At three weeks since the RNC, I am still enraged

I have spent 6 of the last 7 days talking to various people about the RNC. Sunday, Thursday and today were with members of the Minnesota Peace Team. Monday was with journalists at the U. Tuesday was with the head of Communities United Against Police Brutality and the father of one of the RNC-8. Wednesday was at the listening session at the St Paul City Council chambers.

What keeps coming up for me is still a white-hot anger at the total perversion of democracy during the RNC. That massive show of military force that we saw during the Siege of St Paul had absolutely NOTHING with allowing a few misguided Republicans their little show at the X. It has absolutely everything to do with an incredible show of paramilitary force designed to intimidate citizens and to quash dissent.

I saw the young woman on Monday afternoon of the RNC, dressed in a party dress and wearing glitter on her shoulders. She absolutely did NOT expect to get pepper-sprayed in the eyes for offering a flower to the black-clad enforcement person. I later saw the video clips of her actually getting sprayed. And I felt very deeply angry.

I talked to my son's best friend who walked down to the X after the Ripple Effect concert on Tuesday of the RNC. She wasn't even with the march, although the Poor People's March caught up with her. I asked her if she left when she was told to leave and she said no, that all exits here blocked by the Black Clad Ones. I have confirmed this from three other eyewitness that are personally known to me. Even after the flash-bangs went off and the green clouds of tear gas filled the air, she could see no way to leave the area, since it was blocked on all sides by lines of storm troopers. When one line finally parted a bit and allowed them to leave, she left rather quickly. But she made the mistake of looking over her shoulder at a line of Black Clad Ones and she got a face full of pepper spray. Or maybe her mistake was being pretty and being 21 years old. (There seems so have been a certain theme of perverted sickness during that week.)

I didn't personally see what happened to Leah, but I watched the footage on channel 9 (a Fox station, I might mention). She was repeatedly pepper-sprayed, sometimes from three sides once. She was knocked down twice by officers using their bikes as weapons. And, even as they finally arrested her and dragged her away, she can be heard saying quite clearly, "I love you," to the Black Clad Ones.

Leah's story particularly touched me. She is such an innocent, a slightly pudgy, somewhat inarticulate, good-hearted girl on her very first protest. Full of love for the world and still trying to understand why someone would do that to her. When the Fox 9 announcer spoke over the clip, the announcer's voice was shaking, wondering aloud on television how Leah managed to remain standing after all that pepper spray. I found out later that the Fox 9 camera person had also been sprayed at her feet several times, in an attempt to not have that ugly incident filmed.

Leah became my hero, however, when they interviewed her again a couple of days later. And there she was again, trying to understand those who had sadistically caused her so much pain. No blame from Leah; only more attempts at human understanding. And Leah did the same thing at the listening session on Wednesday night at the St Paul City Council chambers. No ideology. No rants. No grand statements. Only this young woman, just turned 19, still trying to understand the Black Clad Ones, still hoping that they might somehow understand her, that they might finally grasp that she presented no danger to them.

In my heart, I wanted and wanted not the feel the rage I feel for how St Paul was used. In my heart, I wanted to be more like Leah.

But then Elliot spoke. He could barely get the words out, until a somewhat older woman (his mother? his doctor? his therapist?) came to stand next to him, came to put her arm on his shoulder. Until finally he spoke of being arrested while riding his bike, of chanting for food while in the Ramsey County Jail, of being picked out to be made an example. He spoke of being knocked to the cement floor, of losing consciousness, of waking up in a pool of his own blood as it seeped from his head, mouth and nose. He spoke of being removed to an isolation unit, of pain compliance being applied to his head, of his feet being twisted until he felt certain his ankles had broken. He spoke in a quavering voice of calling for mercy, of calling on God, but of his tormentors replying that there was no God there, only devils like themselves. When they finally took him to Regions Hospital, he was gagged and hooded, and he had difficulty breathing through the blood and vomit. The doctor who finally came wouldn't see him until he stopped crying, but Elliot couldn't stop crying and the doctor left. Then the officers took him on a sort of perp-walk through the waiting area, still hooded and the hood still filled with blood and vomit. The doctor finally saw him and finally x-rayed the ankles, but never the skull.

So then the shining example of Leah and her love leaves me again, and the white-hot rage returns.

Who are these people who pepper-spray young women? Who are these people who slam a young man's head into cement and who take such pride in thinking of themselves as devils? What have they been told to justify such actions? And how in the world can the mayors of two progressive cities and the city councils that we have selected as the best of us, how can these people conclude that they have somehow saved us from danger.

What have we become, to do such things to our own young? How can I ever look a St Paul police officer or a Ramsey County sheriff's deputy in the face again, without thinking of Leah or Jessica or Elliot? How can I ever feel safe again in the presence of those who have caused such pain and done such damage to our cities?