Riot

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Riot cops relaxing

My pal Gil Kaufman is covering the Republican National Convention for MTV.com. He took this great photo of police in riot gear kicking back on a stairwell outside. Gil says, "Yes, pepper spray does sting, real bad." Republican National Convention photos (MTV.com)...

Thai Capital in State of Emergency

Military and riot police separate protestors as violence leaves at least 1 dead.

Radio news host among protesters arrested at RNC for "conspiracy to riot", National Guard headed in?

Amy Goodman, host of the independent news program "Democracy Now!," was among hundreds who were arrested in St. Paul Minnesota today. Also detained were Goodman's producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. The three were covering the protests at the Republican National Convention, but the Minneapolis Police Department charged them with conspiracy to riot. Goodman has since been released, but her colleagues are still being held at the time of this blog post. Video embedded above from Rick Rowley and Brandon Jourdan. Democracy Now's news release about the incident is here. (via @kenyatta) More on the story: Editor and Publisher, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post, snip below: "I was down on the convention floor interviewing delegates when I heard that two of our producers had been arrested," said Goodman. "I ran down to Jackson and 7th Street, where the police had moved in." Goodman said that when she ran up to find out what was going on, she was also arrested. "They seriously manhandled me and handcuffed my hands behind my back. The top ID [at the convention] is to get on the floor and the Secret Service ripped that off me. I had my Democracy Now! ID too. I was clearly a reporter." Goodman, who was released after being charged with a misdemeanor, said that Salazar had been hurt in the face, while Kouddous had been thrown up against a wall and hurt his elbow. "Nicole told me that as they moved in on three sides, she asked them 'How do I get away from this?' and they jumped on her." Update: A group called Cold Snap Legal in the Twin Cities area is offering legal assistance to the hundreds of protesters who were arrested today at the RNC. Here's their Twitter stream, with lots of updates (thanks, Kyle). Via that Twitter stream, a re-tweet from @tcdailyplanet, 830pm PT: "Credible report of a convoy of National Guard heading toward the Twin Cities on Highway 55 between 8 and 9 p.m., with at least 7 humvees." Previously on BB: Report: Massive, warrantless raids on peace protesters in Minneapolis, ahead of RNC....

Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested at RNC

Goodman has been charged with obstruction; felony riot charges are pending against producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.

Report: Massive, warrantless raids on peace protesters in Minneapolis, ahead of RNC.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com reports that protesters in Minneapolis, where the Republican National Convention will soon begin, have been subjected to massive, pre-emptive police raids. Those arrested include members of Food not Bombs, and a group calling itself the "RNC Welcoming Committee," and a group that uses video to protect civil liberties by documenting police activity at first amendment events. Snip: [They have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying. Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning -- one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a "hippie house," where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with "peaceful kids" who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here. In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such as "Do you have Terminator ready?" as they lay on the floor in handcuffs. The 10 or so individuals in the house all said that though they found the experience very jarring, they still intended to protest against the GOP Convention, and several said that being subjected to raids of that sort made them more emboldened than ever to do so. Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis. Glenn's post includes videos. One of them is embedded here, below, "from the house that had just been raided." Glenn's Salon item also points to blog posts from the targeted protest groups, including this one from I-Witness. This group previously "videotaped police behavior at the 2004 GOP Convention in New York and helped get charges dismissed against hundreds of protesters who were arrested." The post excerpted below was published while the police raid was happening today: 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. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16. 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. (via Ned Sublette)...

Football row sparked sword siege

A sword-wielding man held riot police at bay for three hours after a row between neighbours got out of hand, a court hears.

Thai police try to end stand-off

Thai riot police surround the PM's office to try to evict anti-government protesters who took over the building on Tuesday.

