to shut down the convention. “These were sophisticated, organized and tenacious activists intent on committing repeated and highly dangerous acts of violence,” the report states.

During the one-hour presentation, a packed house of observers often laughed, jeered and offered unsolicited criticisms of the report’s findings. While the outside review was intended to placate critics of the police’s handling of the convention, it was clear that many who showed up were unimpressed by the process. Heffelfinger and Luger were repeatedly interrupted by cries of “lies” from the audience as they gave their testimony. On a couple of occasions city council president Kathy Lantry threatened to shut the meeting down if the audience did not desist from disrupting the presentation.

The seven-member panel was hired in October by the City of St. Paul to review police preparations and tactics during the four-day gathering. The group interviewed more than 50 people involved in RNC protests and policing, reviewed thousands of pages of planning documents, and watched hundreds of hours of videotape. All exhibits, including videos and photographs, can be reviewed on the city’s web site.

Despite the criticism, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman expressed satisfaction at how the four-day gathering proceeded.

“I still believe at the end of the day it was a successful convention,” he told the city council. “We will take this report very seriously and we will act upon it where appropriate.”