Police used flash grenades and tear gas near the Minnesota State capitol on Thursday night to herd a crowd of about 250 people onto a bridge where they were trapped between lines of officers and arrested, less than an hour before Senator John McCain was scheduled to address delegates in the Xcel Energy Center, about a mile away.
A crowd began gathering on the capitol lawn in the afternoon and at 5 p.m. close to a thousand people marched slowly south on John Ireland Boulevard and onto an overpass spanning Interstate 94. The overpass separates the capitol area from downtown St. Paul, where Republicans were preparing for the final night of their convention.
Police on horseback and motorcycles blocked the marchers near the center of the bridge but after about an hour, the demonstrators receded back towards the capitol. They then spilled east into the intersection of Cedar Street and 12th Street, where about 50 people were arrested.
The police then formed a second line to prevent marchers from moving across yet another bridge that leads across the interstate and towards the Xcel Center.
A handful of people emerged from the milling crowd with tears streaming from their eyes and white foam caked on their faces, complaining that they had been sprayed with chemicals. At 7:30 officers with batons charged into part of the crowd sending people scrambling back across the bottom of the capitol property.
The crowd fragmented then, breaking into several small groups, pursued by police, who blocked residential streets off of University Avenue. Flashing lights were visible on leafy residential lanes and the dull booms of police ordinance could be heard echoing across parking lots.
The main body of marchers, numbering in the hundreds, circled those streets and was headed north on Marion Avenue, away from Interstate 94, when police forced them backwards.
Officers wearing helmets and padded vests heaved projectiles from the back of a vehicle known as a Gator. Grenades exploded amidst the crowd with a bang and a bright white flash as people scattered and ran. Thick plumes of tear gas clouded the air.
The crowd, which included several credentialed reporters and photographers, were ordered to sit on the roadway, where they were handcuffed.
Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the St. Paul Police department who arrived at the scene as marchers were being loaded onto buses, said that most of those arrested would probably be charged with unlawful assembly but would not spend the night in jail.
He added that some demonstrators had been arrested with bags of feces but told a reporter that those items were not available for viewing.
It might have been more effective if they'd just tossed them off the bridge. Not so much time wasted processing them.
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