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multimedia blog Elliot Hughes, a young protester tortured during the RNC by a dozen cops in a dark room in the Ramsey County Sheriff's jail, testifies at a special "Community Conversation about the RNC" at the St. Paul City Council Nigel Parry, Thursday, September 25th, 2008
In this video shot last night, hear Elliot's full testimony before a special meeting of St. Paul's council members, on Wednesday September 24th, 2008. Be warned. What Elliot has to report happened to him tells a disturbing story of unwarranted and unjustifiable police violence. By the end of his testimony, you'll see how St. Paul provided us with echoes of Abu Ghraib during the RNC.
The Ramsey County Sheriff's Department, headed by Bob Fletcher, felt it necessary to hold a press conference today before the public meeting to trash Council Member David Thune who had arranged the "Community Conversation". Fletcher talked about how, on the first day of the RNC, September 1st, police stopped "500 anarchists" (not even close, did he multiply by 10?) "and their friends" and said if the police hadn't by nightfall, "this town would have been destroyed." Caucasian, please.  Bob Fletcher (right) is responsible for far more than Elliot Hughes' torture. He personally undertook many out-of-jurisdiction actions before, during, and after the RNC--including harassment of videographers who have remained in town to finish a documentary on the RNC protests.Fletcher unreasonably attacked David Thune--the City Council member responsible for Ward 2 (Downtown & Lowertown St. Paul where the RNC and protests took place)--simply for holding a public meeting so that the very freaked out and disturbed locals can finally vent at the city. A city that allowed itself to become Federal Occupied Territory ruled by thuggish police who made even home-owning, lifelong citizens of St. Paul be made to feel like the enemy by the police in their own neighborhoods. Previously the mayors of both cities had been wishy washy about navel gazing, and had tried to pass off an appointed couple of federal lackeys with a mandate not to investigate police behavior, as an "investigation". Elliot Hughes' testimony was the final straw that broke the camel's back. The deputy mayor of St. Paul rang Thune after the meeting to promise they would consider (an important word) expanding the investigation team from two members to a larger commission and having them and the Mayor attend the second meeting Council Member Dave Thune is calling. The Minnesotans are rising...
It makes me want to buy a stone tablet, engrave the following on it, and dump it on the steps of the State Capitol building: Yo, Po-Po, I lived in the Palestinian West Bank for four years. My idea of a good time after college was working in a first stage heroin rehab house with Chinese Triad members. I've seen children and teenagers shot dead by cheering soldiers. I had my home bulldozed by secret police ten years ago. I've spent time in your jails where you hide the disenfranchised-by-your-system Black, the Latino, the high, and the insane—as if we were back in Victorian times and Bedlam was a good idea. Most of all, you need to understand that I love my peeps, who you've been harassing and fucking with from Ramallah to St. Paul. I am both anticipating and looking forward to the conversation that you and I will have when it's my turn for your creepy-assed Midnight Knock (free MP3 alert! :-).
So far America, while your police gangs are torturing people in dark rooms, you're still not at the stage where you are whacking your own citizens openly. This is a good thing. Until that time, we're all going to have a lot of fun in the remaining grey area into which so many of us have been pushed into—a place where we are shedding fear because you have increasingly left people with little hope or color to live for. The darkness you have unleashed on the world just makes us better able to see the stars and remind ourselves and each other that you're not God. In that broken, cold, and painfully real place where your endless war has left this country, there is no longer any reason to be afraid to speak out against the system of violent control of the world which this country shores up—a hell of a lot more effectively than you do Louisiana levees, where white voters and campaign contributors are few. As Edmond Burke said, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men don't grow balls. And we don't need smart bombs, M-16s and less lethal weapons to do that. We just need a brain, a tongue, and fire within. The days of our passive acceptance of the United States' turning Arabs into collatoral damage to facilite oil stealing, of its Fox News and moron-electing distractions, of its 'one party with two heads' political status quo are thankfully coming to an end. Maktuub.
Related Links Unconventional evening: RNC review, by Chris Havens and Anthony Lonetree, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 25 September 2008. More From This Section  • "Terrorizing Dissent" documentary trailer (Sunday, October 26th, 2008)  • New Documentary: "Ground Noise and the Static" (Wednesday, October 8th, 2008) • Elliot Hughes, a young protester tortured during the RNC by a dozen cops in a dark room in the Ramsey County Sheriff's jail, testifies at a special "Community Conversation about the RNC" at the St. Paul City Council (Thursday, September 25th, 2008) • Art: Alex Lilly photos and protest posters from the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN (Sunday, September 21st, 2008) • "Hockey Mamas for Obama": Anchorage Demonstration by Alaska Women Reject Palin (Saturday, September 20th, 2008)
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