Time: Protesting the GOP in St. Paul: National Guard called in.

Article ToolsPrintEmailReprintsSphereAddThis RSSYahoo! Buzz Protest artists had carved large ice sculptures on the capital grounds in St. Paul to read "democracy," to herald their cause and to heckle the Republican Convention. By the time the demonstrations against the GOP were underway, however, the letters had melted into partisan illegibility, reading "democrat" or "democratic." Protesters had reached the triangular zone across the street from the Xcel Energy Center, where barbed wire fences and riot police separated the boisterous Republican-bashing crowd from the few delegates inside.

For a few radical demonstrators, the simple presence of GOP delegates was enough to justify throwing bricks through storefronts and a delegate-bus window, lighting a Dumpster on fire and damaging police cars. Police responded with force, using pepper spray, tear gas and in some cases rubber bullets while arresting nearly 300 demonstrators. At least 130 of those arrests were on felony charges and the National Guard was called to quell violent demonstrators after the main march concluded.