Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
I. Executive Summary
In January 2007, the Republican National Committee selected
Minneapolis Saint Paul as the host site for the 2008 Republican
National Convention (RNC). Each of the cities signed obligation
contracts with the Republican Nation Committee’s Committee on
Arrangements. In March 2007, Secretary of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff responded to Governor Pawlenty’s request to have
the Convention a National Special Security Event (NSSE). The NSSE
designates the United States Secret Service (USSS) as the lead federal
agency for the planning and management of the convention. Because
the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul was selected as the site of the
convention itself, the Saint Paul Police Department was designated as
the lead local agency for planning and management of the convention.
Minneapolis’ efforts in planning for the 2008 RNC were led by the City
Coordinator’s Office. The Minneapolis Police Department coordinated
policing and security efforts for the RNC, working closely with the City
Coordinator’s Office, City Attorney’s Office, Public Works Department,
Fire Department, and BIS Department. Virtually every department in
the City of Minneapolis was involved in RNC planning and preparation
and had key personnel involved in planning on top of their day to day
responsibilities. In addition, Minneapolis Police personnel met almost
daily with members of the St. Paul and Bloomington Police
Departments, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, Minnesota Department
of Public Safety and numerous other local and federal agencies.
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II. Foreword
The 2008 RNC was the largest long term operation in the history of the
Minneapolis Police Department. Numerous personnel took on
responsibility for RNC planning in addition to their regular assignments.
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III. Planning
As the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul jointly prepared a bid to
attract the RNC to the Twin Cities, the Minneapolis and Saint Paul
police departments worked together to ensure that our comments
synched. The Twin Cities are unique: we are a big metropolitan area,
but the area’s largest city has less than 12 percent of the area’s
population. Consequently there is no one dominant law enforcement
agency—when large-scale events occur, numerous agencies have to
work together in order to manage an event the size of the RNC.
Even before the contract was finalized, it was clear that the Xcel
Energy Center would be the convention venue; law enforcement
leaders generally agreed that Saint Paul PD should take the lead in
planning and managing the event. Assistant Chief Matt Bostrom led
the Saint Paul PD’s efforts in planning and management of the event
and became the team leader for local law enforcement in planning the
event.
Federal policy dictates that any event in which federal assets are used
or for which reimbursement through FEMA or other federal programs
will be sought use the Incident Command System outlined in the
National Incident Management Strategy, NIMS. All emergency service
providers from all disciplines are required to be trained in NIMS, and
the City of Minneapolis has taken great pains to ensure that its staff is
NIMS trained. While NIMS was developed out of the fire service,
policing agencies from the various levels of government nationwide
have been working to incorporate NIMS into planning and operating
policies throughout our organizations.
The Secret Service uses a template to plan the event based on having
an “Executive Steering Committee,” which charters a number of (17 in
this case) subcommittees to address various planning elements for the
convention. Generally speaking, each of the subcommittees was co-
chaired by a federal agent and a local law enforcement official. Saint
Paul Police were generally the local co-chairs.
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Executive Steering Committee:
Chief Dolan
Operations & Budget Oversight
AC Lubinski
Gaynell Schandel
Planning Coordinator
DC Allen
Planning XO:
Captain Wagenpfeil
Inspector Martin
Civil Disturbance Committee / Mobile Field Force Commander
DC Gerlicher
Personnel Director
Inspector Arneson
Intelligence Coordinator
Lt. Leaf
Training Coordinator
Capt. Weddel
Multi Agency Coordination Center
Insp. Gerold
Insp. Skomra
Legal Issues
Peter Ginder (Deputy City Attorney)
Susan Segal (City Attorney)
Fire / Life Safety / HazMat
Asst. Chief Fruetel (MFD)
Consequence Management
Rocco Forte (Asst. City Coordinator)
Public Information Coordinator
Capt. Amelia Huffman
Downtown Area Command
Insp. Janee Harteau
Dignitary / VIP Protection & Transportation
Lt. Kevin Stoll
Tactical Teams
Lt. Matt Clark
Crisis Management Committee
Lt. Mike Kjos
Explosive Device Mitigation
Sgt. Wally Krueger
Interagency Communications
Lt. Eddie Frizell
Tom Donohoe (MECC)
Logistics Coordinator
Lt. Kathy Waite
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One of the challenges of the planning process was that the Secret
Service, which coordinates the planning process through the Executive
Steering Committee, has two primary concerns: the protection of the
venue (the Xcel Energy Center), and the protection of its protectees.
