Please support the ongoing work of the RNC '08 Report project. Read our appeal!.
March 23rd, 2011 — Updates do still continue. Most recently added, news of a libel case by FBI informant Brandon Darby against the New York Times. See Related Links at the bottom of the page, for text of the suit, the original article by the NYT, and background information.
Current total document count is 1343.
October 15th, 2010 — Four remaining RNC 8 defendants will appear in Ramsey County court Tuesday morning, Oct. 19, and accept plea agreements.
Current total document count is 1320.
September 16th, 2010 — Charges dropped against three of the RNC 8 defendants.
August 27th, 2010 — RNC 8 Defendant Erik Oseland Accepts Gross Misdemeanor Plea Deal.
May 13th, 2010 — The RNC 8 are back in court, and Tampa, FL, has been chosen as the site of the 2012 RNC. Many reports relating to these ongoing events have been added to the site.
Current total document count is 1265.
April 13th, 2010 — Lengthy pro and anti Brandon Darby writings showed up in the last month. Former NOLA Common Ground organizer Lisa Fithian wrote on March 22nd in The Rag Blog: "FBI Informant Brandon Darby: Sexism, Egos, and Lies". And from the pro-Darby front, we learn of how Brandon went from From America Hater to Hero in Townhall magazine.
Meanwhile, Salt Lake City, Utah, has been worshiping at the bidding alter of the 2012 RNC, proffering its city to the priests of the Temple of Unfettered Capitalism for its chance to have a few of its already fat local fat cats further enriched, and to forever stain its tourist landscape with memories of legions of Defence Technologies/Federal Laboratories-equipped minions of the Dark Lord.
Current total document count is 1242.
March 20th, 2010 — In a significant win for accountability and general freedom of information relating to policing at National Special Security Events, a judge in Pittsburgh, home of the September 2009 G-20, ruled that police must release detailed reports related to dozens of arrests and police operations during the summit to the Citizen Police Review Board.
In recent RNC news, the Elliot Hughes case was resolved.
Current total document count is 1229.
February 2nd, 2010 — At a court date today, the RNC 8's trial date has been set for October 25th, 2010. The RNC '08 Report will continue to follow and archive materials related to this nationally significant felony trial.
In other news, the location of the next RNC in 2012 has been narrowed down to Tampa, Salt Lake City or Phoenix.
Current total document count is 1217.
January 29th, 2010 — Back in October, the Pittsburgh Police sent an invoice for $6,346 for "police services" to the Thomas Merton Center, the anti-war group that organized the large march during the G-20. Today, the Pittsburgh ACLU hit back, billing the City for $127,000 for legal services incurred during the three-month fight with the city to get a "permit" to "allow" protesters to exercise their First Amendment "rights" to have the march.
Current total document count is 1208.
January 27th, 2010 — More work on the archives, with the addition of two excellent background reports from 2004 and 2007 by the National Lawyers Guild. See the Research section.
Current total document count is 1202.
January 26th, 2010 — A letter from the RNC 8 to supporters and details about the coming RNC 8 court appearance on February 2nd have been added to the site.
Several articles and documents not previously archived have been added to the site, part of the ongoing process to offer as comprehensive an archive as possible.
Current total document count is 1197.
December 7th, 2009 — Occasional updates have been ongoing on the site, largely because there have not been any major developments in the 2008 RNC story during the last month and a half.
The RNC 8 officially learned today that they will be tried together as they wished, instead of in eight separate cases.
Current total document count is 1181.
October 26th, 2009 — Regular updates have been ongoing, mostly in the Pittsburgh G-20 archive of the site.
The RNC '08 Report was very active during the Pittsburgh G-20, assisting Pittsburgh, Twin Cities and Chicago Indymedias, as well as Mobile Broadcast News and the Glassbead Collective with reporting, and remains active in the aftermath.
During the Summit, we assisted in the shooting and production of the documentary Democracy 101 and a lot of the day-by-day You Tube video work that helped force the issue of police overkill into the media spotlight. Much more to come.
Please support the work of the project at this important time. Read our appeal.
Current total document count is 1161.
