According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune,  818 people were arrested for rioting and demonstrating during the four-day convention, which ended Thursday. Of those 396 were arrested Thursday night.  Journalists were not immune from arrest during the demonstrations.  An AP photographer and radio host Amy Goodman were arrested, but then released "pending further investigation".  

 Most of the demonstrators were protesting the Iraq war, but there were other various causes sprinkled into the crowd.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the protests were more violent than in the past:

  Local prosecutors brought felony charges against 21 people for protesting the Republican National Convention, and federal prosecutors announced that they have charged another man with possessing explosives he said were intended to bomb tunnels under the convention site.

Demonstrations this week have been the most violent at a national party convention in recent memory, with protesters smashing windows, slashing tires, throwing bags of urine and excrement and physically confronting Republican delegates in the streets.

A group a little more nefarious than Code Pink was out to protest at the Republican Convention in Minnesota this week.  The Star Tribune reported on a 17-page document filed with the Ramsay County District Court outlined the activities of a group called the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee.  According to the document, the Ramsay County Sheriff’s Department has had their eye on them for some time, so much so they had an embedded informant and another paid informant within the group.

Some of the groups activities include an "action camp" held at Lake Geneva, MN last August, plans to throw urine-filled balloons, using large puppets to conceal and transport Molotov cocktails, leaving abandoned or overturned vehicles at intersections, pulling a single officer from a police line and beating him, using liquid sprayers filled with urine or chemicals, techniques to free people arrested by police, obtaining fake credentials and dozens of other tactics.