Emily Gurnon | Tuesday, September 2, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS -- A year ago, the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office began to take a close look at a group called the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee.

The things it discovered, according to a search warrant application and affidavit, led to weekend raids on two Minneapolis homes and a temporary St. Paul office for the self-described anarchist group.

Among the things it found, the document says:

--The self-described anarchist group -- its main goal to "crash the convention," according to its Web site -- traveled to or communicated with affinity groups in 67 cities to recruit members and raise funds;

--Group member Erik Oseland, one of the six arrested here over the weekend, produced a video called, "Video Map of the St. Paul Points of Interest." Those included major companies like Travelers Insurance and Qwest, hotels such as the Embassy Suites and the Crown Plaza, and the Pioneer Press building.

The main sources for the information were "regular surveillance" of the group and three people who posed as members -- two informants and one undercover investigator.

According to the informants, committee members discussed in e-mails and conversations the possibility of kidnapping delegates, blockading bridges, the use of lockboxes and dump truck loads to disrupt traffic, pushing disabled vehicles into intersections to block traffic, throwing Molotov cocktails at police, throwing marbles to make them and their horses fall, using

liquid sprayers filled with urine or chemicals, and concealing materials inside large street puppets, among other things.

The affidavit also describes how the committee had divided the city into seven areas, with a different group assigned to each.

Read more about the raid later on twincities.com and in Wednesday's St. Paul Pioneer Press

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