Unprovoked police action
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I am out in St. Paul, MN at the RNC. Yesterday at the Poor People March, I was standing watching some Mexican Indigenous dancers when a rush of about a dozen police in riot gear take down a woman standing five feet away from me. There was nothing she was doing and the event as a whole was peaceful until the police arrived.
After taking her down violently, they proceeded to handcuff her and take her out to the road surrounded by riot police. The woman who I later found out was Wendy Binion from Portland Indy Media was repeatedly stating "I'm not resisting, I'm not resisting".
As they moved her out into the street, a crowd formed and started chanting "Let her go, let her go". It seemed like only seconds later dozens more riot police showed up blocking the intersection. Then the riot police on horse back arrived and used the horses to push the crowd back. The riot police then pulled out canisters of pepper spray. I saw a police man point to an area in the crowd and about a minute later the police broke into the crowd and tackled a man violently. I could hear the man getting tazed and screaming "I'm not resisting". The riot police dragged him back into the intersection behind the riot police lines.
Moments later, a horse pushed into the crowd pepper sprayed the people who were standing on the sidewalk along a building and grabbed the arm of a woman. Holding onto her wrist he pulled her along side his horse while she was crying hysterically. The police dragged the woman back behind the police line, where she was promptly handcuffed. A minute or two later, I hear someone screaming "help him he's having a seizure", which was followed by many other calls for help. The police did nothing to assist the man having a seizure, not even calling an ambulance. Luckily, the people around called 911 and assisted with the man.
To me this was a situation that occurred because of the police and was unprovoked by any of the people gathered at the Poor People's March gathering. I saw a woman targeted for no reason and a peaceful gathering turned into a violent police riot.
