According to an article in the New York Times, law enforcement agencies detained dozens of people on the weekend before the Republican National Convention and issued a series of search warrants aimed at groups believed to be organizing demonstrations.

The Ramsey County sheriff’s department, accompanied by the St. Paul police, raided a building that was being used as a headquarters to plan protests, handcuffing, searching, and photographing everyone inside.

Those inside the house described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house.

The sheriff’s department continued the sweeps the next day, executing warrants for three houses in Minneapolis and two in St. Paul, detaining more than 50 people and arresting 4.

Additional information is disclosed by Salon.com writer, Glenn Greenwald.

In another raid at a home where journalists were staying, a lawyer from the National Lawyer’s Guild who was detained and put in handcufffs, an I-Witness photojournalist working with Democracy Now was detained at that house as well.

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