Legal RNC Protest Rights

Eight people organizing dissent around the 2008 Republican National Convention were "pre-emptively" targeted by the Ramsey County Sheriff prior to the RNC. The "RNC 8" face serious charges including "Conspiracy to Riot in the Furtherance of Terrorism" and are believed to be the first people to be charged under the state of Minnesota's version of the USA Patriot Act. This town hall gathering on January 25 was a community response to the authorities conduct. (video: ~58 min.)

Our World In Depth is aired locally twice weekly on MTN (Saturday at 9pm and Tuesday at 8am) and thrice weekly on SPNN (Tuesday at 5pm and midnight and Wednesday at 10am) immediately following Democracy Now!, and online at OurWorldInDepth.org.

Related: Saturday, March 28: National Day of Solidarity with the RNC 8 | RNC8.org

SUE THE BASTARDS!
(please forward widely)

The Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure (CRASS)'s campaign for civil
litigation is up and moving! Workshops, actions, and deadlines are rapidly
approaching, so look below for important information. Civil litigation is a
great way to hold the state accountable for the police violence and repression
during the RNC, and has the potential to strengthen our movement through
community organizing and political victories.

Mardi Gras Action!!!
Tues. Feb 24th Noon at the State Capitol lawn (St. Paul).

(CORRECTION)

I just learned that this court date is not as important as I thought (the actual jury trial will start, if at all, in the next 2 months). This means that solidarity is no longer needed (but I will still need court watchers). The collective energy of the community can be put to better use elsewhere. Thank you for all of your support and I will let you know when my actual trial starts.

Solidarity Forever,
Keep the struggle alive,
sincerely,
Daniel Bono

The State's elaborately staged legal farces are really spinning into full gear this week:

• UPDATE on Monday's scheduled grand jury in Minneapolis : The Grand Jury subpoenas for the six Texas activists have been withdrawn.
• Last week, CRASS, the Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure held a press conference to publicize how the City of St. Paul has refused to release the 6,000 hours of surveillance footage to defense attorneys. After the State was defeated in the August 2007 Critical Mass case via a few cell phone video clips, it's clear they need to manipulate the evidence in order to run out the clock, waste RNC arrestee legal supporters' time & effort, and scramble public perceptions about what happened.
• Court solidarity needs your help! Many cases are going on at Ramsey County Courthouse and CRASS Court Watch needs people for Monday, Tuesday, and onward. Email rnccourtwatch@gmail.com for more info.
• Help Dave Mahoney: The authorities are scapegoating Dave Mahoney (saying he is a literally a Terrorizing Finger Pointer - not to be confused with the famed Terrorist Fist Jab). It's all part of their PR strategy. Defeat the propaganda. TC Indymedia's added a button to his site.
• It sounds like Bob Fletcher watched Terrorizing Dissent as he is starting to make remarks about the young woman with the flower who got ruthlessly maced on September 1st on Kellogg Blvd. However the local press seems afraid to even mention the name of the film Indymedia helped put together.

With these and more important events unfolding, Twin Cities Indymedia wants to encourage more people to plug in and help cover what's going on. Indymedia currently has a number of HD video cameras which could be used by Indy journalistas to cover demos and other events. Please contact us if you're interested. (More broadly, working on further expanding Twin Cities Indymedia is direly needed - including organizing a real video collective). More notes from the events of last week, and upcoming events that might be of interest to IMCers, below.

As of 10:30pm today, the arrest tally from Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office was: 284 total; 130 felonies; 51 gross misdemeanors; 103 misdemeanors. The jail is seemingly severely backed up and not everyone has been booked or processed, so these numbers clearly don’t represent the total arrestee count for the day. These numbers also do not necessarily include the numbers of arrestees whose identifications have not been verified.