St Paul police chief John Harrington and Mayor Chris Coleman (who is apparently quite liberal) held a press conference yesterday to discuss the day's events. If I were Coleman I'd be pissed, as news of the arrests of various journalists (including Amy Goodman) has traveled everywhere in town. I mean, I ordered pizza for dinner and the delivery guy was bitching about the excessive security.
Here's video of the press conference I attended yesterday with Harrington and Coleman. Harrington didn't know very much about apprehending journalists, but his bragging about his side's 'standing tall' and 'restraint' in the face of kids with bandanas while his officers had riot gear and semi-automatic weapons and were backed up by the national guard and a $50M security budget is laughable. And it sounds laughable.
The soundtrack of this convention so far is helicopter noise, kind of like the final scenes in Goodfellas. Amy Goodman has apparently been arrested (video is here), and the police are detaining lawyers and medics as well as people doing actual property damage.
The spin operation is starting, though calling it spin really does a disservice to the term. I just got back from a press conference with Mayor Chris Coleman (no relationship to Norm Coleman) and the chief of police, John Harrington, in which Harrington lauded the heroism and professionalism of the police department in the face of mass criminal behavior. The event included every stupid police press conference cliche, from stuttering overly bureaucratic excuses to sycophantic journalists asking about damage estimates and calling him 'chief' to get his attention to heroic uniformed sternly worded descriptions of frightening protesters throwing rocks at officers. The end literally was the PR officer walking out of the room in a dramatic huff.
The city is on ridiculous lockdown, with humvees in the streets, officers patrolling with shotguns and machine guns, and the national guard out. I expected Harrington to announce that he has not yet ascertained the identity of the Batman but that he is working hard and the city of Gotham is safe. Video soon, and a full set of pictures is here.
8:07p Having coffee in the Coffee Bean in Denver discussing blogging with a few nerds of tremendous proportions. Sadly enough, I fit right in.
8:09p Riot police shooting tear gas into small crowd of protesters. Cops are dressed like Storm Troopers. Protesters are dressed like a Salvation Army catalogue.
8:11p I join the protesters though I'm not yet sure what they're protesting.
STATE BLOGS
