Cops Bust 'Anarchists' Before GOP Convention

Free-speech advocates blast action ahead of RNC
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 31, 2008 7:25 AM CDT
Cops Bust 'Anarchists' Before GOP Convention
Minneapolis police yesterday stand watch over a house that is being searched ahead of the Republican National Convention.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Minnesota county cops raided protest organization sites to stop what authorities called an "anarchist plot" to disrupt the Republican National Convention. The police action triggered an angry response from activists and free speech advocates. Supplied with information from police infiltrators, cops battered down doors and busted five activists in raids in Minneapolis and St. Paul over the weekend, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Police displayed a gun, knives, paint, slingshots, rocks and buckets of urine confiscated from homes and an office linked to a protest group calling itself the RNC Welcoming Committee. "We know these things were going to be used as weapons," said a police spokesman. But a City Council member called the action a "pre-emptive strike" against free speech.  To arrest people on "conspiracy without evidence criminalizes protected political activity and speech," said a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild. (More St. Paul stories.)

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