September 17th, 2009 — Regular updates have been ongoing, mostly in the Pittsburgh G-20 archive of the site. Check out the videos in the Pittsburgh G-20 archive for more of the familiar, pre-Convention, fear mongering from the media and police.
The RNC '08 Report is heading to Pittsburgh for the G-20 on September 24th-25th to document the event.
Current total document count is 1080.
September 9th, 2009 — Regular updates have been ongoing.
A very thorough one-year anniversary RNC retrospective was published by CRASS. The Report missed the announcement of the document, but that's now been rectified. Join our mailing list in the right column of this site to make sure you don't miss any additions. Our RSS feed which powers the automatic mailing list is set to update when articles are added to the site, even if they were originally published a year ago.
The RNC '08 Report is heading to Pittsburgh for the G-20 on September 24th-25th. Expect citizen journalism from the ground looking at the expected police repression of journalists and protesters.
Current total document count is 1056.
September 1st, 2009 — Regular updates have been ongoing.
Lots of one-year anniversary RNC retrospectives have been published on the site. Today, a press conference announcing a class action suit by the Shepard Road mass arrestees of September 1st 2008 was held. More details and media downloads here.
Current total document count is 1043.
July 29th, 2009 — Regular updates have been ongoing. Today, we added a front page feature panel linking to a brand new archive that will log key coverage of the coming G20 protests in Pittsburgh. Looking at the protester site, it certainly looks like it's going to be a rerun of the 2008 RNC.
Current total document count is 959.
June 17th, 2009 — Regular updates have been ongoing. Today, we added the first actual St. Paul Police Department CCTV footage from the Republican National Convention held in St. Paul, MN, from September 1st-4th, 2008.
It took Communities United Against Police Brutality and their lawyers—together with volunteers from Twin Cities Indymedia, the Terrorizing Dissent crew, and the RNC ‘08 Report—over 8 months of data practice wrangling with the St. Paul Police Department to secure copies of the “public” data from the original CCTV server drives.
Footage we requested were missing from the drives. Files whose names had earlier been logged from the police camera server never made it onto the drives that the SPPD returned to us under the data practice request.
Some defendents who need the missing evidence are going to trial soon.
Day 1 CCTV Footage: Black Bloc Smashing of First National Bank Windows, Camera: Minnesota & 4th (ID: 2627), Footage from 1:34pm 1:42pm, September 1st, 2009.
Current total document count is 943.
May 21st, 2009 — RNC Molotov maker David McKay was sentenced to 48 months in prison. Read the CRASS press release for background, context and commentary: Sentencing David McKay and Spinning the Media.
Current total document count is 916.
May 15th, 2009 — A new section of the site, The CCTV Saga, has been launched to document the process of trying to pry the 6,000+ hours of RNC security camera footage from the hands of the police.
The RNC '08 Report has been very involved in support work on this issue for local organization Communities United Against Police Brutality and is currently working to make the footage available online, something the St. Paul Police Department had promised would be happening during the Convention, over eight months ago.
Yesterday, Bradley Neal Crowder from Austin, TX, was sentenced to 2 years in prison for possession of molotov cocktails. Another Austin man, David McKay, is due to be sentenced on May 21st. Both were known as "The Texas Two".
Current total document count is 904.
May 7th, 2009 — It is now just over 8 months after the Convention. Ongoing regular additions continue.
The good folks at crimethinc.com just pulled off something that deserves some serious respect. Today, these ninjas published an incredible 35,000-word report from the anti-authoritarian/protest community point of view, entitled: "The 2008 DNC/RNC Mobilizations: A Comprehensive Analysis". There are three sections:
1. Going It Alone: Anarchist Action at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions - pretty much the overview.
2. We Are All Legal Workers: Legal Support at the RNC and After - tells a really fascinating, honest, but respectful inside story of the tensions between Coldsnap and the National Lawyers Guild during the RNC.
3. Accounts from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions - Just over a dozen first person protest narratives. Some great writing.
It doesn't really matter what your opinion of protest/protesters at the RNC is. This is an amazing historical document that adds a ton of pieces to the larger jigsaw puzzle. Read more about the report and access all three parts here: http://rnc08report.org/archive/964.shtml.
Other recent items of note include lawyer Dan Dobbson's response to news that City Attorney John Choi is running for Ramsey County Attorney.
