This has been a particularly busy week in the EPPD. About a dozen of our officers have been directly involved in providing security at the Republican National Convention this week in St. Paul. In order free up those officers to work in St. Paul, we’ve had to alter our shift structure; suspend voluntary absences (i.e. - vacations); and ask for an increased level of assistance from our chaplains and volunteers to make it all work. So far, so good. While our officers have been directly involved in trying to keep the peace this week in St. Paul, none of our officers have been injured in the fray.
I came into the office early this morning to listen in on the 6:00 am roll call briefing in the Police Department. Our officers and reserves were gearing up this morning for an anticipated increase in intensity of the regular Wednesday morning protest vigil at ATK, so I wanted to hear what they were planning. We had some intelligence that today’s event might be bigger than normal, due to increased presence of protesters in the Twin Cities this week for the RNC event. We were concerned for the safety of the protesters and the safety of the workers at ATK and the surrounding businesses that adjoin the ATK building.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has their corporate headquarters in Eden Prairie. They moved their HQ here from Edina not quite a year ago. Their is a small, but faithful group of metro area residents who call themselves Alliant Action that hold a peace vigil/protest outside the corporate headquarters every Wednesday morning. I call it both a peace vigil and a protest because they do a little of each, but they do it peacefully.
As of 7:30 am this morning, the anticipated larger than expected vigil/protest did not pan out. Good. It appeared to be the regular group of Alliant Action members peacefully gathered this morning at the site sharing their message of opposition to ATK and peace for the world.
As I was sitting in the briefing room this morning with our Police Officers, I couldn’t help but think about the mission these men and women were about to carry out in both Eden Prairie and St. Paul today. Not only today, but especially today, they are charged with protecting the fundamental Constitutional rights to assemble and to freely speak of United States citizens. In other parts of the world today, I’m sure there were gatherings of police officers and government officials in briefings much like the one I was in, except they were discussing their plans and strategies to prevent their citizens from assembling and to silence the free speech of their citizens. While police officers in places like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Columbia were getting briefed this morning on whose head to crack today and what evidence to plant to cover their tracks, our officers were getting reminded about how to safely and politely handle protesters; keep traffic moving; and preserve the general peace. It’s a stark difference, if you think about it.
The manner in which we handle dissent in this country is one of the things that makes America different from most of the rest of the world. It’s one of the reasons that I am proud to be an American.
