By Paddy
A little heavy handed?
Taser International would not make its current marketing and training materials available to Minnesota Independent for review. “A lot of our marketing is personalized,” spokesperson Peter Holran says. “We tailor it to the client’s needs.” Holran would also not make available the marketing materials his team provided to the St. Paul Police Department in advance of the RNC.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary with the order,” he says. “They did their due diligence and decided to purchase the 250 Tasers. The info that we would have provided them is all on the Web site and supports the testing of the product,” he says.
They can't be expecting protests at a Republican Convention? Oh, wait, I forgot about this, from Wiki on the '04 RNC Convention-
The convention faced unprecedented protests in New York City throughout the week, including a massive march on the Sunday preceding the convention and repeated infiltration of the convention by protesters. 1806 people were officially arrested during the week, the vast majority on minor charges.
Mass arrests and illegal detentions (for which the City of New York was fined) led Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) to comment that "The performance of police was decidedly a mixed one. While hundreds of thousands of people were able to make their voices heard, the right to protest was severely undermined by the mass arrests of hundreds of peaceful demonstrators and bystanders, the pervasive surveillance of lawful demonstrators, and the illegal fingerprinting and prolonged detention of [more than] 1500 people charged with mostly minor offenses. This compromised their Constitutional right to protest."
.jpg)