A-Infos (en) US, Boston, Anarchist journal BAAM #14 - RNC Legal Solidarity: An Arrestee's-Eye View by Sublett

One of the most inspiring aspects of the protests at the 2008 Republican 
National Convention was the glimpse they afforded of the world we are trying to 
build: a world that runs on solidarity and mutual aid, without repression or 
hierarchy. A world where the stranger in the call center reading a canned 
greeting actually cares about your problem and wants to help. ---- Coldsnap 
Legal Collective, this is not a secure line." I had been in custody for nearly 
24 hours before I heard that welcome sentence--good time by the standards of the 
Ramsey County, MN jail. Coldsnap's number was written on my leg in sharpie, and 
my jailers had done their part to preserve it by not letting me take a shower 
the whole time I was there. But once I had Coldsnap on the phone I wasn't sure
what to tell them. I didn't want them to call
and alarm my parents if there was any way I
could get out on my own, and in any case my
bail hadn't been set yet. The phone numbers
of my affinity group were trapped in my cell
phone and besides, most of them were in jail
with me. In the end I just told the operator I
didn't need medical attention and hadn't seen
anyone who did.
    I ended up spending nearly a day and a
half in jail, and while it wasn't unevent-
ful, that story is better told by those who
stayed longer and saw more than I did.
Suffice it to say that the Ramsey County
Sheriff's Department will think twice be-
fore imprisoning large numbers of anar-
chists again.
    Coldsnap dispatched legal observ-
ers during the protests and held know-
your-rights training sessions in the days
leading up to the convention. They also
started a support group for arrestees to
coordinate court solidarity actions and
help with logistics for people returning to
St. Paul for court dates.
    After my bail was finally set, my ACLU
lawyer called my parents, who bailed me
out. At that point, I had no idea how to
get back to the building I'd been staying
at, or whether there was anyone there to "
let me in. I had left my cell phone there as w
well, so that it couldn't be used to iden-
tify me. On top of that, the cops had taken
all my cash when I was booked (they eventu-
ally mailed me a check). Even so, I was bet-
ter off than the people the cops had driven to
Minneapolis and dumped off at some random
intersection, because Coldsnap had the fore-
sight to set up a vigil in front of the jail to
support newly released arrestees.
    Situated on a grassy strip between the side-
walk and the curb, the vigil offered every-
thing you could ask for after getting out of
jail in a strange city. There was hot coffee,
cold water, and good food, that last item most
appreciated after a diet of prison bag lunches.
Blankets and sweaters were available to ward
off the chill. Somebody from Coldsnap was
there with a cell phone, and outtake forms to
keep track of who had been released. There
was even a gas station with a bathroom just
down the road. I still had no idea what to
do next, but I could least hang out with my
fellow jailbirds and trade stories while I fig-
ured it out. Eventually two of my friends
showed up, bailed out a third, and we all left
in a taxi.
    The next morning I had to go back to the
courthouse for my second arraignment (I
guess the first one didn't take?). Coldsnap had
arranged for dozens of lawyers from the Na-
tional Lawyers Guild and the American Civil
Liberties Union to represent protesters. They
also had observers in the courtroom keeping
track of the status of prisoners. Some of my
friends were scheduled to be arraigned (for
the first time) after me, so I stayed to find out
how much their bail would be.
    As I watched, a few trends began to emerge.
ACLU lawyers mostly just took their clients
through arraignment, while their NLG coun-
terparts generally signed on for the duration
of a case. Bail during the morning session
was for all intents and purposes set by the
prosecutors. I only saw two cases where the
judge allowed a lower amount than the prose-
cution requested, and in one of those they had
asked for more than the legal maximum for
misdemeanors. Bail for out-of-state protest-
ers was usually $2,000 for the male-bodied
and $1,000 for the female-bodied, with Twin-
Cities residents being released on their own
recognizance. The judge in the afternoon ses-
sion, by contrast, reportedly released almost
everybody on their own recognizance. A guy
I'd shared a holding tank with told me later
he hadn't even seen a judge, but was simply
given a piece of paper with his next court date
on it and released.
