The Ramsey County jail as it looks on a normal, sunny day.

The Ramsey County jail as it looks on a normal, sunny day.

The mayor had said so, and if you closed your eyes the morning after the RNC and let the intoxicating hint of normalcy in the air wash away memories of the week, everything did seem like it might be all right again — even at Ramsey County’s Law Enforcement Center on Lafayette Avenue just east of downtown.

True, 10-foot fences still made access to the main entrance look like a gerbil-run for sasquatches, but a lone guard manned the booth outside instead of the half dozen posted there before, and there were no more clutches of National Guard in sight.

Small groups of RNC protesters remained, reclining on the grassy boulevard, exhausted now, basking in the sun or clustered in the shade, still waiting for friends to be released from jail. Occasionally a sheriff’s deputy would cruise by, slow the squad and take their picture. The flash probably wasn’t necessary or even of any use from across the street, but it added some glamor to the suddenly laconic mood along Lafayette Ave.

The courtroom inside had the same lazy feel, as clerks eventually …… began calling one arrestee after another to the arraignment dock in front of Judge Paulette Flynn. But they only got through six or seven before everyone seemed to become overcome by the pointlessness of it all.

Flynn decided to call it a morning, since the prosecution had no information on any of the dazed youngsters facing misdemeanors before her, and she was releasing them all on their own recognizance anyway. (All except the big guy with the mohawk, who was charged with throttling a biker for running over his foot at a protest Thursday and who shuffled in with shackled feet and announced, convincingly, that he was insane and a sociopath.) Everyone who was left on the morning’s misdemeanor calendar were to be let go without appearing.

One such just sprung was a young man with blond half-dreaded hair walking from one set of friends down the sidewalk to a refreshment area under a tree. He said he was 19 and gave his name as Jesse Sprinkles, the name he and many others had given authorities during the RNC.

Charged with presence at an unlawful assembly, giving false information, and — initially — not complying with police orders, he’d managed to get all but the assembly charge dropped.

Not complying with police orders, he said, was the result of how he finished off a group-sing of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain” during the 1 1/2 hours he spent sitting on the Marion Street bridge Thursday night, waiting for his arrest to be processed.

His group had made friends with a cop name Mosie, with plans to meet her for beers sometime, changing the song to “We’ll all be drinking with Mosie when she comes,” when this Mr. Sparkles let out a “Yee-haw!” that apparently ground another cop’s grits. But for some reason the non-compliance charge, though written-up at the time, didn’t show up later on.

Now he held a Ziplock bag with his camera, a lighter, and some string that he’d had in his pocket. Missing were his pocket knife, cell phone, respirator (”gas mask,” he clarified), and his camera’s memory card. He didn’t know when or how he’d get those back. In court, a deputy told the judge many confiscated items were in storage at another site.

Hungry, he headed for the food under the tree. He doesn’t have a home, but he said he wasn’t going back to Texas and didn’t have the money anyway.