Tampa police boast of political spying at 2012 RNC protests | Fight Back!
Tampa, FL - According to an August 3 report in the Tampa Bay Times, Major Marc Hamlin, the head of Special Operations for the Tampa Police Department, is boasting about the political spying carried out at the 2012 Republican National Convention.
Over 1000 people rallied and marched in the streets of Tampa, August 27, 2012, to demand good jobs, affordable education, healthcare, equality and peace. Although the Republicans canceled the first day of their convention due to Tropical Storm Isaac, organizers with the Coalition to March on the RNC went through with their promise to march to the site of the convention.
A number of smaller protests also took place during the course of the Tampa RNC.
“Government spying and repression targeting protests has long been a standard feature at conventions of the major political parties,” stated Mick Kelly, of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, who helped to organize the mass marches at the 2008 RNC in Saint Paul and again in Tampa in 2012.
Kelly relates that in the run -p to the 2008 RNC protests, a police officer going by the name of “Karen Sullivan” came into the Anti-War Committee, one of the of the core organizations in Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War. Sullivan stayed on after the convention where she, along with another agent, prepared the groundwork for the Sept. 24, 2010 raids, when over 70 FBI agents simultaneously invaded the homes and served grand jury subpoenas to prominent anti-war and international solidarity activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, and the Michigan city of Grand Rapids.
Kelly was among those whose home was raided by the FBI.
In total, 23 activists were summoned to a grand jury investigating trumped up ‘material support of terrorism’ charges. None those subpoenaed testified, but ongoing investigation led to arrests, on trumped up charges, of veteran Los Angeles Chicano leader Carlos Montes and the Chicago-based Palestinian American leader Rasmea Odeh.
The attempt to jail Montes was defeated, and he was one of the main speakers at the 2012 protest in Tampa. A national effort is currently underway to prevent the imprisonment and deportation of Odeh.
According to the Tamp Bay Times article, “Organizing for the undercover operations began as soon as police began planning for the Republican convention, which took place the last week of August 2012.
Sol Márquez, who was a spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the RNC in 2012 stated, “We marched for good jobs, health care, affordable education, equality and peace, and undercover police carried out all kinds of surveillance. This is type of country we live in, and the struggle must continue. I would organize against the RNC all over again and plan on being present at the next one!"