While the MPD was committed to assist the USSS and SPPD in the
protection of the venue and the USSS protectees, MPD saw its three
primary goals as:
Further, while the NSSE (the convention itself) occurred from Monday,
September 1 through Thursday, September 4, 2008, there was a
tremendous amount of activity occurring in the City of Minneapolis
during the week preceding the convention. The Republican National
Committee held its rules committee and platform committee meetings
at the Minneapolis Convention Center during the week prior to the
convention. The Republican National Committee’s headquarters hotel
was the Hyatt in downtown Minneapolis, and the part’s presidential
nominee, Senator John McCain, had his headquarters at the Hilton
Hotel. Needless, both hotels were extremely busy and both hotels,
along with the Minneapolis Convention Center, were the site of
potential protests both during the convention and the week prior.
One of the biggest events to occur outside of the convention was the
media party held by the RNC and Meet Minneapolis on Saturday,
August 30. That event was along the Minneapolis riverfront and
required a sizable police presence to secure.
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MPD staff also worked with SafeZone members, leveraging the
SafeZone website to send alerts and updates to members, advising
them of any traffic changes or other downtown activities. Partner
businesses and security services also notified police of suspicious
activities using the SafeZone Radio Link. The MPD shared as much
information as possible with downtown businesses and businesses, led
by BOMA, Brookfield and Target shared that information with other
businesses.
IV. Training
Early on in the planning process, training was identified as an area of
critical concern for all of the participants. Planners who had met with
Boston PD were impressed with the training that their Department had
implemented prior to the 2004 DNC. The training emphasized
patience in dealing with protests and ensuring that each arrest was
thoroughly documented and, above all, necessary to preserve order.
New York had done similar training prior to the 2004 RNC, but due to
the scale of the NYPD response, it was not possible to use some of the
NYPD tactics in Minneapolis. Further, NYPD employed some mass
arrest tactics which we deemed not acceptable to either Minneapolis or
Saint Paul. Specifically, planners were concerned about the use of a
fabric mesh used to encircle large groups of people (“penning”) rather
than making arrests of individuals.
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crowd management because it was free, the instructors were generally
good, and it added the imprimatur of a federal agency to our training.
Because of our concerns with the MCATI training, MPD staff met with
St. Paul and requested that MPD, SPPD and the other agencies
involved develop our own training. The involved police agencies, city
attorneys’ offices and others developed a cadre of officers who
conducted a minimum of 24 hours of crowd management training,
including tactics, legal issues and communication to every officer
involved in the mobile field forces. In addition to the classroom
training, a number of drills were conducted for participants prior to the
actual convention.
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V. Intelligence
The Intelligence sections mission was to obtain, assess and share
information about individuals and groups who may pose a threat to
protectees, designated venues and/or the RNC itself. The objectives of
the Intelligence Subcommittee, which MPD joined was to:
Prior to the RNC detail all RNC Intelligence officers received 12 hours of
training which included:
• Legal considerations of surveillance
• Information on the background of anarchist and other protest
groups.
• Likely strategies these groups may employ during RNC.
• Illegal tactics and materials that have been used by extremist
groups in protest situations.
• Practical exercises in which undercover (UC) intelligence officers
observed and interacted with “protester” role players and
communicate relevant information to MFF operations
commanders.
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• The City of Minneapolis’ policy on surveillance of political groups
• West area locations and events where direct action activities by
extremist protest groups were considered most likely to occur.
• West Intelligence Section communications plan.
• Downtown Minneapolis Intelligence Sectors and key RNC sites.
