TRAIL BLAZERS

As Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan told Roll Call, "We were very, very worried about this. It was a recipe for the perfect storm."

The "perfect storm," as it turns out, was some 100 people arrested several hours after the show for refusing to disperse. No property damage, just misdemeanors, according to reports. They weren't even all that unruly, cops said.

After the show, most of us were just standing around to watch what would happen after the horses showed up. It was kind of an impasse. Someone was planning to march, I suppose, because they brought out a flag and were kind of carrying it around in front of the Target Center.

What they actually did was walk it up to the cops on horseback, show it to them, and then walk away.

Oooh. Scary. But you could hear the collective sighs of relief when people drifted away, the cops broke their line, and everyone started cheering and thanking the officers for handling it the way they did.

Then we tried to leave and they blocked the street. On both sides.

"Can I walk that way to get to my hotel?" I asked one officer. He gave me a look.

"You can walk that way, but you probably won't make it."

Helpful, thanks.

"What about that other way?"

"I doubt it."

"Then, how can I get back to my hotel?

"How should I know?"

"Well, then, which way should I go, at least?"

"Don't ask me where you should go. Just don't stay here."

Hey, appreciate it.

Over the next few hours, an impromptu demonstration - mostly just a couple hundred people (max) walking down the street, not even really chanting, just kind of strolling - shut down half the downtown area.

This only happened, literally, an hour after the show when the cops started herding everyone in one direction. What happens when you herd every one in one direction and they can't all fit on the sidewalk? They spill out into the street, and then they go, "Hey, look, we're marching! Freedom of Speech! Come join us!"

Direct quote, I promise.

But the scene, such that it was, brought out hundreds of police on bikes, horses, motorcycles, squad cars, paddy wagons, and those cart-like things they drive up on the sidewalk moments after telling you to get on the sidewalk.

Here's how that goes: The bike cops come charging through the street yelling at everyone to get on the sidewalk. You do. Then the Police Golf Cart rips through the pedestrians on the narrow downtown sidewalk.

So you jump into the street to avoid getting hit by the Police Golf Cart, and then you get threatened with pepper spray from an overheated, hot-headed bicycle cop screaming his head off and scaring innocent passersby while the "demonstrators" are already two blocks ahead of you.

Nice. Take a pill, man.

You jump back into the sidewalk, slam your thigh into a giant potted plant, cry out in pain and press against the wall while he comes at you hollering so loud his voice his hoarse, pointing a can of chemicals as big as a fire extinguisher two feet in front of your face as you press your back to the wall, turn your head, close your eyes, and wait for the gas that never comes.

Way to be, officer. Where exactly would you have me go? My back's literally against the wall, next to the window of a swanky restaurant with gaping diners in diamonds and silk, taking pictures of the screaming police officer, mouths wide open in surprise.

Can't go up the street, where the guy on horseback is throwing intimidating looks at everyone and aiming what appears to be a rifle loaded with teargas at people, one eye closed, peering down the sight.

Can't go down the down the street, where the squad cars are blocking the way and Officer Hot-Head's companions are growling at everyone.

It's hard to "disperse" when they won't let you go anywhere.

And believe me, I wasn't looking to get arrested. I know that the journalists have been swept up right along with the protesters and sent to jail this week. I'm here to write stories, not post bail. (I save those kinds of activities for vacation...)

I, along with the vast, VAST majority of those people, was trying to actually, you know, disperse. But we were blocked at every turn.

Even some of the cops agreed that it might not have happened had it not been for, well, some the cops. "I don't know what they're doing here," one riot cop said of the horseback officers who arrived early on, shaking his head. "They're just making everybody nervous."

Who knows. They've got a job to do, to be sure, and after earlier this week when people were breaking windows and throwing what was reported to be human waste during protests, you can bet they were on high alert.

I know how it can get out of control. I was kicked at and spit on and slapped and threatened and sworn at during the RNC protests in 2000 - those same dudes who tore up Seattle during the WTO riots a few weeks before. I was tear-gassed in Guadalajara. One of our photogs got it in St. Paul on Tuesday. I know how these things can get out of control.

So I'm not laying blame on them for being there in the first place, necessarily, because first of all, that's not my job - and second of all, they'd be blamed if they weren't there and something went wrong. I get that.

At the same time, I can tell you that I was at the RAM show on Wednesday night (jealous?), and I was standing around outside afterward, and the 15,000 or so (not exaggerating) people who had been funneled out the door and onto ONE intersection were starting to go their own way, chatting with the cops in riot gear and heading off the various bars and clubs and whatnot.

A couple of dudes were hollering in the street, but they were being calmed and shouted down by tattooed, pierced, sweaty fans who looked just like them - and nobody, it seemed, wanted any trouble.

Until the horses and bullhorns and, in particular, the bicycle cops with their tempers started freaking out on everyone.

