At about 8:30pm a young woman, maybe 20, stood with her arms raised in front of police in riot gear on University Avenue in St. Paul. After the pepper bombs went off she was standing there by herself and she kept saying, "I'm for peace, I'm for peace." Then the 30-50 cops approached her while her hands were still up and then at least 5 of the cops maced her with super soakers so heavily that she fell to the ground screaming. This was a young woman, unarmed. All they had to do was handcuff her. The only warning she got was, "get off the street of you'll be arrested." They never said she'd get maced. It was one of the most horrible things I've ever seen.

How's that freedom taste? U.S.A. #1!

How anybody can support the authoritarian forces at work in this country is beyond me. You have to be either brainless or heartless to be OK with what happened at the DNC and RNC, and in the government as a whole. The people orchestrating the attack on our rights are definitely not brainless... I know that much. It's the rest of America that has me confused.

Working-class America: Are you sadists or just idiots?

The article would be a lot better if you were to have a link to the parade permit issued to the protesters.

Are you sadists or just idiots?

Yeah, those would be the only options, wouldn't they?

Overeducated dilettante America: are you too addled by smug to think, or has your invariably white, college-educated, upper-middle-class perspective made it impossible for you to think for yourselves?

Most working Americans know the difference between the US and, say, Russia or Venezuela or Cuba - much better than you do.

So to see people like you (plural) prancing about and insulting our country and destroying shit - hell, I'd volunteer to club some of you myself.

Thank God for the SPPD. I wish they'd maced, clubbed and incarcerated more of "you".

So I was watching almost the whole thing from about 20 yards away. The reporter here fails to mention that police DID give clear instructions: you can disperse to the north or to the west. That's what my friends and I did...walked about 100 feet up John Ireland. As long as we weren't pushing against the cops trying to cross bridges that they didn't want us to cross then we had no problems..and we hung out til like 2330.

My friend Paul had his car parked downtown. When the group was at 12th and Cedar, he walked over to 12tha and Wabasha and asked a cop if he could go get his car and the cop let him go get it.

The only people I saw get maced were ones who stayed in the streets that the cops wanted people out of. I always heard instructions where they would let you go.

I thought the cops should have let people march--that was bad; but the people who got pushed, maced, and arrested seemed to want it--they didn't listen to instructions. I was standing with a reporter who was saying the same thing--why don't they just listen to what the cops are saying?

There's no such thing as "overeducated", asshole.

So I love how people are just okay with martial law being established for four days, just as a test to see if We The People will take this crap from our "government" supposedly protecting us...
I especially love the comment from Rob about the girl who got maced after she already had her arms up.

Are people seriously OK with what happened at the RNC???

Its messed up...
what about freedom of the press?
press people cant be arrested for reporting....its called freedom of speech...its in the stinking constitution. yet, how many reporters, regardless of the company they worked for not, how many were arrested or hurt or maced or assaulted in some way by the ARMY of police this week?
way to many.

way to many.
Again, its called Martial Law...welcome to the RNC and the DNC...its no different there.

wake up America.
your loosing your rights.

While I respect the views of both sides in this argument, I feel that a lot gets left out. Cuba has a much more comprehensive health care system, lower birthrate mortality and a higher literacy rate than the US. Venezuela has gas for a quarter a gallon. With respect to foreign policy, most people in the US know far less than the average Canadian or European. We work more than any other first world country. The rates of obesity are the highest in the world. It is rare for more than 50% of our population to even vote. This is just a sampling of facts about the US. I am not suggesting that the US is shit, it's not, but if one looks at what we could be as a nation and what we are, it is difficult not to be discouraged.

Frank: For the record, the incident described here happened at 12th and Cedar, not at John Ireland. So if you were watching from 20 yards away, you were watching something different.

There was video footage of the women getting maced by the bike cops on television last night. I can not find it on line though. It was not the girl on utube holding the flower, it was someone else. Same sort of thing, but the bike cops were ramming into her with their bikes and spraying her with mace or pepper spray or something nasty.

To Space Cowboy....you are truly an 1D10T. To even TRY and compare the United States with Cuba, Venezuela is asinine and 1D10T1C. What you're implying is that we as a society and government should become more socialist and communist, with government subsidizing just about everything. Hey, if you love Cuba so much, why not move there?

Trish Van Pilsum reporting from RNC Protest showed several minutes of the 21 year old girl getting sprayed with mace and pushed on by bike police. Thursday Sept 4th. Fox is not showing the video on their site. Trish said she was going to find out what happened to girl after her arrest. That should be special.

At 6:34 I was coming out of the shower. The Colbert Report was on. I watched.

At 6:43 my hair was still wet from the shower.

At 7:05 I posted that I couldn't find any anarchists to interview this morning. I guess they're not early risers.

At 7:10 I have a cigarette and lament that I should quit the damned things.

I was in the middle of this. The police made no obvious attempt to tell protesters how to leave. Those who tried to leave were maced or chased south to be arrested. The police were threatening and violent.