Also, across the pond, British police have been preemptively mass arresting activists in a way reminiscent of the "pre-crime" arrests of the RNC 8.
And, in documentary land, a new offering from Chris Strouth, The Unconvention: A Mix Tape from St. Paul.
Current total document count is 894.
April 10th, 2009 — The terrorism charges against the RNC 8 have been dropped.
Current total document count is 875.
April 3rd, 2009 — Daily additions to this website have been taking place since March 16th. Key additions including FBI RNC 8 informant Andrew "Panda" Darst being found guilty of assault and St. Paul wasting yet more resources to prosecute RNC arrestees.
Recent additions of note include letter to Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan about continued post-RNC harassment and selected G20 coverage.
Current total document count is 849.
March 16th, 2009 — Daily additions to this website have been taking place since February 7th.
Current items of interest include the David McKay retrial, and the prosecution of RNC Welcoming Committee FBI informant Andrew Darst for assault.
In cased you missed it, an RNC '08 Report article, Why St. Paul City Attorney John Choi is a danger to public safety, was published on February 20th.
Current total document count is 803.
February 7th, 2009 — Lots of crossing T's and dotting I's went on last night at the RNC '08 Report, with the list of sources at the bottom of the page and in the Links section updated to reflect the nearly 80 primary sources we've used to compile this website.
A new RSS-powered "Latest RNC-Related News" widget has been added to the bottom of all pages. Please use this widget on your website to keep up to date with the latest 2008 Republican National Convention news, as well as updates from the Friends of the RNC 8, CRASS (essentially "Friends of the RNC 800"!) and Twin Cities Indymedia whose ninja editors have been pulling out all the stops to make sure that local coverage of the RNC aftermath continues. Just click on the pencil/edit icon at the bottom of the widget to customize the size and other aspects of it. Copy the generated code, put it into your website, and Bob Fletcher's not your uncle.
You better hope he isn't. Many reports of yesterday's sentencing of both Uncle Bob's best man at his wedding and his office spokesperson on corruption charges--both Ramsey County Sheriff's Office staff--were added to the site. It may not be not directly RNC-related, or is it? Birds of a feather and all that. And Uncle Bob did admit in January to concealing the money he was spending on investigating the RNC Welcoming Committee from those who are supposed to have budget oversight. The combined jail time his two friends who were sentenced for concealing money they stole in an FBI sting operation is over 5 years. Both are free until they have to turn themselves in on March 9th.
A number of both background and during-Convention pieces were added from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Current total document count is 732.
February 4th, 2009 — With the conclusion of the David McKay trial turning out to be a deadlocked jury resulting a mistrial, McKay is due to be retried in March. By all accounts, the jury was deadlocked on the issue of whether FBI informant Brandon Darby had entrapped McKay. Follow the case here.
Current total document count is 691.
January 28th, 2009 — As the felony trial of David McKay begins, one of the "Texas Two", and FBI informant Brandon Darby begins to testify, these two new categories have been added to the KEY PEOPLE and relevant articles tagged. In court today, the atmosphere was tense.
Current total document count is 665.
January 24th, 2009 — Finally, the video of the presentation of the RNC Public Safety Review Commission report to the St. Paul City Council was added to this site.
And just for fun, two clips from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in which he makes reference to the craziness happening outside the show.
If you still haven't seen it, the RNC Photo Exhibit in Lowertown, St. Paul is open until the end of the month.
Current total document count is 647.
January 15th, 2009 — Much material surrounding the release of the RNC Public Safety Review Commission was added to this site. I attended the meeting, which was only made bearable by the protesters who were shouting out "Lies!" when Heffelfinger and Luger were talking.
My "Initial Reactions to the Heffelfinger-Luger RNC Commission Report" has been added to this site and I spoke with KFAI on their evening news about the report tonight. Additional analysis will be forthcoming.
Current total document count is 630.
January 7th, 2009 — Lots of material has been added on the recently self-outed FBI infiltrator Brandon Darby, whose testimony may put the "Texas Two" behind bars for many years. Brandon Darby material on the RNC '08 Report
And updates have slowed while the RNC '08 Report hosts an unusual January 2009 exhibit of RNC-related, community-submitted photos at the Black Dog Cafe in Lowertown, St. Paul. Submission/Media information here. Check Our News for coverage of the exhibit.
