Micah Uetricht, a Loyola senior, did not intend to spend 48 hours in prison after protesting on the sidewalk surrounding the Republican National Convention. After arriving Friday in Minneapolis to meet up with Students for a Democratic Society, a student group from his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., he found himself handcuffed and featured on CNN.
Two hundred people, along with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! radio show host, her producer and camerawoman and AP photographer Matt Rourke were arrested next to him, Uetricht said.
This is Uetricht's account of his arrest on Sept. 1.
Phoenix: Can you explain what happened the day you were arrested?
Uetricht: On Monday, [late] in the afternoon, we went with a group called Funk the War. All of a sudden, unprovoked, the riot police started shooting people with tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. I was standing on the sidewalk and I was shot with, I'm not really sure what it was, but I heard all these pepper balls they were shooting at guys, and I got hit in the leg about an inch and a half to the right of my testicles which was very scary for me. It felt like that was what they were aiming for. I heard later that they were tagging people. I caught up with my girlfriend and my friend at that point. We were walking on the sidewalk with this group and riot cops started running at us and closing in on us, so we ran on the sidewalk and we asked the bike cops where to go. The bike cops said 'That way,' and that way was into the parking lot. At that point another line of riot cops came from around the corner and closed in on us.
P: What brought you to the Republican National Convention?
U:I guess there were two main reasons I wanted to go. The first was to protest the havoc of the Republican party that everyone in the Bush administration has wreaked for the last eight years in every avenue: immigration, war on terror, environment [and] war on people's civil liberties. [However], I'm not someone who thinks the Democratic Party has all the answers. The bigger reason for going there was to protest the fact that this is what we call democracy. We're told that we are participating in decisions that affect our lives, but we're really not.
P: What were your thoughts during your time in jail?
U: My whole cellblock was people who were arrested at the RNC, so that was nice. Everyone who was with me had a story about how they were doing nothing wrong. There was a big concert that they had that day where Atmosphere and Mos Def were playing. It was done in conjunction with the protest, but it was totally legal. They had their space and their permit. It was a regular concert called Take Back Labor Day. There is one person [who was] actually on his way to work security for the RNC and he got arrested and charged with a felony. Some of [the arrestees] were actually participants at the convention itself, so that was just mind-boggling.
P: What was leaving jail like?
U: After 48 hours, which were the longest 48 hours of my life, I was the first one out of my cellblock to be released. I was given the property I had in my pockets, my wallet and a water bottle. I asked where my backpack was and they said I had to go to the substation. We were taken down this hallway by a plainclothes officer, and he took us into this unmarked minivan with tinted windows. We were put in this minivan and we [asked], 'Why are we in this van? What's going on?'
He said, 'We've been told by the sheriff that we have to drive you away from the jail.'
I said, 'Drive me away from the jail? All the people I came with are outside the jail.' There was a crowd of 150 to 200 people outside: legal folks to take down information about you, people to see you about medical needs, they had made food for everybody. It was a really warm atmosphere. I knew they were out there; I had heard about it on the phone. I was really looking forward to being greeted by them and my friends. I said, 'I'm going to have to come back to this jail. I don't know where I'm going to be dropped off.'
P: Where were you taken?
U: We were driven 10 miles from the jail and just dropped off at this random area, a sketchy area. We were on the outskirts of downtown St. Paul. Another uniformed officer joined us at that point. They dropped us off in front of McDonald's and said, 'If you're hungry, you guys can get something to eat.' I remember it was on University Avenue, and it was so far from the jail I didn't know what to do. We split up, and I ended up asking this woman if I could use her phone. She took me back to her work and eventually took me to where I needed to go.
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