What a sad state of affairs. Who are these individuals who have the time for disruption? Don't they work? Don't they have jobs? Couldn't their message be heard better and stronger if it weren't being chanted while they are throwing rocks at the police? As a viewer outside of the "green zone" I can say that I have difficulty aligning myself with those dressed with bandannas and black hoodies. I too want change, I too pray for a better future and to bring our troops home. The difference is, I choose to educate intelligently. These marches are merely parades to entertain the press. We are better than this. I expect to see a higher than average turnout at the polls.

Chauncey Davenport: "Don't they work? Don't they have jobs?"

You are, of course, aware that this happened AFTER the work day?

I'd say the "bandana and black hoodies" contingent of the march was about 5%. However the media LOVES to focus on them.

The simple fact is that the police used force when absolutely not necessary.

Oooo facts!

Yawn.... It looks like the anarchists, protesters and 'alt-patriot' crowd sent in their third and fourth teams. Either that or the Polics were incredibly effective in breaking up and containing marches.

to the reporters who wrote this, please tell me you're not going to take the assault lying down. the proper, nay, AMERICAN thing to do is makes sure these clowns are held accountable. they are thugs, obviously just giddy with excitement at the chance to hurt people and get away with it. you'd better press charges

Sigh. I think, SC II, that you missed my point entirely. I did not advocate socialism or communism. What I was attempting to draw your attention to was that, despite being he wealthiest nation in the world, we have failed or at least done very poorly in many areas--areas that countries with far fewer resources have done much more. It appears that you are unwilling to concede that any deficiencies exist in the US, except that perhaps it contains people who think differently from yourself.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

It's really a sorry state of affairs when a legitimate political party cannot have a convention without asshole protestors trying to disrupt the proceedings. The protestors have no right to distrupt the convention. They got what they deserve. SPPD should have cracked a couple more heads.

I actually have video of Jeff and Andy being assaulted by the police (the 6:46 p.m. section). ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKzD14FeL9I ) At the end of the video I'm maced for filming as well. The police were flying high on adrenaline and testosterone that night.

I actually have video of Jeff and Andy being assaulted by the police (the 6:46 p.m. section). ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKzD14FeL9I ) At the end of the video I'm maced for filming as well. The police were flying high on adrenaline and testosterone that night.

For those who claim that the cops were justified, I have an honest question. Did you actually watch the videos? Did you see what your police force did? I'm finding that there is a 1:1 correlation between people who got informed on the protests and those that were unhappy at the police actions.

The permit was over. The protesters stayed...they got what they deserved!

What is not immediately apparent is the fact that the police often prevented people from leaving, using a strategy of herding anybody present into a big lump and continuing to allow people to wander into the arrest zones after the decision to gas/mace/arrest had been made.

A diverse cross-section of innocents were corralled into the protests by police - the audience exiting from the Daily Show, families with children, concert goers, journalists, pedestrians, etc. The police even arrested an RNC delegate and one of their own security personnel.

The right to assemble and the right to free speech are American birthrights. The job of the police is to ensure that those who wish to peacefully practice these rights may do so. In this case, they adequately protected the rights of the Republican Party, while miserably failing to protect the rights of those who wished to peacefully assemble outside the convention.

There is simply no excuse for arresting journalists, let alone spraying them down with pepper spray. There is no excuse for macing a completely peaceful protester (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyvsc1ktgJE). And there are far too many examples of this kind of behavior to easily dismiss.

The 2004 GOP convention in NYC saw 1200 people arrested. 90% of the charges against the arrestees were dismissed amid evidence of false charges, brutality, planted provocateurs, false arrest, etc. My guess the same will be true here. If so, that represents total police incompetence. Though there were, without question, criminals present during the protests, it isn't acceptable to arrest 9 innocent people to get 1 guilty one. That equation should be reversed. Otherwise, they are simply targeting a "protester" demographic and abdicating their civic responsibility to "protect and serve."

The strategy, budget, and on-the-ground decision making of Mayor Coleman, Mayor Rybak and the security leadership need to be examined in the most transparent light possible.

Huh.

Ya know, I spent all four days of the convention recording video for True North, and often found myself right in the middle of protests that were obviously heading towards the tank.

But I *somehow* escaped being arrested, maced, pepper sprayed, folded, spindled or mutilated in any way, shape, or form.

Want to know my secret?

When the cops said it was time to disburse, I left. Actually I could have waited until after the second or third warning and still would have made it home without problem.

It occurred to me while watching the inevitable round-up's that the only people left to be rounded up were either A)right where they wanted to be or, B)cameramen looking for an extra something-something come review time with the boss or, C) fucking morons.

So, which one were you?

What happened to Live Free or Die? Land of the Free Home of the Brave? Liberty or Death? You who cannot stand a few protests or free speech move to freakin China... seems to suit your tastes in govt better. Wimps!

What were the police protecting? I didn't realize that in America free speech has boundaries of time of day and areas. It's way past time for those inside the conventions to be confronted by those outside the convention walls. This past week in St. Paul shows me there is no such thing as 'free' speech. Too many protestors had to pay a price.