Open Letter to St. Paul MN Mayor Cole: Get Control of Your Police!

September 4, 2008

Dear Mayor Cole:

The word is out. Your police, FBI, Secret Service, and sheriff personnel are making themselves the laughing stocks of the nation, dressed up in riot gear and semi-automatic weapons, running around out of control in order to "protect" [...someone, but who?] from peace and justice folks. To the rest of us, your police look like a cross between UPS brown shirts and Star Wars storm troopers. Didn't anyone tell them it's not Halloween or a GI Joe video game?

Please tell them to count to 10, take a deep breath, go have a cup of coffee or whatever they need to put back on their tolerant-reasonable-law-officer hats and let the protesters have their say and their day, as is their right. Then go deal appropriately with the very few who damage property.

The police are getting nowhere with being heavy handed and "preemptive" warrantless searches and seizures and arrests in homes -- they're making matters worse and putting an embarrassing face on your city and state, the RNC and their candidates, and police everywhere.

I urge you to put a stop to this, and to release immediately the hundreds of people these adrenalin-pumped guys have already rounded up indiscriminately. Unfortunately by dealing with them the way they have you can't really take court action against any of the incarcerated people who actually damaged property -- you can't sort out who's who or show that they have received due process.

And no doubt there will be lawsuits against the police for violation of rights, false arrest, assault, etc. as a result of this approach, particularly if the "non-lethal" weapons and rough handling cause serious injury or death as has happened in Boston and elsewhere.

So, if this doesn't stop and get straightened out immediately, which of you will wind up with the egg on his face? Who will be stuck taking public responsibility and legal and political consequences for the violence and antagonism and pathetic lack of discipline and judgment inflicted on the poor and the young and the idealistic visitors to your city, who just came to shout out for justice to the party which has been in power.

Even members of the press have been arrested, brutalized and thrown into crowded, make-shift jail pens in a police garage For heavens sake, leave them alone to do their job. Anyone with half a brain can figure out that if the police thought they were behaving properly they would welcome the press filming their professional handling of the situation and documenting the "crimes" they are dealing with for future prosecution.

At this point, restoring the peace starts with you. Please exercise your authority and insist that the police in your area do their job with dignity and within the law.

--Sandy Coy