Legal Commentary

Show Us the Proof

By TChris

It's not smart to taunt or to march toward police officers who are wearing riot gear and armed with tear gas, shock grenades, and pepper spray. The police are likely to overreact, as this video (taken by a citizen journalist who got caught in the middle of the police and protesters) demonstrates.

Law enforcement agencies are justifying their heavy-handed tactics in St. Paul by telling the press of ominous threats to delegate safety: [more ...]

Search warrants and other police documents told of plans to throw Molotov cocktails, sabotage the Xcel Energy Center — the convention venue — or the St. Paul Downtown Airport, stretch metal chains across freeways and kidnap delegates.

Search warrants authorize searches. By their nature, they are prepared before the search occurs. A search warrant application may well claim (based on information provided by informants who may or may not be reliable) that plans to kidnap or to blow up delegates were being formed, but that doesn't mean the plans actually existed. Did the searches uncover such plans? If so, show us the proof.

There were sporadic incidents of violence in the Twin Cities. Perhaps 200 anarchists actually fomented violence, as the police claim, but the FBI and Ramsey County Sheriff have yet to reveal strong evidence of that assertion. What is certain is that not all of the "nearly 300 people [arrested] since Saturday in pre-emptive raids and at protests" actually violated the law.

Consider this:

Of the arrests, 16 felony and 47 gross misdemeanor charges had been filed. All others arrested were either cited for misdemeanors and released, freed pending further investigation, or released outright. Two University of Kentucky journalism students and their adviser were among those freed without being charged.

It seems a reasonable guess that the journalism students and their advisers were not violent anarchists. We'll have to wait a few weeks to find out how many of the 300 arrests actually result in charges and convictions.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 03, 2008 (boomark / email).