Riots that twice gripped the Dinkytown area of Minneapolis after the University of Minnesota won hockey championships in 2002 and 2003 caused significant damage but saw fewer felonies than the Republican National Convention protests have so far.

This video from the 2003 riot (below the jump) shows scenes every bit as chaotic as any in St. Paul this week and with maybe more mayhem, including elements not yet seen during the RNC like fire and looting — the latter shown with ironic voiceover about “people working together” as a mob breaks a liquor store’s plate glass window. A “Dinkytown Looters” T-shirt sold after the riots proved so popular that a local shop couldn’t keep it in stock.

Police used TV news video to ID vandals from among the 2,000 rioters long after the 2003 fires died. Authorities in St. Paul have access to their own video from new cameras mounted expressly for the purpose around downtown.

Eight men in their late teens and early 20s received felony convictions in the 2003 riots for property crimes such as turning over and trashing cars, setting fire to cars and a parking lot booth, kicking down police van doors, and trashing street signs and semaphores. None were found guilty of conspiracy to riot — a charge widely applied to RNC arrestees — despite the 2003 riot’s less-than-spontaneous nature the second time around.

In 2005, the city of Minneapolis paid $412,500 to settle a lawsuit by a former university student who suffered a ruptured spleen from a projectile fired by police during the 2003 riot. The student, said not to be a rioter, had other injuries as well that could have killed him without immediate attention, according to his attorney. The Minnesota Daily complained when police manhandled credentialed newspaper staffers covering the event.