But not always.
And if the scene of riot gear-clad officers firing tear gas into crowds outside Mickey's Diner in St. Paul shocked you, you weren't alone: Law enforcement leaders didn't prepare us for that.
Those are among the conclusions of the first -- and likely last -- of law enforcement activity leading up to and during the Republican National Convention, Sept. 1-4 at the Xcel Energy Center.
A seven-member blue ribbon panel delivered its findings to the St. Paul City Council and Mayor Chris Coleman on Wednesday afternoon.
The findings contain fault and praise at nearly every stage.
They note that the city's size -- it is one of the smallest to host such an event -- proved a challenge for police, who were faced with groups of "well-organized, sophisticated and tenacious" activists determined to disrupt the event through violence. Given there were no deaths or serious injuries and relatively minor property damage, police rose to the occasion for the most part, according to the report.
But the panel concluded police made key errors in planning, such as not allowing regular patrol officers to communicate with special RNC squads. The panel also flagged a number of examples of potentially excessive use of force and suggested such actions "warrant further review."
Some who have been critical all along of RNC police actions criticized the commission, which was paid $130,000 by the city, as producing a whitewash. Those who attended -- and at times disrupted -- Wednesday's meeting took special exception to the panel's description of all who committed violence as "violent anarchists."
Kristin Herbeck, of the Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure, said, "A whole community and ideology was made a scapegoat."
The commission said it used the phrase "violent anarchists" in part because the highest-profile groups whose stated goal was to disrupt the convention describe themselves as anarchists.
St. Paul leaders, including Coleman, City Council President Kathy Lantry and police Chief John Harrington, said they take the report seriously, but their reactions Wednesday were tempered by the fact they hadn't fully digested it. City Council Member Dave Thune, who had been critical of some police actions, said he will host a public forum on the matter sometime soon.
The convention went off smoothly, as did demonstrations where thousands spoke out against a range of military, social and economic policies. But the event also witnessed unprecedented chaos in the streets of St. Paul as vandals smashed windows of businesses and threw debris onto Interstate 94 and armed themselves with urine and feces -- a previously disputed assertion confirmed by lab testing and witness reports.
Police in turn cracked down with concussion grenades and chemical irritants, employing mass arrests that swept up everyone nearby, including journalists, resulting in more than 800 arrests.
In the aftermath, Coleman appointed two former federal prosecutors -- Republican Thomas Heffelfinger and Democrat Andrew Luger -- to form a larger panel and investigate. Other members are former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer; former Golden Valley Police Chief Robert Hernz; University of Minnesota law professor and civil rights expert Barry Feld; private investigator and former cop Mary Ann Vukelich, and St. Paul business leader Linda White, who formerly worked for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
In subgroups, commission members interviewed protesters, journalists and police officers, from senior commanders to rank-and-file street cops. They also attended public forums and sponsored their own public events. Luger said they examined hundreds of still photographs and "hours and hours" of video. Commission members unanimously endorsed the report.
The commission never deliberated publicly, and Heffelfinger and Luger have said they don't plan to make notes or memos public, though the panel's contract with the city states it must turn over all "supporting documentation" to the city, and the records are public under state law.
Harrington said the report flags six incidents of police using potentially excessive or improper force on individuals that could prompt internal affairs investigations. One, involving a Minneapolis police bicycle cop pepper-spraying a lone woman who resisted passively, is under investigation in Minneapolis. Harrington said the department has received three complaints, which are in the process of being investigated, but that the lack of a signed complaint won't prohibit him from starting an internal probe if video evidence shows any incident is "egregious enough."
It is unclear who might review police tactics from the convention's final evening, when hundreds of people were driven onto the Marion Street bridge and then arrested en masse -- a decision criticized by the panel. Heffelfinger said the report has been submitted to the St. Paul city attorney's office, and state and federal prosecutors could decide to look into it.
The report also criticized police for rebuffing efforts by media representatives prior to the convention to deal with the possibility of journalists being arrested; more than 40 were, and they were "simply doing their job," Luger said. "We believe that was improper and shouldn't have happened."
Lantry said she is unsure how the City Council might take up any such matters in the future but would want assurances from Harrington that such concerns are addressed. She said she is awaiting the department's internal assessment of how the convention went, due at the end of the month.
Harrington hinted that report also might find law enforcement wasn't perfect during the RNC.
"Nothing that I heard today really shocked me," Harrington said. "We recognized that this was a challenge."
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
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