Activists aim to ensure RNC protesters know their legal rights 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, September 1, 2008
By Dan Heilman

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the July 28 issue of Minnesota Lawyer.

During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, more than 1,800 people were arrested while protesting, a record for a political convention in the United States.

Although charges were eventually dropped in about 90 percent of those cases, a great number of people were kept in custody well beyond the standard 72 hours, many without being charged at all, a situation that led to a rash of civil suits.

A group of Twin Cities volunteers, working in tandem with volunteer lawyers, is making sure that protesters at the upcoming Republican Convention in St. Paul are afforded their right to protest, and are informed of how to proceed if they do end up getting arrested.

Coldsnap Legal Collective was founded in January 2008 by Becky and Natalia, a pair of longtime Minneapolis activists who asked that Minnesota Lawyer not publish their surnames.

The five-person collective — which also includes several volunteers — works to educate and support not only those planning on protesting at the RNC, but in any setting. The group’s website says its mission is to “raise knowledge, raise awareness, and develop a network of legal support and solidarity for the upcoming RNC and beyond.”

The two organizers were interested in pursuing legal rights causes, but not as professional legal workers. They found that a more valuable service was letting people know about the basic constitutional rights to assemble and protest.

“We are not lawyers, and we do not give legal advice or provide legal defense,” said Becky. “The information that we give out is based on people’s basic legal rights.”

“We’re legal workers in the sense that we engage in the legal system that controls so much of our lives by using the knowledge and facts that are part of the public domain,” said Jude Ortiz, a Collective member who currently works as an editor for a consulting firm, but is in the process of applying to law schools. “The thing we all have in common is that we want the legal system to work for and protect us.”

Throughout the year, Coldsnap has been hosting “know your rights” seminars at such locations as college campuses. As the convention grows closer, the group is ramping up its outreach efforts, holding a pair of training seminars in Minneapolis last Friday.

The group’s seminars focus on such things as dealing with (and, ideally, avoiding) confrontations with police during a demonstration, as well as making participants aware that they don’t need to speak or consent to a search when arrested, and that they have the right to contact an attorney.

Outside help

Coldsnap’s formation was sparked by the disturbance following the August 2007 Critical Mass bicycle rally in Minneapolis, during which 19 were eventually arrested after police first tried to bring riders into custody on suspicion of trying to incite a riot.

Becky said that after Critical Mass, “we became aware of a need in the radical community for more information and resources regarding legal rights and how to deal with state repression.”

(The group’s name is taken from Operation Coldsnap, a 1998 raid by Minneapolis, Hennepin County and state police meant to dismantle a four-month encampment of the Minnehaha Free State activist group.)

While police and other St. Paul and state authorities are watching RNC protesters, Coldsnap will also be training protesters to keep an eye on police. The group is working with a pair of groups, Communities United Against Police Brutality and CopWatch, to learn to watch for and document incidents of police brutality.

Along with support from other activist organizations, Coldsnap works with the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild, an activist legal/bar association that will help provide legal support to RNC protesters.

Coldsnap has set up a hotline for protesters who are jailed during the convention, and a cadre of several volunteer lawyers from the Minnesota NLG will be on call for the duration of the convention to offer legal advice and help, many of them taking the week off from their jobs to do so, said NLG member Geneva Finn.

A legal liaison

One thing the collective will be careful not to do is to try to dispense armchair legal counsel, something Finn said all Coldsnap members have been coached on.

“They know they’re the liaison between [NLG] and the protesters,” she said. “People call Coldsnap when they’re in jail, and then Coldsnap calls us and we help them find attorneys.”

Coldsnap members say they appreciate the support they’re getting from the legal community, both in anticipation of the RNC and beyond.

“We appreciate the roles that lawyers have in serving our community,” said Becky. “Our role allows us to help fellow activists network with lawyers as an effective way of bridging potential gaps between these groups.”

The RNC — which is expected to draw 45,000 attendees — is a big stage for an upstart activist group to find itself on, so Coldsnap is also coordinating with similar out-of-town collectives such as the Midnight Special Law Collective of Oakland, Calif., and the Washington, D.C., Justice & Solidarity Collective, bringing in members from those groups to create a strong contingent of people used to dealing with crowds of protesters, police and the heated situations that can arise when the two collide.

“In addition to educating people on their rights, it’s particularly important to me for those who express their political views and are met with repression to know that they don’t stand alone,” said Krystal Martinez, a Coldsnap member who works as a campaigns analyst for a public policy and advocacy non-profit organization. “[They should know] that there is a network of support standing with them.”