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But members of the RNC Welcoming Committee say they’re not terrorists.
“There are no terrorists up here. There are no terrorists in the Ramsey County Jail,” Betsy Raasch-Gilman said Thursday. “There are terrorists in the Xcel Energy Center. There are terrorists in the White House.”
Eight of the group’s members were arrested in raids shortly before the convention, and now face charges of conspiracy to commit riot in furtherance of terrorism.
St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said he would “let their actions and their Web site, which certainly has encouraged violence, speak for itself.”
The Welcoming Committee’s activities have been in public view for more than a year, with an open Web site (www.nornc.org) and e-mail list that detail many of its activities. A search warrant prepared by police cited information from those sources, as well as undercover investigators and informants, as reasonable cause for the warrant.
Though those activities were open, group members had refused to talk to media until Thursday.
Some members who talked to reporters said they have been so busy this week they haven’t had time to demonstrate.
Andy Fahlstrom, 27, has worked in the group’s rented space on Smith Avenue in St. Paul. Fahlstrom said the group’s work goes beyond protest logistics to include a community kitchen, bicycle shop, medical clinic and a sexual violence hot line. He said he expects some of those projects to continue long after the convention.
“This isn’t the headquarters of an anarchist, criminal organization,” he said. “It’s a community space for people to gather.”
Brian Hokanson, 21, of Minneapolis, said he hasn’t protested this week either, but was held in handcuffs for about 45 minutes last Friday when authorities raided the workspace. A criminal complaint says officers found maps, literature promoting blockades, flares and slingshots, among other items.
“I have not seen, personally, members of the Welcoming Committee ... commit acts of violence,” Hokanson said.
“I don’t think anyone here knows anything of explosives,” said William Gillis.
When asked about smashed windows, property damage and violence in downtown St. Paul on Monday, when police arrested nearly 300 people after an anti-war march on the convention’s first day, the members blamed police.
“The definition of violence itself is slippery,” said Raasch-Gilman, who later added: “I personally did not and probably wouldn’t smash the Macy’s window ... I do not condemn the person who did it.”
Rebekah Rodriquez, 15, said she wasn’t a Welcoming Committee member but described herself as an anarchist who had come from Madison, Wis., to protest the convention.
She said tactics such as breaking windows might discourage other cities from hosting conventions in the future.
“I think we’ve reached a point in this country where peaceful protesting isn’t enough,” she said. “People aren’t afraid of us anymore.” Rodriquez said her main activity included blockades, both to stop delegates from getting to the convention and to redirect police officers from another area. She said she did not smash any windows.
“The problem is not necessarily with the tactics, but with the way people are interpreting them,” she said.