    Something else that quickly became appar-
ent was that felonies were evaporating right
and left. Everyone I saw who had been tagged
with felony charges by the cops had them re-
duced to misdemeanors on arraignment. The
Twin Cities press eventually admitted that
only 16 people were charged with felonies
out of the 818 "dangerous rioters" arrested.
    The next step was bailing the rest of my
friends out of jail. I wasn't sure how to do
that, but getting my wallet back seemed like
a good start. It had been passed to a friend
of a friend for safekeeping when I'd decided
to do jail solidarity. Since I hadn't gotten the
guy's phone number and didn't know where
he was, it was safe from me as well. The one
member of our affinity group who knew the
wallet-holder and wasn't in jail didn't have a
phone, but I figured he'd turn up eventually.
Back outside at the vigil I made some calls
to friends back home and settled in to wait.
Pretty soon I started talking with two other
people, and we eventually introduced our-
selves. One of the names rang a bell. "Um,
dude, random question, but would you hap-
pen to have my wallet?"
    Sure enough, he did, as well as enough cash
to maybe bail out one person. All we had to
do now was trot off to the nearest bail bond
agent and plunk down our money, or so we
thought. It turned out not to be that simple.
For starters, we didn't know where the near-
est bail bond agent was. A security guard in
the jail parking lot pointed down the road and
said "Just head in that direction and you'll find
one." An address we had been given turned
out to belong to the Minnesota Department of
Transportation, but a receptionist there gave
us directions to an office located in back of
a restaurant.
      There a grandmotherly woman explained
to us the facts of life concerning out-of-town
arrestees in St. Paul. Simply handing over ten
percent of the bail amount and strolling back
to the jail to greet our friends as they emerged
was not in the cards. We were going to need
collateral in the full amount of the bail, plus
the ten percent, plus an additional fee. The
collateral was usually handled by putting a
hold on somebody's credit card, so that the
credit limit was reduced by the amount of the
bail, but the bail bond agent didn't take the
money unless the arrestee failed to appear in
court. It would have been cheaper to just pay
the bail directly to the court, but they only
took cash, which would have taken days to
come up with. On top of all that, the cops
were continuing to hold people for as long as
six hours after their bail had been posted.
    Eventually we pulled it off by a bootstrap-
ping process that involved bailing out the peo-
ple thought to have credit cards first, who in
turn rescued those remaining, along with the
generous help of various relatives, we man-
aged to extract our entire affinity group from
the clutches of the Ramsey County sheriff's
department by early Thursday. Unfortunately,
Coldsnap wasn't much help during this oper-
ation. Their exquisitely designed know-your-
rights pamphlet said almost nothing about
the actual mechanics of getting out of jail,
and their web site (coldsnaplegal.wordpress.
com) wasn't very informative on the subject
either. The Coldsnap representatives I asked
likewise didn't know much. While this was a
minor flaw in an otherwise stellar legal sup-
port effort, I believe it is worth bringing up
for the benefit of future actions.
    I have focused on Coldsnap in this article
because I spent most of my time in St. Paul
dealing with the legal system, but I should
make it clear that they were only part of a
comprehensive support system that also in-
cluded health care and street medics, a con-
vergence center, housing, meals, bikes and a
communication system featuring scouts, text
message alerts and a pirate radio station. The
irony of the RNC is that the best-organized
summit protest in North American history
was also the least attended. No more than
500 anarchists showed up, out of the several
thousand originally predicted by the organiz-
ers. Liberal numbers were similarly disap-
pointing. Nonetheless, the work of the RNC
Welcoming Committee and the other St. Paul
organizers will be enormously valuable to
protest planners in the years ahead.

----------------------------------------
See also:
http://baamboston.org (not allways avilable)
Email: wordup (nospam) riseup.net
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