Bush-McCain "Tijuana Bibles" at DNC

Ethan Persoff (the fellow who is covering the riot police at the DNC) has printed a special edition of his (X-rated) McCain "Tijuana Bible" to hand out to folks at the convention. Uncivil Society reports: Any complete account of the evolution of communications media in the twentieth century must include the Tijuana Bible -- small pornographic comics featuring bootleg versions of popular comic strips and celebrities. ... In Denver this week, delegates to the Democratic National Convention will have the opportunity to get printed versions of this Bush-McCain Tijuana Bible, presented as a replica of a prophetic 1934 comic from Lieberman's Lil' Squeezer Books. Whatever one's moral stance regarding porn & politics, it's a rather clever piece of neo-retro performance art. Bush McCain Tijuana Bible at the Democratic National Convention...

Ethan Persoff's coverage of the Democratic National Convention riot cops

Ethan Persoff is covering the activities of the DNC riot police on his blog. Here's an excerpt from Day 2: It's at this moment that the 'early big moment' happened. Just to repeat: the cops were caging these kids in, tighter and tighter. So a tall guy makes what seems to be a break for it. And that's where I happened to be in a good place for a very clear view. Due to our alley detour I was standing about fifteen feet from what happened. And it happened in such a quick blink of an eye that you'd miss it if you sneezed. My excuse for not having a photo is because just as I hit the shutter I swallowed in a gulp of pepper spray that misted through the air forcing me to recoil and lose the shot. But I'll happily go in a court of law to say I saw a guy with no weapons run at a bunch of police, immediately get shot with rubber bullets, and then receive what looked very much like a pistol whipping. The sound of clattering metal billyclubs on the pavement, indicating missed shots, is something I don't think I'll ever forget either. Later after the incident I spoke to another witness who confirmed my assessment, though he's more graphic. He was in the crowd: "Yeah I saw it right there. The guy, he just, is tackled. And the cop he turned his gun around and BAM BAM BAM, he just bashes this guy's head like five times with the butt of his gun. And then the horses show up and the cops on those, they get their shot with those metal canes. DNC riot cops...

