Kevin and I had no idea which way the crowd was going to turn; all I knew was I didn’t want to get cut off from the Excel and have to dash halfway around the metro to get on the air at 8PM.
The crowd turned right onto the frontage road, as Kevin and I raced up to John Ireland Boulevard. We moved across the bridge as the protest turned left, led by a group of about 20 bike cops and a dozen or so mounted officers.
They strolled out onto the bridge…
…and then things changed. The bike and horse cops formed a line. A squad of motorcycle cops raced down from the Cathedral to join them. They pulled out their Hats ‘n Bats and stopped the march in the middle of the bridge over I94.
Kevin and I stayed as close to the action as we could - but after a few minutes, a couple of Bureau of Criminal Apprehension cops in military battledress pointed us back to the north approach. We grabbed some space on the fence overlooking the bridge, and waited.
A few moments later, I heard a footsteps. I turned - and saw over 100 cops in riot gear moving down from the History Center, donning gas masks and moving to the front rank. It almost looked like a medieval battlefield shaping up; several ranks of infantry with sticks and armor, backed up by the cavalry…
…with artillery - half a dozen cops with 37mm tear gas grenade launchers moved up behind the whole lot.
And we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And wondered where they were going.
Until I saw more riot cops at the north end of the bridge. They had the entire march bottled up on the John Ireland bridge; no way to go to the east or west (they were 20 feet above the freeway), or forward or back.
So we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Someone quipped “I think they’re trying to bore them to death”. The cop I was talking with didn’t disagree.
Eventually, after over an hour of standing around on the bridge, it appeared they were starting to disperse to the north.
Nothing happened, but it was fascinating to watch it happen.
I hiked down Kellogg to the Xcel, walking through a checkpoint and past a long row of National Guard to get to Five Corners and the X.
I didn’t get much chance to blog my activities at and around the RNC yesterday - so I’m going to try to catch up now.
Around 2:15, my boss called us all into a meeting to tell us the City had told the company to send all employees home at 3PM, anticipating trouble with the 4PM “anti-war” rally.
“Score“, I thought, despairing that I’d ever get to cover a genuine protest at this convention.
I headed out on the street, and called Marty Owings, host of Radio Free Nation over on Blog Talk Radio and started chasing leads.
And chasing.
And chasing.
We started by running to Harriet Island - where Colleen Rowley’s party had pretty well broken up.
So it was down to Mears Park, where the anarkids had massed on a couple of previous nights. Zilch.
I figured we should just hang around the entrance on 6th and Market, which had seen so much of the action earlier in the week.
As we were crossing Wabasha, we saw a couple of “street medics” - anarkids with red crosses taped on their clothes, carrying Holly Hobby Junior First Aid kits - walking toward the Capitol, chattering on their walkie-talkies.
“Score“, again. We followed them to the Capitol, where the 4PM “Anti-War” rally, the one we talked about in July, was about to get underway. A terrible rap/jazz band was trying to channel Rage Against The Machine, playing to a crowd that was (someone call Molly Priesmeyer) about 99.5% white. No, I’m not kidding; I counted. I saw exactly two Afro-Americans in the crowd, and two more later.
The “band” was trying to whip the crowd into a frenzy with their tributes to (I’m not making this up) Hugo Chavez and Eugene Debs.
There was no need to caricature them. And given the amount of pot smoke I smelled, I don’t think there was much chance of “Frenzy”, at least not yet.
I moved up on the hill next to the stage, and watched the crowd - and the little knots of cops massing down on Ireland and Cedar.
Suddenly - around 4;30 - a group of a dozen Saint Paul bike cops rolled up the Mall through the middle of the crowd. Thirty yards from the stage, they veered stage-right into the crowd, and apparently grabbed a couple of protesters (sources say they’d been followed after committing some act of vandalism or criminality downtown). The entire crowd - probably 4-500 at this point - raced over around the dozen cops, who formed a circle around their quarry.
I turned around; two groups of riot cops (20-30 each) poured out of the capitol in full gear, and raced down the steps, pushing a path through the crowd and formed another circle around the bike cops. Off to stage left, a group of mounted cops charged across the grounds, leading another group of riot cops on foot. They formed a double cordon around the bike cops - one facing in, the other facing out, and escorted them over toward John Ireland, where a couple of Saint Paul black and whites came to take the suspects away.
I went down on the capitol grounds as the crowd went back to “enjoying” the shrill, hectoring speeches. The cops disenagaged with a lot of synchronize shouting and banging of gear, in an almost-tribal display of macho that, I won’t lie, made me proud to be an American. They pulled back to the top of the capitols steps, behind the stage.
I met Kevin Ecker and Leo Pusateri, about the time word came to us that their permit to use the capitol grounds was going to expire at 5PM.
As a loudspeaker truck went onto the capitol grounds to inform the crowd, the whole mass started moving south toward Constitution Avenue with almost terrifying (at the moment) speed.
Cross-posted at Shot in the Dark. Comments welcome.