Current total document count is 600.
December 31st, 2008 — A new section, RNC Commission Archive, has been launched on this site to collect the raw submissions to the RNC Public Safety Review Commission. Extensive submissions from RCFP-retained lawyer Bill Tilton have been added to the site. If you or anyone you know made a submission to the Commission, please send it to the Report for public archiving.
December 28th, 2008 — For the record for those following the news closely, very timely additions of current 2008 RNC news have been taking place for some time now, with breaking news items added to the RNC '08 Archive within a few hours of publication.
A new section, "Must See" Items, has been added to the site and will be updated with the most important 2008 RNC content for anyone trying to understand what happened.
Current total document count is 581.
December 19th, 2008 — 16 more archive additions from the Minnesota Independent, Twin Cities Daily Planet, and Minnesota Public Radio.
The Links section has seen considerable expansion, particularly in the "Arrestee Support Organizations" and "Independent Media Organizations that Covered the 2008 RNC" pages.
Current total document count is 566.
December 18th, 2008 — A number of additions to the site include several relating to the worsening case of the RNC 8, who were informed mid-December that they were being charged with second count of terrorism and two more felonies.
Following a court date on December 17th to set a date for pre-trial motions in January, both Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner and the RNC 8 made statements.
A new RNC 8 entry in the Report's Glossary section collects the legal documents together with key links relating to the case.
The RNC 8 continue to campaign for their charges to be dropped. They held a press conference and dance party outside Susan Gaertner's December 2nd fundraiser, disrupted a December 15th Chris Coleman fundraiser, and just a few days later plan to crash Mayor Coleman's Holiday Sledding Party on December 19th.
Current total document count is 550.
December 16th, 2008 — New events headlines were added to the top of the homepage. Events listings no longer appear in the main article list. This helps the main article list reflect current document additions, while still offering a way on the homepage to quickly check for coming events.
Videos of all the City of St. Paul/Saint Paul Police Department press conferences/Special RNC Daily Media Briefings held immediately before, during, and after the Convention have been added to the site, covering the period August 30th-September 5th.
These video additions would be a good example of a simple way you can help the project. If you have time to write a summary for any of these videos, please do. If there are interesting quotes, copy them verbatim so they can become text searchable. Any transcriptions of key videos on the site are welcome.
Current total document count is 536.
December 6th, 2008 — Added under Key People: DARST, Andrew (A.K.A. "Panda", "CRI 2", paid informant who infiltrated RNC Welcoming Committee) and several related stories.
Other recent additions include several documents pertaining to the December 2nd protest by the RNC 8 outside Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner's fundraiser in downtown Minneapolis. Current total document count is 521.
December 1st, 2008 — A night of biblical-level monkeydom resulted in some serious additions on the eve of the Christmas month.
Current total document count is 506. The 500 document barrier has been broken in approximately 2 months, with around 250 documents added a month or 8 per day. It's like the free wish you get for folding 1,000 origami cranes but better. :-)
November 30th, 2008 — A new Art, Posters & Flyers section was added to the website, and a variety of RNC-related art added.
Images were added to summaries on the Documentaries and Photographs sections of the site.
An RNC '08 Report-researched map, Locations of RNC security cameras in downtown St. Paul, was added to the site. Anyone with an official map or information about missing camera locations, please contact the project.
Current total document count is 495.
November 28th, 2008 — 37 additions from the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota's student newspaper. Another series of articles was added from Minnesota Public Radio.
Journalists may be interested in covering the "Happy Birthday, Drop the Charges!" protest outside Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner's December 2nd fundraiser for her 2010 campaign for the office of State Governor. The RNC 8 have also released a press advisory.
A new Documentaries section has been added to the site. Documentaries can still be searched/browsed in the Video section. A new documentary "Outside the RNC", was added today.
Current total document count is 481.
November 24th, 2008 — Around 30 additions to the site including much Minnesota Public Radio coverage and the addition of several gap fillers.
