Police Tear Gas Protestors by River at RNC 2008 St. Paul

(see full article and video here here or here)

Police violently pursue non-violent protestors who are marching down by the Mississippi River at Shepherd Road and Robert Street in St. Paul Minnesota during the Republican National Convention on September 1, 2008. Tear gas and concussion grenades (aka flash bangs) are used by police on protestors as the protestors try to escape. Later the confrontation ends in a mass arrest (not shown in this video). You can also see Coast Guard gun-ships with two high caliber fully automatic machine guns mounted on each. What such a massive overkill style show of force is supposed to do is obvious: intimidate. What beating up and arresting protestors is supposed to do is obvious as well: squash constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly, and to dissent. Why police violently attack protestors who are not being violent is obvious: so that the news media focuses on violence instead of the message that the protestors are trying to get across... the higher ups in the police state want fellow Americans arguing about whether the cops or the protestors were worse, instead of thinking about the messages the protestors were trying to send to the public.

This video was recorded by Christopher who is currently a political t-shirt designer and custom t-shirt screen printer who uses eco-friendly water-based inks in Minneapolis. He was a TC-IMC volunteer from 2000 until 2004. He was not involved in the RNC 2008 protests directly, but rather was a witness and citizen journlist.

Check his police brutality t-shirts and others here WWW.CONTEMPL8.NET