RNC Welcoming Committee: ‘It will be you in the streets’

The RNC Welcoming Committee late Saturday afternoon accused the Ramsey County sheriff’s office of orchestrating a campaign of "lies and disinformation" to discredit the group’s plans to protest against the Republican National Convention.

In the wake of police raids of the committee’s "Convergence Center" in downtown St. Paul on Friday evening, and three Minneapolis homes Saturday morning, the RNC Welcoming Committee — a group of self-described anarchists — declared the raids unwarranted and unsuccessful, pointing to "hundreds of people" who attended a public meeting in Minneapolis’ Powderhorn Park "in solidarity with the victims of police violence."

"Police continue to target organizers of protest activities and ‘disappear’ activists," the committee said in a post on its website. "We are calling on everyone interested in protecting their freedom of political speech to maintain a round-the-clock vigil at the Convergence Center to help prevent further police violence. The sheriff’s office continues to lie and spread misinformation in a PR campaign to try to curtail protest plans."

The committee scheduled a "spokescouncil" meeting for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Convergence Center, and invited "people interested in organizing for Sept. 1" to attend.

The RNC Welcoming Committee has been open about its plans to completely shut down the RNC, which opens Monday in St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center. It has said that it expects as many as 50,000 protesters to swarm the streets of St. Paul on the convention’s first day and prevent delegates from getting into the Xcel.

"The Welcoming Committeeasks everyone to continue organizing to crash the convention on Sept. 1," Saturday’s website post says. "We may all be disappeared one by one by the police from the streets and our homes to be put in jail to pre-empt any protest against Bush, Cheney, and Company as they come into town, but that doesn’t matter anymore. It will be you in the streets."

Five people connected with the protests were arrested Saturday and remain in the Hennepin County Jail.