HILADELPHIA - A judge has set bail at $1 million for a protest leader who police said instigated actions that led to property damage during sometimes-violent demonstrations surrounding the Republican National Convention this week.
Bail was set at $500,000 for another activist leader.
Police have arrested and singled out as many as six leaders of activist groups, many of whom were instrumental in disruptions at last December's World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle.
John Sellers, 33, a leader of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Ruckus Society, has been charged with numerous misdemeanors, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct, attorney Larry Krasner said.
Sellers was arrested Wednesday.
''He sets the groundwork. He sets the stage,'' Assistant District Attorney Cindy Martelli said during his bail hearing Thursday. ''He facilitates the more radicalelements to accomplish their objective of violence and mayhem.''
Krasner said of the judge's action, ''It's an unconscionable, ridiculous bail and completely off the map from the norm.... This is a desperate effort to systematically punish these people without a trial, to lock them up, keep them off the streets.''
John Timoney, Philadelphia's police commissioner, said some of the protest leaders arrested were among a cadre of ''criminal conspirators who are about the business of planning conspiracies to go in and cause mayhem and cause property damage and cause violence in major cities in America that have large conventions or large numbers of people coming in for one reason or another.''
Police presented evidence and photographs of items they said were intended to hurt officers during the convention.
Among the items displayed were gasoline-soaked rags tied to chains that police said were similar to the ones used by protesters in Seattle to light on fire and fling over a large crowd.
Also arrested on misdemeanor charges was Terrence McGuckin, who was being held on $500,000 bail, the district attorney's office said.
Krasner said Kate Sorensen, 34, a leader of the Philadelphia Direct Action Group and Philadelphia ACT-UP, and Paul Davis, also a leader of ACT-UP, were arrested and were expected to face charges similar to Sellers'.
The attorney said he is representing about 10 protesters arrested this week.
''This is a movement where every single individual and every single person of conscience is a leader,'' said Ruckus trainer Celia Alario, 32, of San Francisco. ''There's no one leader. And it's an insult to the others who came to Philadelphia to think there are people who control this movement.''
About 300 protesters were arrested Tuesday in Philadelphia in sometimes violent brawls with police. But the intensity of the protests diminished significantly after that.
Sellers, Sorensen and Davis remained in jail, but dozens of other protesters charged with misdemeanors were released yesterday. It was unclear whether 19 activists charged with felony assaults on officers remained in jail.
Police said 371 people have been arrested since Saturday; more than 200 people had been arraigned by yesterday morning.