Boehlert: Hillary Clinton speaks at convention. The press concocts a story

Within the fast-forward world of campaign journalism, it's not considered cool to examine the recent past in order to provide context for today's events. (We know it's not cool because nobody does it.) Nonetheless, here's a very brief history lesson that the political press prefers to ignore. At the Democratic National Convention in 1992, Jerry Brown, who finished a very distant second to the party's nominee, had his name placed into nomination and addressed the assembled convention. After seconding his own nomination (true story), Brown delivered a fiery speech that thrilled his unruly supporters inside Madison Square Garden. Brown's ill will toward nominee Bill Clinton was so legendary that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution considered it newsworthy that Brown's convention address "avoided a direct attack" on the nominee, while the Los Angeles Times noted Brown "did not specifically endorse presidential nominee Bill Clinton." Indeed, for weeks leading up to the convention, Brown refused to back his party's nominee, complaining to The New York Times in June that supporting Clinton was like buying a ticket for the Titanic. Four years earlier, the Democratic convention in Atlanta witnessed even more tumult from the second-place finisher when Jesse Jackson, furious at being passed over for the vice-presidential slot by the party's nominee, Michael Dukakis (who failed to call Jackson and tell him the VP news), threatened to withhold his delegates' support from the party's nominee. In fact, just hours before the convention began, Jackson's supporters threatened to place the candidate's name into nomination for the vice presidency, which would have created a massive floor fight between Jackson and Dukakis' pick, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. Pre-convention tension grew so heated that the mild-mannered Dukakis was quoted as saying, "I don't care what Jesse Jackson does. I'm going to this convention and I'm going to win." During his convention keynote address, which lasted nearly an hour -- much longer than expected, Jackson did not specifically endorse Dukakis. End of history lesson. Now, take those historical nuggets from 1992 and 1988 and transport them to Denver this week, and try to imagine what the press reaction would be (not the political reaction, but the press reaction) if Hillary Clinton delivered her address Tuesday night and did not endorse the Democratic Party's nominee. Honestly, I have trouble even picturing the response, mostly because there has already been such an unhinged media response (see Maureen Dowd, if you must) to Clinton's finishing second, speaking at the convention, and supporting the party's nominee. If she snubbed the nominee? We'd probably see a media-credentialed riot, with hordes of pundits and reporters roaming the late-night streets of Denver (Pitchforks? Probably) in search of Clinton and looking to inflict long-term pain. Fact: Many in the press have portrayed Clinton's planned convention address, as well as the fact that her name is being placed into nomination, as an unprecedented, heavy-handed power grab. Fact: It's not. In years past, Democratic candidates who won lots of primaries and accumulated hundreds of delegates (sorry, Howard Dean and Bill Bradley) have always been allowed to address the convention and very often place their name into nomination. It's the norm. It's expected. It's a formality. This newly manufactured media attack on Clinton is just the latest in a long line of press grenades thrown her way this year. But this time, she's not the only victim, because the media's concocted story line is being used to unfairly skewer Barack Obama, too. Consider New York magazine: "Obama Agrees to Roll-Call Vote for Clinton. Does That Make Him a Sissy?" What's so startling in watching the coverage of the Clinton convention-speech story has been the complete ignorance displayed about how previous Democratic conventions have dealt with runners-up like Clinton. It's either complete ignorance or the media's strong desire to painstakingly avoid any historical context, which, in turn, allows the press to mislead news consumers into thinking Clinton's appearance (as well as the gracious invitation extended by Obama) represents something unique and unusual. Something newsworthy. Based on previous conventions, if a candidate had accumulated as many delegates and votes as Clinton did during the primaries and then did not have her name placed into nomination, that would represent a radical departure from the convention norm. But, boy, in 2008, an awful lot of media outlets have played dumb. When covering the August 14 announcement about Clinton's role in Denver, they miraculously forgot to make any historical reference to similar names-placed-in-nomination at previous conventions. Instead, readers and viewers were left with the obvious impression that what was scheduled to happen in Denver was remarkable, an anomaly. And I suppose if you look at the events through a soda straw, it does look unusual. But if you include the slightest bit of context, the story changes into something normal and routine. But that's not the story the press wants to tell (the Clintons are not normal!), so the press simply erased the context and stuck to its preferred story line that Clinton's appearance in Denver and the placing of her name in nomination are one for the record books. Searching the recent news archives, it's hard to find many articles or television segments that reported on Clinton's symbolic nomination and also mentioned that runner-up Jerry Brown had been nominated in '92 or that Jesse Jackson had been nominated in '88 or that Gary Hart had been nominated in '84. (You get the idea.) When The New York Times reported on Clinton's pending nomination, it made no reference to historical precedents. Neither did The Boston Globe, nor The Wall Street Journal, nor The Washington Post. And on and on and on. On CNN, Jack Cafferty commented, "The Democratic National Convention is now shaping up to be quite a party for Hillary Clinton. Her name will be placed in nomination. She'll give a prime-time address." He made no mention that that's what previous runners-up had done at conventions. Let's give credit to the Los Angeles Times, though. In the final two sentences in an article reporting the Clinton convention story, the Times miraculously found space to note that Brown, Jackson, and Hart all had their second-place names placed into