Law enforcement agencies have been gearing up for the Republican National Convention in Tampa to be held August 27th– August 30th. For many, that’s welcome news, as local and national anarchist groups have amped up the chatter in recent months.
On Tuesday, Tampa police said they confiscated “pipes, bricks and other suspicious items from the rooftop of a downtown building located about a mile from where next week’s Republican National Convention will be held.” The police chief also indicated that they have studied other protests in preparation for this month’s convention.
Police have been preparing for the event for nearly two years. Castor said she’s studied other protests surrounding political events, most notably the RNC in St. Paul in 2008, where authorities were taken by surprise by an active minority of demonstrators who smashed cars, punctured tires and threw bottles in a confrontation with pepper-spray-wielding police. Hundreds were arrested over a few days, including dozens of journalists.
Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy told the Tampa Tribune in June that “officers have developed a security plan and even attended the NATO conference in Chicago in May to observe how violent protests were handled.”
In 2010, after it was first announced that Tampa would be the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention, AnarchistNews.org published the following letter from the Tampa Bay Action Group:
In August of 2012, the Republican National Convention will be held in the sunny, humid, sub-tropical belly of the beast of Tampa Bay, Florida.
The Tampa Bay Action Group (TBAG), a decentralized collective of anarchists strewn throughout the urban and swampy reaches of Florida, is committed to making 2012 and the RNC in Tampa a truly catastrophic celebration of liberty and joy. The theater of capitalist disaster will rear its head in the divided apartheid communities of Tampa, where wealth touts itself as master of the land, as the Mayan calender [sic] comes to the end of a cycle. While TBAG does not adhere to prophesy, the hint of collapse (and renewal) is a promising dream.
We do not take sides with Dems or Reps. Nevertheless, the Republicans and their racist wannabe Tea Party stooges happen to be the imperialists-dejour [sic] entering our waters. We intend to demonstrate what a real tea party looks like: the direct and deliberate destruction of the commodities of our oppressors and the celebration of the armed spirit.
With Love and Lust for Life,
The Tampa Bay Action Group
PS, we are not a coordinating committee. That group has yet to present itself.
The group also issued a disturbing press release in 2010 in anticipation of the 2012 convention.
Breitbart has the full article and transcript of the Anonymous video. Thank you Breitbart!
The video makes reference to the group associated with terrorism charges over planned violence at the 2008 RNC in St. Paul, Minnesota – it promises, “Anarchists and radicals have gathered a group called the “RNC Welcoming Committee,” they are in no way welcoming.”
Another video posted last month, this one referencing the hacker collective Anonymous, elaborates further on protesters’ plans for next week. It calls for “Black Bloc against buildings that contain corporations and governments that oppress, and to show the system what it truly means to resist.”
