DEMONSTRATIONS near the Republican National Convention site turned violent as protesters harassed delegates, smashed windows, slashed car tyres and hurled bottles.
Police using pepper spray arrested more than 250 people.
The trouble happened not far from the Xcel Energy Centre convention site in St Paul, Minnesota, where the Republicans were starting the four-day meeting.
Many of those involved in the mor
e violent activities identified themselves to reporters as anarchists. These protesters, clad in black, were operating on the streets in addition to a mostly peaceful anti-war march, wreaking havoc by damaging property and starting at least one fire. Most of the trouble was in pocket of a neighbourhood near downtown St Paul, several streets from where the convention was taking place.
Police estimates of the crowd shifted several times during the event, ranging from 2,000 to 10,000.
Yesterday afternoon, long after the anti-war marchers had dispersed, police requested 150 Minnesota National Guard soldiers to help control splinter groups.
Members of the Connecticut delegation said they were attacked by protesters when they got off their bus near the Xcel Centre, KMSP-TV reported. Delegate Rob Simmons told the station that a group of protesters came towards his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance that burned their eyes and stained their clothes.
One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing, the station reported.
Five people were arrested for setting a rubbish bin on fire and pushing it into a police car, St Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said.
Of those arrested, 119 faced possible felony charges, authorities said.
At least four journalists were among those detained, including Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke and Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, a nationally-syndicated public radio and TV news programme. Ms Goodman was intervening on behalf of two producers for her programme, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, when she was arrested, said Mike Burke, another producer.
St Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said Mr Rourke was held on a gross misdemeanour riot charge. Mr Goodman was arrested on a misdemeanour charge, Ramsey County sheriff's spokeswoman Holli Drinkwine said. Neither Mr Walsh nor Ms Drinkwine had information on the other two journalists.
The anti-war march was organised by a group called the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, whose leaders said they hoped for a peaceful, family-friendly event. But police were on high alert after months of preparations by a self-styled anarchist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee, which was not among the organisers of the march.
About 20 people dressed in black tried to block a key junction. Police quickly dispersed the group, then fired two tear gas canisters at them as they fled.
Up to 200 people from a group called Funk the War noisily staged their own march. Wearing black clothes, bandanas and gas masks, some of their members smashed windows of cars and stores. They tipped over newspaper boxes, pulled a big rubbish bin into the street, bent the rear-view mirrors on a bus and flipped heavy stone bins on the pavements.
One member of the group carried a yellow flag with the motto "Don't Tread on Me". The group chanted: "Whose streets? Our streets!"
At one point, people pushed a bin and threw rubbish in the streets and at cars. They also took down orange detour road signs. One of them used a screwdriver to puncture the back tyre of a limousine waiting at a junction and threw a wooden board at the vehicle, denting its side.
Another hurled a glass bottle at a charter bus that had stopped.
After the official march ended, police spent hours dispersing smaller groups of protesters, employing officers on horses, smoke bombs and tear gas.
Protesters put eye drops in each other's eyes after police used chemical irritants such as pepper spray and tear gas. Some wore bandanas and masks to protect themselves.
Protesters were seen lying on an interstate exit ramp to block traffic in downtown St Paul and linking arms to block other roads.
Terry Butts, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice who is a convention delegate, was on a bus taking delegates to the arena when a brick through the window sprayed glass on him and two others.
"It just left us a little shaken," he said. "It was sort of a frightening moment because it could have been a bomb or a Molotov cocktail."
The full article contains 776 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