Submissions of missing articles/video from publications is welcome. Please note that TV news reports from RNC week are still being processed as there are so many of them. This will probably become the next focus to ensure that the local media coverage that people saw during Convention week is there.
In the last month, approximately 100 documents have been added, less additions than the same period in September-October, which was due to travel in early November. Nonetheless, the RNC '08 Report has now broken the 400 documents barrier! Current total document count is 420.
November 17th, 2008 — The RNC '08 Report made a submission to the RNC Public Review Safety Commission. It was late, but as you will see in the narrative, there's plenty of good reason why.
Current total document count is 387.
November 14th, 2008 — As you will notice, two "Browse by" features, Key People and Key Events, have finally been activated in the left navigation bar of the website to help you to get to where you need to go quicker.
A Nov 13th press conference by the Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure (yep, CRASS) went well, and several items relating to CRASS have been added to the site. I don't know who's thinking up these acronyms but I fully expect to see U.N.C.L.E. and S.P.E.C.T.R.E. turn up in the post-RNC landscape. :-)
Other articles and videos have been added here and there to fill some gaps. Current total document count is 381.
November 11th, 2008 — On the day when citizens were due to tell their small stories to the official commission looking at police actions during the RNC--November 6th--Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher yet again held a press conference to distract from public testimony.
Last time there was a public meeting, the September 24th "Community Conversation about the RNC" at the St. Paul City Council, Fletcher did exactly the same, using a same day press conference to denigrate Council Member Dave Thune who organized the community conversation.
This time, Fletcher enlisted St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington to join him in putting out another distracting, seemingly public-centric call for Minnesotans to step forward to identify "RNC Protest Victims".
Culled from 6,000 hours of supposedly public video tape, which have not yet been released outside the police force, the shocking crimes so far detailed include some black bloc demonstrators fighting off an apparently attacking Republican protester, and--most disturbingly--a demonstrator banging on the hood of a car! Other shocking crimes will no doubt be announced as the police continue to look at the footage.
Meanwhile, the Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure are holding a press conference tomorrow at the State Capitol in the same vein: "Throughout the RNC, unidentified individuals terrorized hundreds of activists, journalists, medics, legal observers and bystanders. The perpetrators of these brutal assaults were heavily armed, masked and generally dressed in black."
Of course, CRASS is talking about the police. More information about the press conference here.
Current total document count is 361.
November 8th, 2008 — Added several documents relating to the public event held by the official commission investigating the RNC, and various other articles relating to the simultaneous police call for people to help them find "RNC protest victims" (a single protester shown in surveillance video briefly banging on a car hood, and a sole Republican protester trying to stop blac block protesters smashing Macy's windows, who was apparently kicked by some black bloc protesters).
"RNC protest victims"? Are the police and--let's call them 'other, thinking people'--even living in the same world? Compared to the police violence observable against nonviolent protesters in the trailer for Terrorizing Dissent alone, the pathetic level to which Twin Cities law enforcement has sunk is here for all to see.
Current total document count is 358.
October 30th, 2008 — Updates to the Report will most likely be mostly suspended until the weekend of November 8th-9th until as I travel out of town for a funeral and other commitments.
If there's one thing you do during the break, please watch the Glass Bead Collective/Twin Cities Indymedia documentary about the RNC, Terrorizing Dissent: Election Cut, and tell others about it. There are several screenings planned (check the official website for the most up to date list) in the Twin Cities and beyond.
The trailer and all four parts of the documentary are available on this site but the documentary is free, and you can download and burn copies of the DVD image from terrorizingdissent.org.
Current total document count is 347. Have a great Halloween.
October 29th, 2008 — The documentary "Terrorizing Dissent: Election Cut", Part 1: The Battle of St. Paul, was uploaded to the site. Parts 2-4 also available. Or go to terrorizingdissent.org.
Other text additions have taken place. Worth reading: Broken promises: One year later, it's time to compare the reality of the RNC with the pledges made by Assistant St. Paul Police Chief Matt Bostrom on October 23, 2007 and The war at home.
Current total document count is 346.
October 26th, 2008 — List of sources at the bottom of each page updated to reflect all sources currently on site. The trailer for "Terrorizing Dissent", the coming Glass Bead Collective/Twin Cities Indymedia film was just released.
