RNC protests

Local photojournalist Mike Dvorak was out on the streets for MnIndy on Monday. Because we were featuring a lot of news photos and galleries that day, we decided to hold this collection of 42 images and showcase it today as part of our RNC week wrap-up.

Radical punk band Anti-Flag headlined the Ripple Effect Tuesday at the St. Paul Capitol Grounds, where Rage Against the Machine were physically barred by police from taking the stage to perform a surprise set. Rage performed two songs on a megaphone out in the audience, and much of the crowd turned around to march on [...]

“We’re here to learn how to deal with nice people.”
That’s what one of the 29 police officers the city of Philadelphia sent to St. Paul for the RNC told me Wednesday evening. He and a partner were spending the week with a squad car parked on the grass at the south end of the John [...]

It’s the last day of the RNC and the parking lot of Catholic Charities has been chosen as a convergence space for a small army of police and their vehicles. It’s R&R out there. The riot gear is piled in minivans, footballs are being tossed. One officer pulls out a disposable camera and takes a photo of another officer talking casually with three protesters passing by on their way to the Capitol building.

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. [...]

At about 7pm tonight a loud bang set everyone milling about at Washington and Sixth on edge. There were immediate “uh-ohs” and panic-stricken faces. A few people ran. The loud boom sounded like, well, a firecracker. Over the radio of the police officer next to me came the frantic announcement: “Explosion at Washington and Sixth!” Except that it wasn’t. Because that was the corner where the officer and I were standing.

Four members of the CODEPINK women’s peace movement were arrested Wednesday afternoon. The women, Desiree Fairooz, 52, of Arlington, Texas; Toby Blome, 53 of El Cerrito, Cali.; Kit Siemen, 50, of Quilcene, Wash.; and Nancy Mancias, 38, of San Francisco, were protesting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin near the St. Paul Hotel when police pushed them [...]

“Do we have any Republicans in the audience?” asked Trouble the Water co-director Carl Deal at a screening this morning in the Landmark Center of St. Paul, across the street from the RNC. There was hardly a dry eye in the house for his Sundance-feted Katrina documentary, but only about a dozen sets of eyes [...]

As protesters targeted vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin as her tour bus arrived at the Minneapolis Hilton, three street medics assisting protesters were snatched by unmarked security in riot gear who refused to identify who they were. They had no badges or other identification, just beige uniforms with black riot gear. You can see the video in larger format below.

Court action on RNC arrests, which started slowly Tuesday, should hit high gear today to meet a midday deadline for demonstrating probable cause on people detained at Monday’s protests.
The pace picked up just a bit Tuesday afternoon at the St. Paul court that’s dedicated to processing RNC-related arrests after a morning that saw only two [...]