And I wasn't there when they were arrested, because I got blocked along with most other people. But the way it usually works is one or two people get out of control or walk up on a jumpy cop - and believe me, those bike cops were JUMPY - get arrested, then everyone else refuses to leave and voila.

100 arrests. Paddy wagon full. Mission accomplished.

Here's a short account.

I also want to say that most of the cops were jovial, friendly, and non confrontational. They seemed used to the verbal abuse, the jeering that a handful of guys were throwing at them.

(And as a journalist these days, I can relate to THAT.)

And most of the people responded really well to them. People tend to cooperate when you show them respect instead of fear.

But whoever that bike cop was, he needs to be REIGNED IN. Seriously. And he was a Minneapolis cop, which means he wasn't even involved in the St. Paul mess. What exactly was he afraid of?

I also give credit to Rage Against the Machine, who basically told their fans not to be stupid when the show was over.

Which brings me to the show itself.

L.A.'s Rage Against the Machine, who have been around for nearly 20 years, is the ultimate modern-day protest band - a high-powered, bust-out-your-eardrums, heavy-metal/dance band that specializes in lyrics about police brutality and government betrayal and passive resistance.

Yes they've been described as violent - even by me - because one of the things they like to suggest is that Bush and Co. be tried like war criminals, hung and shot. And because at Lollapalooza last month their audience got so unruly they were tear-gassed.

On Wednesday night, they played a reunion show scheduled to coincide with the Republican National Convention - just like they played a show in Denver during the DNC - not as a way to join it but as a way to protest it.

And while being in the crowd was a pretty brutal experience, singer Zach de la Rocha actually came out on stage with the lights up afterward and asked everyone to "show the police that we've got more discipline than they do," and to be "peaceful, but not necessarily passive" and "don't give them any excuses, because they are LOOKIN for %^&*(@#$. " I've never seen that before.

The show itself? KILLER. You should be jealous. Even if you don't know who they are, believe me. You're jealous. The lights came up with the four members standing at the front of the stage in orange Gitmo uniforms, black bags over their heads. Very dramatic.

The set list included: "Bulls on Parade," "Testify," "Wake Up," "Sleep Now in the Fire" "Guerilla Radio" and several others.

12 hours later, my ears are still ringing. It was incredible, and de la Rocha didn't even say all that much - though he didn't have to. The lyrics tend to speak for themselves.

"There were there on Monday, and nobody came/
They were there on Tuesday, and nobody came/
They were there on Wednesday, and nobody came/
They were there on Thursday, and nobody came/
They were there, starving, and nobody came/
They were there, drowing, and nobody came..."

(Take a guess what that one was about..)

As an aside, and I know I'm going to annoy some fans here, but the opening band, "Anti-Flag" from Pittsburgh.... puh-leez. They were all, "War sucks, let's party!" and then, in the middle of a very predictable and clichéd punk version of "I Fought the Law," the singer STOPPED THE SHOW and pointed out a girl who had just gotten on someone's shoulders and lifted her shirt.

Which only happens at like, EVERY ROCK SHOW I'VE EVER SEEN.

"Hold on, hold on," he said to the drummer and pointed to the girl, "Ma'am, Blink 182 might be playing down the street, pull your shirt down. Pull your shirt down."

Really?

"F#$%^& police brutality! .. Oh, wait, put on your shirt."

I was mildly enjoying the show until then, but they lost me on that one. Get off the stage, posers. Bring on the Real Deal.

Anyway, after the show was over, people were happy and hollering and cheering. "Cool," I heard one guy say. "Where's a good place to go get drunk?" Lots of high fives, lots of impromptu "woo-hoo!" It sounded like a frat party.

Come of think of it, it kind of looked like a frat party.

Anyway, you kind of get the feeling that if the bike cops and the horseback police and the paddy wagons and extra, added riot gear cops running through the crowd in formation yelling 'hut-hut-hut' had given it maybe another 15 minutes to disperse - seriously, 15k people can't clear an intersection in 10 minutes, guys - or the select handful of super-jumpy cops had been given the night off, it might not have escalated (if you can even call it that) to the extent that it did.

It might have anyway. Because certainly the fans of RATM (who include me, since college, even though I can't usually make out what ZDLRocha is shout-singing unless I read the lyrics) have been known to take to the streets - thousands of them, for example, demonstrated peacefully in Denver - in protest. And the flag that people brought out tells me that someone wanted some peaceful resistance action.

Hard to say. But at the end of the day, 100 arrests out of 15k crazy fans is not a big deal . And it says a lot about both sides in terms of keeping it from spinning out of control.

But the episode does beg these questions:

When does prevention become paranoia? When does police intelligence become profiling? What was everybody afraid, and why? How many of these "protesters" are there to protest, and how many are just looking for action? How much of this rioting, demonstrating, protesting could have been avoided without so much inflammatory police presence?

And when will the day come when arrests, riot gear, window breaking, tension, and battles between complete strangers become no longer necessary at all?