The Wake

Police use rubber bullets at 1999 WTO protests in Seattle

A handful of activists and future Republican National Convention protesters attended a Minneapolis City Council committee meeting Wednesday to support Green Party council member Cam Gordon’s June 20 proposal banning police use of rubber bullets at upcoming RNC protests this fall. Unfortunately for those planning to protest in St. Paul this September, Gordon’s reformed motion was vastly different from what he proposed last month, which, among barring rubber bullets, would have limited police use of pepper spray and prevented the targeting of activists.

Gordon’s June 20 proposal was supposed to be added to a resolution that set new rules for Minneapolis police to follow during public assemblies and mass demonstrations. These new policies superseded those made in 2000 after a protest at an International Society for Animal Genetics meeting that resulted in more than 65 arrests. Gordon’s added clauses were essentially the same as those that were already in law before June 20 but left out of the resolution that superseded them.

Last month, City Council sent Gordon’s proposal down to the Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee, where it was unanimously passed Wednesday.

But instead of sticking its original provisions, Gordon’s new resolution added three amendments:

— That MPD presence at public assemblies will be based on legitimate public safety concerns and not be based upon intent to chill First Amendment rights.

— In concurrence with state law, and city ordinance, MPD officers will not use pepper spray, tear gas, or similar substances, or projectiles except in situations where the use of force is necessary.

— That MPD officers shall not confiscate, destroy or tamper with cameras or other recording devices being used to document public assembly activities or MPD enforcement actions. This shall not apply to situations in which a) cameras or recording devices are to be used as evidence, or b) MPD officers arrest an individual in possession of cameras or recording devices.

When the committee moved to vote on it, the dozen or so activists attending the meeting — silent but stern and unable to speak out because of the closed public hearing — held up signs with various anti-brutality phrases (one of them read, “Youth Against a Police State”) and pictures of a woman covered with cuts and wounds from rubber bullets.

Future RNC protesters couldn’t describe the final product as a victory. In the words of one activist, the proposal was a “bullshit compromise that doesn’t even begin to address” the likely police brutality that will ensue in St. Paul this fall. “I’m really pissed,” added Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. “That’s not the same as a ban – not even close.”

In a crowded hallway exchange with Gross and other activists after the vote, Gordon contended that his proposal wouldn’t have had any support without the added amendments. “It would have gotten voted down at committee, then it also would’ve gotten voted down at Council – I guarantee that,” he told Gross and the others. Gordon said that the best bet now is to get other council members to bring initiatives forward and “pick up some of the pieces that got dropped between now and next Friday (July 25),” when the full Council plans to vote on it.

“This is maybe the fifteenth time he’s pulled this shit,” Gross, who used to like Gordon, said of him. “He’s getting tired of being beat up by reactionaries on the committee, so he’s decided that he will just join them. If you can’t beat them, join them, right?”

Minneapolis police don’t use rubber bullets and aren’t planning to, according to a statement made by police spokesman Sgt. Jesse Garcia in a recent City Pages story. But this doesn’t calm the nerves of many future RNC protesters.

“Since the clauses protecting protestors were taken out of the law, there’s every reason to suspect that the police will start [using] those things to get us,” said Nathan Clough, a U of M geography graduate student. Clough, who’s concerned that the RNC is being used as an excuse to develop laws that “limit our ability to express ourselves,” agrees with Gross that Gordon’s final bill was watered down. “We should have these protections in place before the abuses happen again,” he said, citing the police brutality that occurred at the 2000 International Society for Animal Genetics protests. “The majority of the City Council is so firmly on the side of the police that they can’t see the flaws right in front of their faces.”

Many of the activists who attended the meeting plan to lobby council members to vote against the final resolution next Friday. “These are Democrats, they’re supposed to be for the people,” said Michael Lefkowitz, a member of Anti-War Committee, Minnesota and Youth Against War and Racism planning to lobby on behalf of his groups. “They let us down.”

Tags: Cam Gordon, Minneapolis City Council, Republication National Convention, RNC protesting, rubber bullets