102 arrested after GOP convention's third night

Police arrested 102 protesters in downtown Minneapolis early Thursday following a concert by the rock group Rage Against the Machine, raising to more than 400 the number arrested in demonstrations related to the Republican National Convention.

Police blocked off an intersection as they processed those arrested. Young people sat on a sidewalk, their backs against a building, or stood quietly in line, their hands in plastic cuffs behind their backs.

Protesters calling for an end to the Iraq war urged others to join their march Thursday night outside the convention as John McCain accepts his party's presidential nomination on its fourth and final night.

The Anti-War Committee denounced the increased presence of police in riot gear and acts of "intimidation" in the streets of St. Paul.

In a warmup to the main protest, about 50 college and high school students staged an anti-war rally at the Capitol at midday Thursday. Eight police officers watched the rally from afar, with most leaning against their cars. None wore riot gear.

Organizers said they were trying to put on a safe, nonviolent event for the whole family. When a musician singing and playing a guitar uttered a profanity, she was chastised by the crowd and quickly promised to clean up her language.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty blamed the violence this week on a small group of "anarchists, nihilists, and goofballs who want to break stuff and hurt people."

"They need to be dealt with," Pawlenty said in an interview with WCCO-AM of Minneapolis. "When you want to break stuff and hurt people, you can't do that."

St. Paul was quieter on Wednesday, the convention's third day, when four women from the peace group CodePink were arrested after crawling under a fence a couple blocks from the Xcel Center where the convention is being held. They were released.

CodePink also took credit for disrupting Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's speech on Wednesday night. The group said two of its members were given tickets to the speech by a Republican delegate who was frustrated with the party and Palin.

The CodePink members, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, were escorted from the Xcel Center after yelling and displaying a banner. They said they were held until after her speech but not arrested.

Police said they broke up more serious plans to disrupt the convention.

Search warrants and other police documents made public this week claim that anarchists discussed plans to throw Molotov cocktails, sabotage the Xcel Energy Center or the St. Paul Downtown Airport, stretch metal chains across freeways and kidnap delegates.

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Associated Press writer Jeff Baenen contributed to this report.