well on Thursday I got arrested...

Thursday was as most of you know the last day of the Republican National Convention (RNC). I had left after school via the 21A and had gotten off at the st. Paul Cathedral only several minutes after the first march had started. Moments after the march had crossed fully onto the John Ireland & I-94 Bridge, the police rushed in and formed a 20 foot thick barricade of police officers in full riot equipment, motorcycles horses and cop cars.

Having just missed getting into the protest a waited behind the the police lines, occasionally talking to my brother who was in the protest that had been pincered on the bridge, it was a permitted march that had been met with unjustified force. They threatened to gas the crowd on the bridge at least 5 times moving the horses back and warning the observers that the gas would drift our way and we should disperse. None of us fled, so I think they realized that if they gassed the already cornered and unarmed crowd they would be met with an angry group of protesters behind them.

At about 5:30 the they pushed the protest back onto the intersection behind the John Ireland & I-94 Bridge, after which point me and a couple from Macalester College, ventured around behind the police lines and across the Marion & I-94 bridge and to the intersection the protesters were holding against the police line. While protesting there Speaches where made by organizers, Chants like "You're Sexy, You're Cute, Take off your Riot Suit!" sprung up.

around 7:00 another March came towards the intersection from the capital building and sucked up the 150 to 250 protesters holding the intersection. Now at a strong 500-700 people we crossed rice street and followed St. Anthony Avenue past the Sears and onto Marion street, where the Bicycle police had traveled around us and along with 1 cop car set up a barricade.

much to police dismay the march was not crossing a bridge, and we walked around the barrier on Marion and St. Anthony to follow Marion up to University avenue where a preemptive barrier had been set up using 3 police cars. going onto the curb and grass once more we passed onto University Ave down the double block, bicycle police once more passed to the front of us this time they formed a barrier going building to building.

the bicycle police stepped off their bikes and with no warning or order to disperse. began firing concussion, gas, smoke, and flash-bang grenades at our peaceful march. I saw cavalry police kicking people fleeing gas/smoke clouds, I had seen only a little of this, but was told later that several of the police groups pursuing had opened fire on other segments of the march with rubber bullet guns, and had actually hit both protesters and non-protesting civilians with grenades with still no warnings or dispersal order.

during the get away I stayed around as part of several small sweep teams pulling people to their feet and away from gas, and eventually helped hold a broken fence for other fleeing protesters. few of us fully escaped though. the police had formed a 5-square block perimeter and were not letting any one pass, not even random civilians who were out and about and hadn't even seen the protest.

Eventually I met up with My Brother and after the crowd had asked to be allowed peacefully the cops only told us to get on the Marion & I-94 Bridge if we wanted to leave, but we could already see the lines of riot cops forming on the others side. nowhere left to got the corralled all of us onto the bridge and said hands on your heads, sit down, you are all under arrest and attempts to stand up without orders from an officer, force will be used, if your hands leave your head force will be used.

We were detained on the bridge at about 8:20, the police began sending 2 teams of 2-3 officers to arrest people 1 at a time, sitting on the bridge was actually pretty fun until they told us that if we didn't shut up force would be used (they told us this a little after 10:30) we sang songs and gave advice for what to do in jail, we sang "Baby I'm an Anarchist" "Those Anarcho Punks are mysterious" and "Armageddon" all By Against Me!.

At around 11:30 I was Placed under Arrest placed in plastic handcuffs and thrown in a van, and left to wait until they picked up another 2 minors, after 3 hours of waiting this is probably the only time I'll be happy to be arrested, although it didn't get much better from there. after being brought to the Ramsey County Jail I was interviewed about what happened and thrown in a concrete cell to wait to be brought to the juvenile center, )which is only equipped to hold 2-3 people at a time but on Thursday/Friday they received around 38 people.

I was finally allowed to go to the bathroom and was given small cell with a slab on it with an inch thick pad, a small "Uncrustables" sandwich and a 1% milk carton and told I could go to sleep. I woke up more times than I could count although the milk was better than any milk carton I've ever gotten in school. I was released on Friday at 7:30 with just enough time to be driven to school.

on Tuesday I went to see the ripple effect concert and saw anti-flag, and Rage Against the Machine! but before rage played the police cut the power and confiscated some of their equipment, although Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha got a hold of Anti-Flag's Loud speaker and did A Capella "Bulls on Parade" and "Killing in the name" free concerts are awesome. I'll say more about this if asked but now I just want to leave with one thing.

cops make horrible jokes, they have no sense of humor at all seriously I didn't hear anything funny from them at all although most of them seem very happy with this sick fantasy that they were going to bring us to the gas chambers Nazi-style.