Crowd control at the RNC: Fifty million unanswered questions, an extremely interesting summary by Jeff Guntzel of "less lethal" munitions used at the RNC, now heads up our "Less Lethal" Weapons section.
An RNC '08 Report Facebook group was created. Fixed our RSS feed and redid the way that photos are displayed in the Photographs section to offer larger images. More work is coming in the Photographs section to cover more of the days and specific events.
A number of ACLU-MN press releases were added, mostly to chronicle the legal battle over the September 1st protest march route that occurred in the run up to the RNC. Several TV news reports were added from Kare 11 and WCCO. Current total document count is 337.
October 24rd, 2008 — Video of the October 22nd report back to the St. Paul City Council about policing during the RNC by St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington.
Images were added to section indexes around the site for a touch of color. Current total document count is 316, with additions at a current rate of 50 per week.
October 23rd, 2008 — More updates across site and work behind the scenes. The Twitter feed of Coldsnap Legal Collective during the RNC and A Letter from the RNC 8 were two significant additions to the site.
Blogging for the Poynter Institute on October 16th, Maryn McKenna wrote about this project in RNC 08 Report Preserving Tweets for History's Sake. Current total document count is 315.
October 17th, 2008 — The Benefit Concert for RNC arrestees last night was packed and we raised $1,000 for Coldsnap Legal Collective and Food Not Bombs. Not too shabby. :-) Junkyard Empire, the "Jazz Rage Against The Machine" were excellent. My band Pocket of Resistance also pulled off a good set. Thanks Black Dog peeps! The message for the event from Submedia.TV's The Stimulator can be found here.
A couple of new sections were split off yesterday from the previously generic "Documents" section, including Legal & Court Documents, Police & Security Documents, and "Less Lethal" Weapons.
Webmasters, please note that all file names on the server have been changed to simple, short URLs, eg. http://rnc08report.org/archive/175.shtml. This will allow us to move stuff around during inevitable reorganizations, without changes occurring in the URLs.
Do not worry: older URLs will still work so any visitors navigating from an out of date link you may have posted on your blog, sent in e-mail, etc., will not notice anything. If people navigate to an older page, after one or two clicks, they will follow a path onto the current site. Current total document count is 300.
October 15th, 2008 — 14 new documents added from Reporters sans frontieres, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the National Press Photographers Association.
Also a very interesting article from Mordecai Specktor, whose son is one of the "RNC 8", and a Truthdig editorial from Chris Hedges, a former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief.
Also added, some eye-opening stuff in the Research section of this site, including an NYCLU report on the 2004 Republican Convention to which St. Paul seems like a sequel.
Get ready for the Benefit Concert tomorrow! Normal service at the RNC '08 Report will resume on Thursday. Current total document count is 297.
October 14th, 2008 — Four more definitions were added to the Glossary. Around 20 TV news reports were added to the Video section today, mostly from local ABC affiliate KSTP, including background reports from July and August about RNC security. Additional video material was uploaded from Mobile Broadcast News and the Minnesota Independent. Speaking of the Minnesota Independent, see how bizarre Minnesota officialdom is becoming regarding independent media.
Current total document count is 276 with 36 additions today, or 59 in the last week! There probably would have been more but I have been organizing a benefit concert on October 16th for RNC arrestees and ironing out a few issues in the website structure to prepare for the various coming "Browse By..." options, which will facilitate better navigation. More additions to come!
October 8th, 2008 — Jeff Severns Guntzel wrote an article about the RNC '08 Report in the Minnesota Independent so I guess the site is now officially live. :-)
Another 23 documents were added to the site today. Some were legal documents but mostly video reports from local news channels Fox 9, WCCO and KSTP. There were around 170 local TV news video reports to add. We now have about 35 on the site.
Some work was done on the video engine on this site today to speed additions up. Submedia.tv's excellent "Ground Noise and Static" documentary was added recently. Current document count: 240! More to come!
October 7th, 2008 — Website "soft launched", ie. it went public without any major announcement to allow for a period of bug testing and continued additions. Today, a ton of Fox 9 TV reports were added to the site. Current document count: 217 articles and videos! More to come over the next few days!