And in Minnesota, more than 200 people gathered for a St. Paul City Council hearing on the police crackdown on protesters during the Republican National Convention. Council members heard testimony from protesters who recounted their experiences of pepper spray and abuse at the hands of police. Bruce Nestor of the National Lawyers Guild called for an independent probe into police conduct.

Bruce Nestor: “What happened in St. Paul, Minnesota from — really going back to the infiltration and surveillance two years, but from September 1 to September 4, 2008 — had happened in any other country, that’s the type of coverage and description of it we would have read. And I think that you can either be for or against that politic suppression, depending where you fall on the political spectrum, but that is an objective description of what happened and of the political content of why people were in the streets, why people were demonstrating, and the political nature of the response that was organized by the $50 million gift by the federal government. It was a targeted abuse of force and of security forces to suppress political activity, to scare people from coming out into the streets.”

More than 800 people were arrested during the four-day convention.