Buses bringing Ohio’s Republican conventioners back from St. Paul to Minneapolis tonight had to stop a couple blocks from the Radisson Plaza hotel. …

I started to write this just before I heard shouts outside the hotel, ran down to see what was going on, and was forced with a crowd of mostly young people away from the hotel by police. Mounted police, bike patrols, and officers in full riot gear moved in when a crowd leaving a Rage Against the Machine concert (one block away at the Target Center) started chanting anti-war slogans and marching down the center of the street. One officer said I’d been given plenty of opportunity to go back to my hotel and I should have stopped interviewing those in the crowd.

Tear gas lingered over several blocks. Mounted and bike patrols divided the crowd in two, forcing them away from the downtown hotels where many of the delegates are staying. The convention has been dogged by a series of street protests — some violent and some not — all week. An armored vehicle is parked in front of the hotel, as are troops with riot shields. Police sirens continue throughout the night.