Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul

[G_j]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/99433/


Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul

Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake at 3:47 AM on September 19, 2008.

Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing. Post Tools

Now that we've had a few weeks to settle, a look back at Labor Day in the Twin Cities. Labor Day was of course also Day One of the Republican National Convention. Video was released today of an apparent mass arrest of utterly peaceful concert goers at the SEIU Labor Day concert.

My personal favorite moment in the tape is an off-camera exchange. Police in riot gear have surrounded loungers in a waterfront park. They announce, "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Under Arrest" and you hear one young woman say incredulously "Are you serious?"

Yep, I'm afraid they are.

Here's the press release that came with the video, from the Glass Bead Collective:


BURIED TAPE REVEALS USE OF FORCE AND AN UNWARRANTED MASS ARREST OF BYSTANDERS DURING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION


ST. PAUL, Minnesota (September 18, 2008) Video released today shows the indiscriminate arrest of a crowd of two hundred at the waterfront across from a concert on Harriet Island Regional Park during this month's Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The video includes multiple angles of the event as well as an interview with the cameraman who buried his footage and was one of almost two hundred people arrested for rioting without probable cause.


More than eight hundred people were arrested in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention. This video shows that at least twenty percent of the eight hundred plus arrested were seized without due cause.

[Nevilledog]

1. That is reprehensible and unbelievable.

The actions of the police that day were outrageous. Thanks for sharing that video.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Wow.

Twice near the end of the movie the narrator says something like: "We we're doing anything wrong except protesting," or "the police didn't witness any crime, except people hanging out at a park."

Protesting is not wrong, nor is hanging out in the park.

That guy needs to think before he speaks.

[mzmolly]

3. I am

in disbelief.

[Kip Humphrey]

4. POLICE STATE.

[G_j]

6. that's it

and this isn't the first time, this very thing has happened too many times before.

[intheflow]

5. Very disturbing footage.

Completely peaceful, mellow group--I woulnd't even call it a crowd. This was nothing less than government intimidation. Disgusting.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. USA adopting Chinese government's methods of control

America and China Joined at the Hip

By DAVE LINDORFF

SNIP

The convergence of Chinese and US political-economic systems is going on in other ways too. Both governments are using massive computer systems (made in America) to monitor the Internet, with China making use of equipment and techniques developed for them by US companies like Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems, and with the National Security Agency then drawing on those techniques for use back here in America.

As we saw at the two national party conventions last month, the US is also learning and applying the crowd-control techniques of the Chinese government to the US where the default tactic wherever public protest is planned is now to have police adopt a paramilitary approach that features aggressive use of tear gas, concussion bombs, assault rifles, house raids and preventive detention. (my emphasis /JC)

Another point of convergence is the concentration of power in a secretive executive body. China, of course, has a national congress. It meets once a year and passes carefully vetted resolutions. In recent years, its members have occasionally raised a controversial issue, like concerns about the environmental and human consequences of the Three Gorges Dam, or about the role of shoddy construction in the deaths of so many school children in the last earthquake. But it has no power and plays no role in controlling the decisions of the true leaders of the country.

Likewise in the US, there is a Congress, but over the last eight years, it has ceded virtually all oversight power to the executive branch, which treats any effort by its members to investigate or to constrain its action with utter contempt.

Both countries promote widespread, worshipful display of the national flag, and ritual oath-taking, as well as unquestioning patriotism and worship of militarism. (my emphasis /JC)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20797.htm

[G_j]

8. no doubt a model of suppression

strangely, I have made those passing comparisons observing events. It has gotten more obvious, but it's not new.
I was in DC when 600 peaceful demonstrators were 'preemptively' arrested the day before a World Bank/IMF protest,
and that was when Clinton was president.

[G_j]

9. ==