Local News

ST. PAUL (AP) ― Sabotaging the Xcel Energy Center or the Downtown St. Paul Airport. Leaving stalled vehicles and stretching metal chains across freeways. Even kidnapping delegates. All were tactics discussed by anarchists as ways to disrupt the Republican National Convention, according to police documents.
  
Groups planning to disrupt this week's convention also held an "action camp" in Minnesota this summer to teach "direct action techniques" using mock Molotov cocktails and a simulated RNC delegate vehicle that was targeted for rocks and tire-slashing, the documents say, citing information gathered by undercover investigators.
  
The information is contained in a search warrant application and supporting affidavit obtained by news organizations.
  
The documents show that for just over a year, the Ramsey County sheriff's office and other law enforcement agencies had been investigating the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist group. The group had been planning convention disruptions for months.
  
Investigators identified six leaders of the Welcoming Committee, all Minneapolis residents, who they alleged were particularly active in organizing efforts and in stockpiling materials. Five were arrested last weekend when authorities executed the search warrant.
  
After nearly 300 people were arrested Monday during violent clashes with police that erupted after a peaceful protest in St. Paul, the RNC Welcoming Committee claimed in an e-mail that "the idea of business as usual during the RNC has been shattered."
  
In an apparent reference to the search warrant, the group said in an e-mail late Tuesday night to members: "You may have seen reports in the corporate media about the informants inside the RNC-WC by now. Remember that our movement is strong, and getting stronger."
  
According to the documents, police found that membership in the RNC Welcoming Committee fluctuated between 30 and 35 people who attended more than 100 meetings over the past year.
  
An undercover investigator and two confidential informants posed as members of the RNC Welcoming Committee. Investigators also viewed the group's Web site -- www.nornc.org -- and videos posted on YouTube.
  
The documents say the RNC Welcoming Committee advocated a "three-tier" strategy for shutting down the Republican convention that consisted of blockading the downtown Xcel Energy Center, site of the convention; immobilizing delegates' transportation; and blocking connecting bridges.
  
The RNC Welcoming Committee organized two major gatherings of anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the past year, the documents say -- a meeting from Aug. 31-Sept. 2, 2007, that drew 150 to 200 people and a meeting on May 3, 2008, attended by more than 100 people representing about 40 organizing bodies from across the U.S.
  
During the 2007 meeting, one of the informants reported, a workshop was held at which ideas were discussed for shutting down the Republican convention, including kidnapping delegates and sabotaging the Xcel Center by blockading the perimeter air vent.
  
According to the documents, the RNC Welcoming Committee and Unconventional Action Midwest hosted an "action camp" from July 31-Aug. 3, 2008, at Lake Geneva in Minnesota, attended by about 50 people from across the U.S. An informant said a raised platform stage labeled "Xcel Center" was the target of most of the training.
  
At the camp, someone discussed using large street puppets to conceal and transport Molotov cocktails, bricks and shields, and using the puppets' large bamboo poles as spears to drive back police.

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The Republican National Convention will be at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul from Sept. 1 through Sept. 4.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)