(2008-09-03) St Paul Pre Protest Arrests

The Republican National Convention is happening in St Paul Minnesota.

The local police with SWAT teams raided a number of "hippie houses": 2 or 3 of the 50 individuals who were handcuffed this morning at the 2 houses were actually arrested and charged with a crime, and the crime they were charged with is "conspiracy to commit riot."

The raids involved the FBI. Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force - an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI - was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate "vegan groups" and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing.

One house was being used by I Witness Video. The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant... We are suffering a preemptive video arrest. For those that don't know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004 success.

One of the people arrested was Monica Bicking, Ian Bicking's sister. He writes about her, Pro Test, and Anarchist-s.