The credentials around my neck said I should be watching John McCain accept his presidential nomination from the floor of the Xcel Energy Center, not from the curb of the Marion Street Bridge. But I sat there, staring at McCain’s head on some jumbotron plastered on a building half a mile down the St. Paul Skyline. McCain mouthed words I couldn’t hear, and unfortunately I was too distracted to care.

My hands were cuffed, my throat was dry, and my mind was wondering if I’d be sleeping in a St. Paul jail house or my Minneapolis hotel room. I thought back to how I ended up here…

Protesters scheduled an anti-war march on the 4th day of the Republican National Committee. The protest began with a concert at the State Capital and was supposed to turn into a march to the Xcel Center at 5 p.m. At 4:45 police arrived in the Capital yard and announced that anyone looking to march would be violating the law. The crowd, unfazed by these warnings, took to the streets as scheduled chanting, “Whose streets? Our Streets!”

The police brigades followed.

For the next three hours, protesters marched through the streets without a permit.  The police issued several warnings throughout the evening, and demanded that all participants disperse. They set up blockades, but protesters found alternative ways. They stationed on John Ireland Bridge over I-94, they sat down in a crowded 12th Street intersection. They caused traffic to halt, slow, and redirect.

By 8 p.m. tensions reached a boiling point between the police and the protesters.

The protesters assembled on University Ave., disrupting traffic on one of St. Paul’s busiest streets. When someone in the front line threw a bottle at the officers, all hell broke loose.

Police began shooting smoke bombs and firecrackers into the crowd, sending frantic protesters down Marion Street, toward another I-94 overpass. I felt the explosion of firecracker at my feet and realized it was time to leave.

But when I turned around I realized the police were closing in from all sides. They scooped everyone from the streets, hording the crowd toward the I-94 overpass.

I walked up next to a freelance journalist from Denver. I asked him, “As a seasoned journalist, what do we do now?”

He replied, “We get arrested.”

Before I knew what was going on I had a stun gun in my face and was told to kneel with my hands atop my head. I waited for my handcuffs…

For two hours I sat on that curb, watching police pile protesters by the hundreds on city buses headed for the St. Paul prison.

Before I knew it, I was standing next to my arresting officer waiting for our photo op.

“Mug shot done, take him to the bus,” Officer Cunningham said.

Though the protesters on my bus were all detained and staring into a sleepless night, most of them seemed in good spirit.

 “Whose bus? Our bus!” they chanted in jest all the way downtown. 

I stepped off the bus. I was frisked. I walked into a neighboring room. I was frisked again.

Next I walked into the holding room, a fluorescent dungeon complete with chain link cages and a metal detector door frame.

The spirit of those arrested stayed reasonably high. “Whose cage? our cage!” the detainees yelled.

For the next five hours I walked from one cage to the next answering questions for overworked police officers.

I saw their frustration, some of them spending their fourth straight night booking protesters.

I tried to sleep on a bench, a chair, and the floor. I failed miserably each time. I ate a bag lunch with 2 pieces of white bread, one packet of jelly, one packet of peanut butter, and an apple.

At 5:30 a.m. I received my release form. I piled into a prisoner vehicle; I was dropped off several blocks from the prison.

Twelve hours after it began, my coverage of the Sept. 4 RNC protest was complete...