It turns out some of the medical workers I wrote about here (in the photo above, they were helping activists who had been sprayed with pepper-spray or hurt by police in the aggressive suppression of anti-war protests on the first day of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul) are from a Oregon group called Portland Medics.
According to the Medics, their members were arrested and attacked by police despite being at the rally only to provide medical help and first aid. Some of the medics are still imprisoned in St. Paul.
This is one of the many reports coming out of St. Paul of media members, legal observers, health care workers, and civil activists who were arrested, pepper sprayed, or tear gassed in what the Medics are calling a violent, unprovoked, and indiscriminate police response.
More than 300 people were arrested over the four-day convention, 120 of which have been charged with felonies (often on the broad “conspiracy to riot” charge).
Here is part of the statement:
“The Portland Street Medics who were arrested include a long-time Queer liberation and radical performance artist; two trained Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), one of whom is also a Wilderness First Responder; and a Nurse Practitioner in training, who is also an Herbalist with more than fifteen years clinical experience.
It’s plainly obvious to everyone that our members, sworn to the primary directive of all health care workers to “First, Do No Harm”, should have never been arrested and must be allowed and supported to return to their
duties immediately without any interference whatsoever.”
Read the Medic’s statement plus watch video of the police response here.
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- STREETS OF ST. PAUL: Gustav Stalls GOP Convention; Police Find Anarchists Armed with Piss Note to r
- Vancouver Paramedic Arrested on Suspicion of Child Rape A paramed
- STREETS OF ST. PAUL: Broken Windows, Pepper Spray and Delegate Buses The major
Tags: police, Republican Convention
Some hippies and tree huggers managed to piss off the police and get themselves arrested. So what?
It’s obvious that Kevin Stark was sympathetic to the protestors in his writing.
Why no link to a copy of the police custody report so as to explain the other side of the issue?
So much for objective reporting.
"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."