I attended some organizational meeting early in the day, so my morning was fairly quiet. Early afternoon I reported to the clinic for duty. We were going to go downtown when we got a call. There was a need for Legal and medics STAT. Off went our little team.
Dokota Occupation of Clearwater.
The Clearwater Springs area is sacred to the local native American community. Of course, it was taken over by a government agency, the Federal Land and Mining Agency I believe. Well the local Dakota had decided to stage an occupation and take their sacred land back.
We arrived and they had a legal team already there. There was also another medic team with more in route. The police had just issued an order that they would start to clear us if we did not leave by 3:00. Since this was Indians, we knew that the police would be especially brutal and thuggish. As we waited, more and more people arrived. Black people, white people and brown. Standing with our red brothers and sisters. All of the colors of the circle were represented. It was beautiful. Riot police were ready and it was getting tense. Suddenly twenty minutes before the deadline, an NLG Lawyer showed up, with a legal permit. We cheered and the police left.
My buddy was redeployed back to jail support while I went back to more organizational meetings. During one, I got paged. Apparently, the police had beaten two of the protesters in jail so badly that they released them. When they release people that they beat, that is bad. They asked me to come help them, as they know I am a Trauma Nurse. Then they called back and said that it was OK as a Doctor had showed up at the clinic site.. They wanted us, specifically to document the injuries.
After my organizational meetings, I went and visited my 18 year old son, Sean. I asked him if he wanted to run Street medic with his old man. He said "yes" so off we went. The Rage Against The Machine concert was at the Target Center in Minneapolis. I had promised Sean's mother that i would not enter "the zone" which is where the police cordon off people and then start attacking. We would stand outside and treat people as they left. At this point, the Minneapolis police and others maced a bunch of people, both inside and outside the zone.
One young man had apparently just returned from serving in Iraq. I treated him after the police maced him, full in the eyes. He had been simply walking by, going somewhere. As I treated him one of the NLG lawyers came by, took his information and a picture. At this time, the wall of police opened up, a commander of some sort pointed at myself and the lawyer, took a picture of us. I thought, "oh sh*t" and myself, my son and the lawyer started to walk away. Then a group of about fifteen bike cops came after us, surrounded me and pushed my son aside. Sean went to get the lawyer to help and they apparently threatened to tase him. Thank God, I did not know this at this time.
They detained me, searched me and questioned me. Then they let me go. I took my son home and went home to bed.
Welcome to occupied Minneapolis and St Paul. Also, you all need to know that the 100% Democratic City Council in St Paul gave the police the legal authority to do this. In the case of Minneapolis, the city Council did the same thing and it is almost all Democrats. In Minneapolis, the only real opposition party is the Green Party, where there is one current sitting Green on the Council. They also gave them the legal authority to do this, in a very rotten, sneaky and undemocratic manner. I want to all to know that I am completely non partisan in my condemnation of the elected officials as I am also speaking of the actions of the so called "opposition" to the Democrats which would be the Green Party Councilman in Minneapolis. I will report later on the full story behind this betrayal of elected officials here
We now have reports that Minneapolis has been legally put in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security.
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