nomination. Actually, the real credit goes to CNN polling director Keating Holland (figures, he doesn't work in the newsroom), who posted a lengthy analysis at CNN.com. Holland's piece not only put Clinton's role in Denver into historical perspective ("Overall, between 1972 and 1992, 10 Democratic candidates who lost the nomination in the primaries went on to have their names formally placed in nomination at the convention."), it also pointed out that Clinton represents the only runner-up to speak at the convention who formally endorsed the party's nominee months before the convention; i.e., all the others grudgingly held out on endorsing their rivals. But not Clinton. Yet she's the one slimed by media venom. Even after all these months, I still don't completely understand why Clinton's essentially centrist campaign for the White House ginned up so much open contempt from the press corps, which has felt completely comfortable addressing her in an openly derogatory and condescending manner. The issue of her convention involvement simply allowed the press to whack her around like a piñata one more time, regardless of the facts. Just take a look at a recent edition of ABC's CW-worshipping daily bulletin The Note as it mocked Clinton's convention role with barely containable contempt: Maybe it was better for the Obama campaign to invite you inside, since you would have made an ugly scene outside. Surely Sen. Barack Obama can afford to be gracious, even to you, since he'll leave Denver with the only prize that counts. "Even to you." That's a nice touch, coming from the same press corps that erupts with indignation whenever somebody suggests Clinton might have been tarred with sexist campaign coverage. (Y'think? National Review Online, August 15: "Sure, Hillary's fat and waddly and screechy and gives pantsuits a bad name.") And this from Radar magazine: Barack Obama has approved Hillary Clinton's dubious campaign to put herself up for nomination at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. We have to ask: Is it because she's a woman or just power-hungry? Note that Clinton's convention campaign was "dubious," which was accurate if Radar, y'know, ignored facts and precedent and history and all that annoying stuff. Meanwhile, what was The Note's proof that Clinton would have "made an ugly scene outside" the convention if not included? The Note had none. And that's what's been so amazing about watching the brazen, Clinton's-trying-to-steal-the-convention-with-a-speech coverage: The narrative is built on a swamp. The press has provided virtually no facts, not even anonymous quotes, to support its beloved narrative that Hillary Clinton's planned speech ignited some kind of civil war inside the Democratic Party. What's curious is that journalists who have actually bothered to cite campaign sources about her speech and symbolic nomination came away with a very different picture of what was unfolding behind the scenes. Writing at his Atlantic blog, Marc Ambinder, who seems to enjoy regular access to Obama sources, noted that "reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated" and that "multiple sources in both campaigns have described the negotiations as relatively free of acrimony." The next day, Ambinder returned to the topic perplexed, wondering why so many members of the press were pushing the clearly inaccurate story line that the Obama and Clinton camps were practically at war over the convention schedule. Ambinder was either being naïve or playing nice with his Beltway colleagues. (My guess is the latter.) Because it was obvious the press didn't care whether the rift about Clinton's speech was real or imagined. The story helped journalists advance their beloved narrative that Clinton is a political-party wrecking ball and that Obama is too weak to control her. So even if the evidence ran counter to that, the press was sticking with its story line. Like Ambinder, another journalist who actually reported the story was Joan Walsh at Salon.com, who wrote, "My sources say the Obama campaign was enthusiastic about the idea of putting Clinton's name in nomination, having independently reached the conclusion that it was the best way to honor her achievement and do more to win over her supporters." She then included a quote from Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "The conversations with her folks were very cordial and we've been able to work very closely with them as we unify this party. ... We couldn't be happier about how things are going with Senator Clinton and her team." Burton made several public pronouncements like that regarding the Denver convention schedule, but New York Times columnist Gail Collins mocked the idea that the scheduling had been cordial and easy, instead comparing the convention task to negotiating a Middle East between "enemy forces." And then there was Washington Post columnist Jeff Birnbaum who announced Obama never should have allowed Clinton to be nominated, suggesting it was a huge political mistake. How did Birnbaum know? He just knew. The fact that polling found Democrats by an almost 2-to-1 margin thought Clinton's nomination would be good for party unity was of no interest to Birnbaum or anyone else in the press spinning the event as a Democratic catastrophe. FYI, Birnbaum told The Wall Street Journal he was "grateful" for "Hillary Clinton's attempt tacitly to take over the Obama victory" because it was a great story that the press could cover throughout the convention. (Oh, goody.) As one blogger wrote after reading Birnbaum's quote, "I thought journalists were supposed to uncover the facts and report the story, not decide on the story and then interpret the facts to accommodate their storyline." Meanwhile, let's be clear: Clinton isn't the only injured party here. After the press constructed the phony premise abut Clinton's convention speech, critics then used it, unfairly, to tag Obama as a softie who can't even stand up to a woman. (Gasp.) "Russia rolls over Georgia, Hillary Clinton does the same to Barack Obama. Now we know who's boss." (Michael Goodwin, New York Daily News) "If Hillary Clinton can ride [roughshod] over this guy what do you think bin Laden will do?" (Dick Morris, on Fox News) "Russia invades Georgia. Hillary invades Obama's convention. Obama does nothing constructive on either count." (Amanda Carpenter, at Townhall.com) Why were critics able to get off those cheap shots? Because the press, strenuously ignoring facts and recent history, was determined to paint Clinton as the ultimate party crasher.