Mass Arrests and the Heffelfinger-Luger Report Nigel Parry, RNC 08 Report, January 27th, 2009 The phrase “mass arrest” appears in the main body of the Heffelfinger-Luger report 11 times. At the official presentation of the report at the St. Paul City Council on January 14th, the phrase was used hesitantly, almost reverentially as if to state the obvious would somehow have been the wrong thing to do.... The RNC Review Commission report deals with one of the clearest problems with police actions—three mass arrests—in a completely unsatisfying way. Mass arrests are illegitimate and unconstitutional because people should only be arrested if they have committed a crime. Mass arrests target the innocent as well as the guilty. They are a form of lazy, intimidating, and civil rights-abusing police work. They expose and exploit the innocent rather than protect and serve them. [Read more]
RNC Photos: Exhibit 2 (8_31_08 evidence) Exhibits from the RNC Commission Report Evidence, St. Paul Police Department, January 16th, 2009 There is no index in the online RNC Public Safety Review Commission's report of what these items are. Exhibits are referred to throughout the text of the report. The 48 photographs only titled "Exhibit 2 (8_31_08 evidence)". There were no August 31st raids to the best of our knowledge. This is therefore most likely to be a massed collection of "evidence" from several of the raids of items Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher paraded repeatedly on television in the days after the pre-Convention raids. [Read more]
Initial Reactions to the Heffelfinger-Luger RNC Commission Report Nigel Parry, RNC 08 Report, January 15th, 2009 I was tempted to preface the title of this article with "Some Very Initial Reactions..." simply because of the sheer size of of the report and its attachments. The Executive Summary is 15 pages long and the Main Report text reaches 82 pages, not including a 6-page index and "Exhibits" which include 21 multipage PDF files, 58 video files ranging in length from 5 seconds to over an hour, and 8 galleries of extremely slow-loading, poorly labeled, high resolution images. Although I was already familiar with around one-quarter of the supplementary documents listed, I'll still need another week to get through it all. [Read more]
Presentation of the Heffelfinger-Luger Commission report at the St. Paul City Council Video, St. Paul City Council, January 14th, 2009 A 70 minute video. In a dramatic public meeting, former United States Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and former Assistant United States Attorney Andy Luger present the findings from their review of public safety planning and implementation during the Republican National Convention. Introduction by Mayor Chris Coleman. Among other classic moments includes Tom Heffelfinger claiming that "urine and feces was utilized as a weapon against the police" and Andy Luger advising other cities planning to have a similar convention to "prepare" the population by showing them pictures of riot police. [Read more]
Preparing for the worst: The coming Heffelfinger/Luger report on RNC policing Due on December 15th, most observers assume a frustrating result Nigel Parry, RNC 08 Report, December 11th, 2008 LET THE RNC '08 REPORT ARCHIVE YOUR SUBMISSION TO THE RNC PUBLIC REVIEW SAFETY COMMISSION!
Just a few days after the RNC dust settled, it was announced that the City of St. Paul hired former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and former assistant U.S. Attorney Andy Luger to review police plans and how they were carried out during the Republican National Convention. What became immediately clear was that the independent review would not be a fact-finding mission to explore allegations of police wrongdoing or violations of people's rights... [Read more]
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