Minneapolis Police Chief on Rage concert: “Basically uneventful”

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan expressed relief at the lack of violence associated with last night’s Rage Against the Machine concert. Despite more than 100 arrests, Dolan said the situation had the potential to be explosive given the intersection of delegates and protesters. “We were very, very nervous about that,” he said at a press conference this morning. “We had a recipe there for a perfect storm. I’m thankful to be here today to say that things went as well as I could have ever expected.”

Dolan said there were no felony arrests and just two gross misdemeanor arrests. “The bottom line with those individuals is that they wanted to be arrested,” he claimed. “I haven’t gotten any complaints about how they were arrested. it was basically uneventful for us.” He characterized the concert-goers as generally well-behaved. “They were rambunctious, but they were not damaging property,” he said. “They were not assaulting anybody. It was basically a big event.”

St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington stated that there were no major security problems in St. Paul on the third day of the convention. “Wednesday was a great day in St. Paul,” he said. “In balance it was a day that really was marked with lack of any major crisis or any major issues in the City of St. Paul at all.”

Harrington also spoke about the use of tear gas and other chemical irritants during the first two days of the convention. Some activists have questioned whether police are providing adequate warning before deploying such tools. “Our policy, and the policy we worked out uniformly with all of the agencies, is that we will announce,” he said. “We will give people an opportunity and direction as to how they can leave the area. … We will then make another announcement typically to say that we are now about to deploy gas, and then gas is deployed.”

There are exceptions to this policy, Harrington noted, when an officer or citizen is being attacked. “Our training generally is that we give verbal commands as we are using force,” he said. “So it would be atypical to have that not happen.”