Originally Posted by Minnesota Public Radio

Fletcher was worried whether St. Paul was recruiting enough police security. He called for hiring 500 additional officers in standard so-called "soft" uniforms. That's without helmets and other protective gear.

At the same time, the sheriff also warned of overtaxing the riot police, known as the mobile field force, with routine duties such as patrolling downtown and monitoring the parade routes. He worried it would make it difficult to respond to mayhem.

And, Fletcher urged the department to hold training exercises for commanders so they could prepare for possibly dicey scenarios on the street.

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He [Fletcher] said, while officers performed as they were trained, the plan was flawed, especially when it came to the multiple roles expected of the mobile field force.

"It is really next to impossible for persons that are trained with turtle gear and civil-disturbance equipment and helmets, to perform both duties of being smiling ambassadors in a community-policing mode and also suppressing civil disturbance," Fletcher said.

Fletcher also said the mobile field force was primarily trained to move people. He said that explains why some of those officers fired pepper spray and shoved individuals who refused to clear the street, instead of simply arresting them.

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In a June letter, Harrington played down Fletcher's call for additional officers, as well as the anarchists' ability to carry out their threats.

Harrington wrote that his peers in the field advised him that "these are bad guys and bad guys tend to lie."

Harrington goes on to say: "I do not feel that I can justify the increase in staffing you suggest."

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During one of the marches, [University of St. Thomas Professor Michael] Andregg said he ran into a commander he recognized in riot gear.

Andregg said he asked the commander about the heavy tactical presence as well as why the officers did not have individual IDs on them.

Andregg said the officer told him that some things fell through the cracks, and that the officers were wearing identification, but they were hidden under the gear.

In a Veterans for Peace march the day before the convention, Andregg and other marchers were puzzled by five military helicopters circling downtown. That led Andregg and others to believe that federal authorities were calling at least some of the shots in the security implementation.

And, a couple days before the RNC, he said it was "eerie" when about 20 officers in full riot gear unexpectedly stopped by a conference in a Bloomington hotel held by the National Veterans for Peace.