Originally Posted by City Pages

Andy Mannix and I were standing outside the circle, between the protesters and police, trying to take pictures and report. The police said we needed to leave, we showed them our press credentials. I said I was a reporter and that it was a public street. An officer struck me and knocked me backwards over a curb. I tried to get up, and three or four officers shoved me to the ground. Andy was maced. I got up, told them I was a member of the media, I asked them where to go. One of them struck me with his club. Eventually they jostled and threw me out of the circle.

Originally Posted by City Pages

Jeff and I were standing outside the circle in the perimeter. Jeff and I were holding out our press passes. I tried to walk away. It was difficult to know where to go with so many officers, then one of them told me to "get the fuck down." I put my hands on my head. Another one started macing me from behind and sprayed up to my face when I was laying down with my hands on my head. Another told me to "get me the fuck up" and threw me outside of the police line. When they maced me I had my hands on my head, and I was on my knees.

The mace is coming out of what look like fire extinguishers. A foot and a half by foot stream of mace come out. Jeff got thrown on the ground. We were very clear we were from the press.

Originally Posted by City Pages

At about 8:30pm a young woman, maybe 20, stood with her arms raised in front of police in riot gear on University Avenue in St. Paul. After the pepper bombs went off she was standing there by herself and she kept saying, "I'm for peace, I'm for peace." Then the 30-50 cops approached her while her hands were still up and then at least 5 of the cops maced her with super soakers so heavily that she fell to the ground screaming. This was a young woman, unarmed. All they had to do was handcuff her. The only warning she got was, "get off the street of you'll be arrested." They never said she'd get maced. It was one of the most horrible things I've ever seen.

Originally Posted by City Pages

Shaw and I were standing up, holding our press credentials high like white flags. The police didn't seem to notice. A few of them started playing pinball with Shaw, their riot sticks as the levers, and Shaw as the ball. I felt four giant hands grabbing and pulling at my shirt.

"I'm a working journalist," I explained, still holding my press credentials in one hand, "just tell me where to go." After being hurled onto the grass, I stood up and tried to regain my bearings, but it was no use. To my right was a line of riot police that stretched further than I could see. To my left stood a cement wall. Someone continued to push me from behind, and ordered me to "get the fuck down." Get the fuck down I did.

Originally Posted by City Pages

An elfin, curly-haired photographer tried to explain something to an officer, something about his equipment. The officer indifferently took out a mace canister and unloaded in his face. The photographer began emitting primordial screams and dropped to his knees, rubbing his eyes and crying for help.

“I said put your hands behind your head!”

But he couldn’t take his hands away from his face, which was now caked in tears and mucus.

“Put your hands behind your head, or you’re getting maced again!” This time, the photographer managed to pry his hands off his face and follow orders.

We sat in that position for a half-hour as police secured the area. A rigid silence had now replaced the shouting and screaming and exploding. Behind me, a sobbing middle-aged woman kept repeating that she lived in a nearby apartment, she didn’t do anything, she was just outside watching. An officer told her to calm down and that “freaking out just makes it worse.”

A female officer, noticing the press credentials around my neck, took them off and brought them to show a few of her colleagues. They stood in the middle of the blocked off intersection and examined them. She returned and put it back around my neck.

“Those things are all bullshit, anyway,” scoffed a young officer who was standing nearby.

“I just checked ‘em,” she replied. “They’re valid.”

“Well, I heard that press are going to jail tonight anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” He turned his head and spat.

...

To my right sat a young videographer with MTV. Two spots down to my left sat Art Hughes, who, exactly one week earlier, had penned a guest opinion in the Pioneer-Press condemning the detention of reporters and confiscation of equipment. (Titled, “Free people in a free country are free to use their cameras.”) The short, unassuming freelancer now sat on a curb, his hands bound, his backpack lying dead on the grass behind him.