City of Saint Paul
Evening Media Briefing
Sept. 1, 2008
[DEMOCRACY IN ACTION TRANSCRIPT] >

Tom Walsh, Saint Paul Police Department:  Welcome everyone.  We felt it was appropriate to have a briefing, an update on the activities of today.  We apologize for the delay.  We had originally called this for 5 o'clock.  We had some difficulties, we had some timing issues and that is--we apologize for that.  That is about all we can say about it at this time.

The first speaker this evening is going to be the Mayor followed by the Chief and then we'll take a few questions.  Mayor.

Mayor Chris Coleman:  Thanks, Tom.  Good evening everyone.  I hope that you all have your names on these tape recorders--you'll never get 'em back here.

Today is the first day of the convention.  Many of the activities went on as expected.  Obviously there were some changes inside the venue with respect to the actual activities of the convention due to the hurricane in the Gulf.  I will just add parenthetically we are very, very happy that that seems to have not been as serious of a situation as it potentially could have been, and so we continue to have our thoughts and prayers with the people in the Gulf Coast.

Unfortunately today a very small handful of individuals decided to break the law, damage property, and put people's safety at risk.  We saw years of training on the part of our police officers that have paid off today.  They were well trained, well deployed, they were skilled, they were restrained, and they kept the situation from getting out of control.

We have worked very, very hard to make sure that that happened.  We have known for many, many months that there would be an attempt on the first day of the convention to try to prevent the convention from going forward.  That has not been successful.

The vast majority of the people who marched today marched so peacefully they were able to have their voices heard, but unfortunately those voices were somewhat muted by the criminal activities of a handful of folks.

We have said from the beginning that those who have come to the City of St. Paul to protest peacefully would be allowed to do so; they would be provided unprecedented access to be in proximate locale to the facility where their voices could be heard within sight and sound of the arena.  They were allowed to do that. 

There were approximately 10,000 peaceful protesters that marched from the State Capitol to the Xcel Energy Center and back to the State Capitol peacefully.  But again there were a handful of those who chose to engage in damage to property, assaulting officers, threatening the lives and property of other people in the City of St. Paul.  As we've said before, as we said this morning, we will not allow that activity to take place to the extent that we can prevent it.  We're going to continue to maintain control in the City of St. Paul thanks to the efforts of our amazing police department, our amazing law enforcement partners, our amazing public safety partners.

I had a chance throughout the afternoon to observe [inaud. ?via camera] how our officers responded.  Their efforts were nothing short of heroic.  I watched time after time after time after our officers stood on the line while people tried to provoke them, tried to get them to react, tried to get them to step out of their training.  They did not fail.  They did not take the bait.  They acted professionally and responsibly.

This was a difficult situation.  It's hot out there.  There were a lot of people that were trying to cause trouble, but our officers did not falter.  I cannot say enough about their behavior today.  Many of you have seen the images of officers being assaulted on the street from behind.  That won't stand in the City of St. Paul.  You saw the images of the criminals that were breaking windows out of police cars and out of businesses in the City of St. Paul.  That will not stand. 

This is a time for people to engage in proper political dialogue, to have their voices be heard, but to do so in a respectful and peaceful manner.  We will continue to allow that to happen in the City of St. Paul, but we will send a very loud and clear message to those who choose to break the law and endanger the safety of others.  We will pursue you, and we will not let this stand.

I want to thank Chief Harrington [St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington], Chief Bostrom [Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom], and all those who have worked so hard in preparation for this event, and at this time I'd like to turn the podium over to Chief Harrington.

Chief John Harrington:  Good afternoon, or evening it is now.  On balance, today was actually a success.  From the perspective of those who wished to disrupt the convention, they were unsuccessful.  Their mission, by their own words, was to block the delegates from being able to get to the convention.  That did not happen.  To storm the gates of the convention and stop people from being able to exercise their rights as a party at the convention.  That did not happen.  And to keep the convention-goers from being able to leave the convention, thereby disrupting any further activities.  And that did not happen.

On almost any basis that you want to rate this in terms of what their mission was, they were unsuccessful, and the convention went on.

I want to say that in addition to that the Police Department's mission was also very successful.  Our mission was to facilitate the delegates' transportation, access to the convention site, and their ability to get back and forth.  Our mission also was to allow peaceful protests to go forward.  And on both of those basises today was a success for the St. Paul Police Department, the Minneapolis Police Department, and Bloomington, State Patrol, and all the other agencies that have taken part in this great event.

To give you kind of a timeline of this, we started the day early, setting up for peaceful protests.  And in fact if you look at how we led the protest, the group from the State Capitol, it followed exactly according to our plan.  We led it with volunteers, we led it with people in regular uniforms, we led it with people on bicycles with horses to support them, we led it--it was a very good march and it was tens of thousands of people who came to march and they were able to do that, they were able to complete their route, go past the public viewing area and then return to the Capitol.

I wish I could say that they were able to do that without any interruption or any problem, but a small group of individuals did attempt to disrupt the convention today.  Starting at about 11 o'clock this morning, hours before the march was scheduled to start, individuals in the area of W. 7th Street and Banfield set a dumpster on fire and pushed it into a side of an occupied squad car.  That was probably the first salvo in today's activities.  I'm not sure how anyone can say that's protest.  It wasn't--didn't have anything to do with the State Capitol, didn't have anything to do with the protest zone; it's clearly an act of criminal assault and vandalism and the individuals that committed that assault and that vandalism were taken into custody.

Throughout the rest of the morning, we spent much of our time positioning law enforcement personnel throughout the City to be able to allow for the protest to go forward, and also to give a clear message that lawlessness in the City was not going to be tolerated.  We moved assets around throughout the City.  And I want to say that I am quite impressed by the readiness by my officers and also by the restraint, because the provocation has been truly great--whether it's throwing liquid on them, using gas of their own, being pelted with rocks, being called names and challenged and physically assaulted, my officers stood tall as did our partners.  They did not waver, and they have very quickly restored order to downtown.

There have been arrests made today.  At last count there were 56 arrests made, of which seven were felonies and about nine were gross misdemeanor arrests, and we expect that there will be more arrests.  That number will continue to grow.  We're in fact in the process of making arrests even as we speak on one last group that has circled down to Shepherd Road.

I am gratified that not only did I see the heroic efforts by the officers today and not only did the Mayor see that, but that many of you in the media also saw that.  I like the term that you in fact have coined, that what you saw today in the face of numbers, and agitation and  massed criminals was a restrained use of force.  And that I think is a very apt description of what the officers today did.  They didn't overreact, they didn't break ranks, and what you saw today was them holding the line and using appropriate levels of force to overcome resistance when we made arrests or to stop people from creating criminal damage to property or assault.  And some criminal damage to property did occur.  Windows down at Macy's were broken, squad car windows were broken, some bus tires and car tires were flattened and slashed, officers were assaulted, and a number of people were intimidated and frightened I believe by the massed criminals who were running through the streets being persued by the St. Paul Police Department and our partners.

As I said, I'm impressed by the officers' activities.  I want you to know that while we had a couple of officers that went down today, all of our officers are okay.  We had one go down from heat and a couple of others that took some pretty good shots; a lot of them took rock, but all of them are standing tall and continuing to do the right thing.  And we will continue this as long as it is necessary.  I've said this from day one and I'll say it again: lawlessness will not be tolerated in the City of St. Paul.  The St. Paul Police Department has been here for 150 years and we're not going anywhere.

...questions followed.