These stories stem from the events that happened at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul, Minnesota. Although these actions took place in the summer of 2008, the repercussions and trials continue.
The outcome of the State versus the People of Minnesota is not yet known. The battles fought between independent journalists and police were the catalyst of what it means to be a citizen journalist in America and how mainstream media portrays your message. What happened here and the outcome of the trials are of the utmost social importance.
As part of the RNC Police actions, media houses, convergence halls and bookstores were targeted and raided by SWAT teams. I was in St. Paul as a Portland Independent Media journalist. I was also part of a group out of New York called Glass Bead Collective. Our mission was to create an online feature length documentary. Glass Bead Collective was subjected to two raids, one raid a week before the convention and one a week after. I was in the second raid.
Media Target
Three of us were dropped off in late in the night by the people of Twin City Indymedia. We stopped into the historic Mickey's Dinner in St. Paul. This dinner is an old train car, converted into a restaurant with its long windows and neon lights. Days earlier this was the site of a mass punishment of demonstrators, the demonstrators were part of a march against poverty, the organizers call this the Poor People's March.
The police created a gauntlet the Poor People's March was forced to run. Tear gas and pepper mace would rain down from both sides of the narrow streets. The dark night was light up by stun grenades, rubber bullets were shot into the on-coming crowd. Mickey's Dinner sits in the background with its long windows and neon lights. Riot Police bristling with rounds of canister mace and exacto-bullets stand on the roof of the Dinner as spotters. Many of the marches during these days would be forced into mass arrest zones.
Tonight, days after the convention, the streets of St. Paul are eerily quiet, we three feel like ghosts. We walk along the empty streets; the dark eye of the police was watching us. We were being tracked by a now permanently installed police camera system. These eyes, now hang above every street corner. As we were about to key into our media room a squad car sped towards us. I felt as though I had been thrust into a real life version of a Goya war painting. Hands up, about to be shot. As I reached for my identification my comrades had to calm an officer down, his hand on his pistol, preparing to draw and shoot. "Calm down, it's his ID."
We were all separated. I was put into the back of a squad car in cuffs. We told the police we had permission to be here. The police stated, "You are being considered vagrants." On that pretext, they forced their way into our media work space. I was truly in fear for my life. The cold loss of my own destiny, brought a deep feeling of catharsis. Three cops moved in on me close, trapped in the hold of a cop car, pounding fists, dripping their guns, this was it, I thought I was dead. In anger and fear, the police asked at me these words, "Why do you hate us, you anarchist terrorists? Why?" "I am an artist and a journalist."
The police raided our space. I had created iconic political posters of police posing their riot gear. I wrote the words "Not good", under their boots. The police seemed to already know who we were. We told them that, "We just put out a mass message to the country's news papers, that another journalist space was being raided." This message in this situation gave us our way out. The police came close to my ear, "We saw your posters Mr. Lilly. I guess we'll be seeing them again." The police took our film editor that night, for lack of verifiable address.
Within four hours the National Lawyers Guild moved our work space. Our new space would be in the old Walker Church, Minneapolis. The Walker Church was the launch site for the freedom rider buses. The Walker Church was where Martin Luther King gave speeches in the early days of the People's Struggle. For the next three months we would work on our film, “Terrorizing Dissent”, in this old church. This raid, so long after the RNC Convention became a lost story, no one knew about. So, I tell it today.
Ghost Rider
I ride an empty train across an empty landscape, back to face trial in St. Paul. I feel like a ghost soldier going back to a forgotten battlefield. The first snow to fall is blown by cold autumnal winds. Abandoned farm houses fall fallow into the land. Mountains and fields of rusty plows, old cars, constantly go back to nature. Old fences that run along the landscape seem to stand strong, but they too crumble at the end. An ancient stream bed pulls the old telegraph lines down. It all goes back to its natural state. This line of steel track that runs west to east, to take me back to a forgotten battle, it is called "Empire Builder". This line brought you the state.
A ghost passenger talks about the past, "This is all stolen land. They used to shoot buffalo from this train just for fun." It is pride built on genocide. We live in a democracy that defends itself. People say it's better here in America, so that makes the torture okay. And the state goes back to its nature, mercenaries, secret wars, war on protest, brutality on all fronts. The old town jail sits next to a tin roof church, the people put on trial for conspiracy to riot. Food Not Bombs considered criminal syndicalism. Like in the 1930s, like the old fences that are taken back by nature, the police, the military, it all falls back to its natural repressive state.
Ghost Soldier
I went back to St. Paul to face trial. I had written on police property that, people were being tortured in the jail by police, during the convention. I wrote, "Bags over heads, choking, sexual humiliation", these were the McCain, Palin atrocities, committed at St. Paul. I spent days in solitary. I now knew what truly alone was. I spent my days memorizing words to keep myself occupied. I spoke these words to the echo around me, "When confronting fear, one must embrace absolute calm. Our hearts are pure, our actions are just, our actions are cathartic, our actions calm the mind." It had meant everything to know that I was in that place for a justifiable cause.
I recall thinking about the brutality of people being trapped in prisons for unjust reasons. When put in those places one can quickly loose the will to live. The RNC-8 are facing similar difficulties. They are being framed by the state, conspiracy charges for organizing counter-demonstrations to the RNC. They had provided food to the masses, places for people to stay, childcare for our children. What the police did to the civic life of the Twin Cities was deeply planned.
Nothing that happened here was an anomaly, the mass arrests, all pre-planned, the targeting of journalists, pre-planned, the interdiction of undercover police and agent provocateurs, was all pre-planned. A twenty-million dollar insurance policy was taken out by the Republican National Committee to cover the illegal police repression. The police were allowed to bypass constitutional law, police would be allowed to disrupt, maim, do anything they wanted to, against the people. The pending law suits would all be covered by this insurance policy. Anti-insurgent tactics are the norm at all demonstrations. From the WTO 1999 to today, all over the world police repression against the people's voice is standard practice. We should ask, who is buying all these high-tech police weapons and why? Is it because the state, the police, the military is afraid of us?
Finished
In the end I gave the judge a piece of my art work. Most but not all of my charges were dropped. Judges do what they see fit. These trials, these situations are connected to and affected by the visual image. Posters, film documentary, photographic stills, writing, journalism, music. The crux to these battles, the point being -- art and the people's voice versus war and police. This is a life and death struggle, one side fights for life, the other for death, whose side will you be on?
RNC Aftermath Police Riots: Lost Stories |