Max Specktor is a good son, a good student, a bar mitzvah boy and a Midrasha graduate. For extra money he works as a caregiver for a young adult with Down’s Syndrome.
According to the local police, the 19-year-old resident of St. Paul, Minn., is also a terrorist.
Along with seven other young Minnesotans, Specktor was charged with felony “conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism,” related to activities surrounding last summer’s Republican National Convention.
The charges mark the first criminal complaint filed under Minnesota’s version of the Patriot Act. If convicted, Specktor could face nearly eight years behind bars.
Currently free on bail, Specktor is traveling the country, telling his story and raising money for his defense. He will speak March 14 in San Francisco, at the 14th Annual Anarchists Book Fair in Golden Gate ParkSpecktor co-founded the RNC Welcoming Committee, a drolly named radical group that attempted to protest the Republican Party’s St. Paul convention in early September. A few days before the opening gavel, however, local police raided Specktor’s home, arresting him soon after
Instead of taking it to the streets, he spent the convention days in solitary confinement in the Ramsey County jail. Outside, police cracked down on protesters, making close to 800 arrests over the four-day Republican convention, though no serious acts of violence occurred.
“That’s the irony,” said Specktor, “saying we caused a riot at the RNC. But we weren’t there. They held everyone as long as possible.”
After 48 hours in jail, Specktor was released on $10,000 bail. His trial is likely this spring.
Specktor has supporters among the Jewish community. His synagogue, Temple of Aaron, donated to his defense fund. His father, Mordecai Specktor, publishes the American Jewish World, the Twin Cities’ Jewish newspaper, which has run stories on the case and editorialized in favor of the defendants.
Fearing a repeat of the 1999 riots when the World Trade Organization met in Seattle, plants from the St. Paul Police Special Investigations Unity infiltrated Specktor’s group months before the convention. That’s how police built a case against Specktor, claiming he and his fellow defendants planned to kidnap Republican delegates, block roads, throw Molotov cocktails and burn tires on the freeway.
Specktor categorically denies it all.
“We organized food, transportation and housing for people who identified with our politics,” he said. “We thought these were crazy charges, just to get people off the streets [during the convention]. Then we got 1,000 pages of evidence. The scariest part was they had undercover informants infiltrate our public group. Whether or not they have a solid case, they spent so many resources, obviously they want to pursue the case.”
According to the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, the police investigation cost around $300,000.
Though he scoffs at the terrorism charge, Specktor considers himself an anarchist, crediting his Jewish education with steering him toward radical politics.
“The first time I was labeled an anarchist was by a Midrasha teacher,” he said. “I always questioned everything. The general underlying point I got out of my Jewish education is: We were taught to question everything and always ask the tough questions.”
Specktor is a graduate of St. Paul Midrasha’s Talmud Torah program. He even earned a Golden Kippah, an honor bestowed on synagogue youth who do at least 10 Torah readings.
With the more liberal Obama administration now in charge, Specktor hopes to see a repeal or revision of the Patriot Act. That wouldn’t necessarily lead to modification of the Minnesota version, however, and even if it does, it may not come in time to reduce or dismiss the charges.
The University of Minnesota junior has put college on hold to devote his energies to his case and publicize the plight of the “RNC 8.”
“I have no career goals,” Specktor said. “I’m a full-time defendant right now.”
Max Specktor will speak 1 p.m. March 14 at the Anarchists Book Fair, in the S.F. County Fair Building, Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park. For more information, visit www.sfbookfair.wordpress.com.