Journalists, lawyers raided by US police

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday September 01, 2008 14:31 by Breandán - GRRC

Sat. Aug 30, 2008. Saint Paul, Minnesota Police Department raided a home at 951 Iglehart Avenue at gunpoint. The lawyers and journalists who were in target of the raid include a contributing photojournalist with "Democracy Now", whose host Amy Goodman appears in a video clip jumping a fence to question police officers. This is part of a series of police actions on the eve of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

After several hours, all those detained were released. No arrests. No property was seized as result of the search warrant. The clip ends with an interview with homeowner Mike Whalen. At the start of the clip, a neighbor shouts to the media and onlookers that they could all come into her backyard to see the detained people held in the adjacent backyard.

Some video footage of the police raid here http://the-uptake.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/647/

Some contributors to this site may recall Eileen Clancy who was one of the regular observers who travelled to Ireland from the US during the mid 1990’s onwards. Eileen and a few of her friends were extremely effective in ensuring the documentation, through the use of both video and stills photography, of many of the worst excesses being inflicted in both the Garvaghy Road and Ormeau Road during the marching season. Eileen also travelled to other communities in many other parts of North to ensure that what was occurring in those communities was also recorded by video.

She and her colleagues proved to be an invaluable resource to many communities at that time and in subsequent years. Just as Eileen was able to come to our assistance in the past, it is she who is now in need of our help.

Eileen, along with a number of others in the US have formed an organisation called I-Witness Video which seeks to protect civil liberties in the US and to probe various police actions at public events. I-Witness Video has uncovered perjury and abuse by police officers and prosecutors, revealed illegal police surveillance, exposed official lies, and has had a number of notable successes.

Eileen Clancy and several of her colleagues in I-Witness Video are presently in the city of St Paul, Minnesota, where the Republican National Convention is due to be held. A number of public demonstrations were to be held near the Convention Centre on themes ranging from anti-war to global warming, and I-Witness Video was intending to monitor how those demonstrations would be policed.

On Saturday (August 30), the apartment where Eileen and her friends where staying were raided by the St Paul’s police department, they were handcuffed and put under virtual house arrest for several hours, all their belongings were searched, and a number were arrested and detained for a period before being released. Go to this link for footage http://the-uptake.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/647/

Eileen Clancy is the person in the light blue t-shirt and wearing specs in the video clip.

I would ask that as many of you as possible contact the office of the St Paul’s mayor, Chris Coleman, to protest against these actions. Coleman is of Irish descent and I am sure he would find it embarrassing to say the least if his office were to be inundated with letters/messages of complaint regarding the harassment by his city’s Police Department of someone for attempting to monitor policing actions in America in the same way that same person was able to do so in Ireland.

The Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition in Portadown has sent a letter of protest to the St Paul's Mayor, and have requested that he formally intervenes in this situation and that, as Mayor, he also formally meets with Ms Clancy and her colleagues to assist in the lodging of any formal complaint against this police action.

Could you all do something similar and also circulate this message to persons on your various mailing lists?

For information about I-Witness, you can go to
http://iwitnessvideo.info/about/index.html

The contact details for the St.Paul’s Mayor, Chris Coleman, are:
390 City Hall
15 W. Kellogg Blvd.
Saint Paul, MN 55102
Phone: (651) 266-8510
Fax: (651) 266-8513

The e-mail address for his Chief of Staff, Sara Grewing, is:
sara.grewing@ci.stpaul.mn.us