Mystery over Bridgeport arrests: Molotov cocktails or brewing equipment? [View all]

[sad sally]

By Jeremy Gorner, Becky Schlikerman and Rosemary R. Sobol
Tribune reporters
1:29 a.m. CDT, May 19, 2012

As the NATO summit approached, Chicago police Friday continued to hold several people suspected of making Molotov cocktails but would say nothing about the arrests, adding to a growing mystery over the nature of the investigation.

Police earlier Friday released from custody — without charging — four of the nine people who were swept up in a late-night Wednesday raid of a Bridgeport apartment building. Two more were released Friday night without charges.

According to law enforcement sources and police reports obtained by the Tribune, the arrests were the result of a monthlong investigation into a group suspected of making Molotov cocktails — crude bombs usually created by filling glass bottles with gasoline.

But the National Lawyers Guild criticized the police raid, saying the nine NATO protesters only had beer-making equipment in their possession.

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Witnesses described police officers dressed all in black armed with battering rams and guns drawn swarming into the building, conducting warrantless searches and refusing to tell them what was going on.

One resident told the Tribune police taunted him and his roommate, repeatedly calling them communists and using anti-gay slurs.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/natosummit/chi-bridgeport-arrests-molotov-cocktails-or-brewing-equipment-20120518,0,2015209.story