RNC Aftermath Report: Officials decline opportunity to explain military role

The RNC Public Safety Review Commission report (PDF / website), spearheaded by former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andy Luger, got presented to the St. Paul City Council on Wednesday evening. While many in the audience criticized the certitude of the former prosecutors in their determination that pretty much everyone doing anything violent was, virtually by definition, an anarchist, even the most critical folks should be able to appreciate that the Commission pried a lot of important primary source documents out of the agencies involved. (One City Council member we talked to concluded that the labeling effort had indeed ticked people off needlessly; we can’t think of any other political label that political figures would feel as comfortable denigrating today as the category of ‘anarchist.’)

We have not yet had time to review everything, but we’ll note that law enforcement did indeed have samples of alleged urine tested (PDF) by at least one lab (the samples that were judged negative initially were sent to a second lab). It’s funny that the initial tests were of the sort that determine ‘what are the qualities of this urine?’ rather than the more objective ‘is this actually urine’ type of chemical composition test. In any case, we recalled the overlooked fact that indisputably, most of the bodily waste left on the streets of St. Paul came from the police — specifically, the police horses!

At the post-presentation press availability, PIM inquired about the role of the U.S. military at the RNC, given the revelation from a leaked Homeland Security presentation that NORTHCOM, the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs, had five seats at the Multi-Agency Communications Center (MACC), which was more than any other organization. A transcript of Heffelfinger and Luger discussing with PIM the definition of anarchists and their view of RNC military activity:

PIM: I was wondering if you guys determined what the role of the U.S. military command structure was during the RNC? NORTHCOM, the headquarters out in Colorado Springs, had a number of seats in the command center, so I was wondering did they interact with the command level? Did they do any kind of surveillance? Was the National Geo-Spatial Imaging Agency active at all, because they had a seat in the command center? So what was the role of the U.S. military, apart from the National Guard structure?

Heffelfinger: Well, any role of the military was through the National Guard. The only partner in the law enforcement team, if you will, was the National Guard. The National Guard is a part of the national military system, and through that had access to some limited military resources; I don’t know all of what they were. But it was only through the National Guard; no independent presence. I should take that back: the Coast Guard had a presence as well.

PIM: There was a document that was put together by Terri Smith from the Minnesota Homeland Security agency which said that NORTHCOM was specifically assigned more seats inside the command center than the Minnesota National Guard got, so I don’t understand: if there were multiple seats for NORTHCOM, what were they doing there? What happened?

Heffelfinger: Again we did not address that in our report, our report was to focus on law enforcement interaction with the community. Our report does that. However in doing that, we did interview the commanding general of the National Guard, and did learn that although the National Guard’s role was limited to its manpower presence, and they were only deployed one time during the convention, as we note in the report, at the corner of Wabasha and Kellogg, basically to form as a rear guard to the Mobile Field Force, but they had access through their military, being that they are part of the military, they had access to the resources.

PIM: But what were the NORTHCOM seats doing?

Heffelfinger: I don’t know the answer to your question. How’s that?

[.....]

PIM: You identified numerous people on video evidence and everything as anarchists, and you’re pretty sure they’re anarchists. I’m wondering how you reached that conclusion, how you know they’re anarchists if you haven’t talked to those people personally? I’m wondering is there a categorical definition you have determined somehow?

Luger: We provided in the report, early on in the report, an explanation of what the term is, why we’re using it in this specific context. The RNC Welcoming Committee’s documents defined themselves self-declared anarchists. What we do in the report is we address the violence committed by the people we’re talking about. We also separate in the report the definition from peaceful anarchists, we do it directly right in the report.

PIM: There were a lot of groups that came into town that were committed to organized civil disobedience that were linked to the Welcoming Committee, but can you definitely say they’re all anarchists necessarily?

Luger: What we do in the report is we make a distinction between people who came to engage in civil disobedience, people who came to engage in violence, and our report is directed at the people who came to engage in violence.

PIM: Who are by definition anarchists?

Luger: Civil disobedience as the police defined it and the police agreed in information that’s also part of our report, is different from engaging in violence.

At St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington’s press availability, he also declined to comment on the activities of NORTHCOM at the RNC.

No Responses to “RNC Aftermath Report: Officials decline opportunity to explain military role”

1. DanC Says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 9:16 am

   Well, while we banter the term “anarchist” around, why don’t we bluntly state the truth: The RNC will call anyone who demonstrates against what they believe in, anarchists. I’ll bet Republicans call people who protest at the DNC convention “demonstrators”, but people who protest at their convention are “anarchists.” How hypocritical!