• Instruction on use of video cameras to document suspicious or
illegal behavior observed.
From the initial planning for the RNC, one of our stated goals was
to ensure that all of the work going into RNC-related activities did
not have a deleterious effect on crime in the rest of the city. We
maintained staffing levels in the precinct at levels that were at
least as high as average staffing. We also maintained our crime
analysis and tracking function in place to ensure that we would
be able to rapidly respond to any emerging crime trends or
patterns.
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B. Critical Mass Bike Ride
On Friday, August 31, 2007, the Critical Mass ride again took
place, but due to several incidents concerning riders and lack of
formal command / control in the part of the MPD, several arrests
were made. This resulted in a small “riot” occurring, a “HELP”
call being sent out, and in the end, 19 participants being
arrested. From that ride forward, the Police Administration has
ordered that the Special Operations Division will coordinate the
detail and act as Incident Command each month.
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The mission of the MPD during this ride was to facilitate a
peaceful ride that is safe for the riders, the motoring public, and
police officers, prevent crashes between riders and motor
vehicles, prevent assaults by riders on motorists and by
motorists on riders, prevent major traffic congestion sustained
over an unreasonable amount of time in one location, uphold the
criminal codes and traffic laws when other options to handle a
situation are unreasonable, document the event with video
cameras, and use only reasonable force when necessary.
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SPPD division was not able to assist in St. Paul because they
were out of position.
While downtown the slower riders stretched the ride out
over 10-14 blocks. A second IC (Lt. Stoll) was placed in
command of the rear group, while the original IC commanded
the front group. The second group later diminished.
The ride then re-entered St. Paul. Command was turned
over to Cmdr. Iovino (SPPD). An SPPD MFF Division took over
the escort duties of the ride.
At approximately 2045 hours SPPD left a small group of CM
riders as they entered Minneapolis.
OUTCOME NARRATIVE:
C. Media Party
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The MPD had a goal of having a robust security presence due to
the fact that it was a high threat target, without it seeming like
there was a large police presence. Detail commanders did this
by “hiding” some of the available police assets and by putting
out officers who were friendly and there to help guide and greet
the attendees. There were no security problems or arrests at the
event.
D. Liberty March
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MPD staff conducted sweeps of the area adjacent to Target
Center prior to the concert and discovered some small hidden
caches of concrete chunks and bottles, which led MPD to believe
that some attendees might attempt to damage property or throw
these items at police following the concert. MPD staff developed
a security plan for a large protest / demonstration following the
concert.
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G. Ramsey County Search Warrants
On Thursday, August 28, members of the Ramsey County
Sheriffs Office contacted MPD and stated that they had obtained
search warrants for three locations in Minneapolis. They stated
that the search warrants were related to RNC protest activity and
requested MPD’s help in executing the warrants. It is standard
practice for MPD to assist other agencies serving search warrants
in Minneapolis if said warrants are properly attained and signed
by a judge. Because MPD staff was concerned due to the
potentially sensitive political nature of these warrants, MPD
asked the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office to review the
search warrants to ensure they were proper. Because they were
reviewed by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and signed
by a District Judge, MPD provided personnel to assist Ramsey
County in executing the search warrants on the morning of
August 30. Senior commanders from MPD were assigned to each
of the three locations to ensure that any problems that arose at
the scene could be quickly addressed. There were no reported
injuries or unexpected complications related to the execution of
the warrants.
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VII. Future Considerations
Political Conventions have typically been held in large cities—Los
Angeles, New York Boston, Miami, Chicago—where there is one
large police department. The Twin Cities is unique in that we are
big metropolitan area but both central cities are relatively small.
This event proved challenging because it required a number of
agencies, that are used to operating independently, to work
together. This required establishing communications and
command and control systems specifically for this event. While
there were challenges, Minnesota law enforcement—with a lot of
help—was quite successful in managing an incredibly complex
event.
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challenge is exacerbated by the fact that there is no clear
definition of who “the media” is. There were very clearly
individuals claiming media status who were involved in
disruptive activities.
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