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Anti-Trump protesters take to the streets in many cities for a third night.

Hundreds of people protesting the election of Donald Trump took to the streets in cities across the country for a third straight night on Friday, as police bolstered their forces in the wake of rioting in Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles.

More than 225 people have been arrested across various cities โ€” at least 185 in Los Angeles alone, the Associated Press reported โ€” amid demonstrations that have included highway blockades, angry chants of โ€œnot my presidentโ€ and a rampage through Portland.

Police in New York on Friday erected barricades and placed sand-filled trucks in front of Trump Tower.ย Protesters illuminated by the flashing red and blue of police car lights chanted, โ€œHey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go.โ€

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And in Atlanta, protesters marched through the Georgia State University campus and blocked roads.ย โ€œTonight appears to be the largest group yet,โ€ tweeted Justin Wilfon, a reporter with Atlantaโ€™s WSB-TV Channel 2.

President Obama, President-elect Trump, and political leaders on both sides of the aisle appealed for unity, even as protests veered into violence.

In Portland,ย protesters convened for a โ€œheal-inโ€ Friday night at city hall, a day after the protests there had turned violent.ย Hundreds gathered with signs and were led in a group activity where people divided by neighborhood and discussed their reasons for being at the event.

But the Portland gathering intensified as the night progressed. The group that formed around 5 p.m. splintered, spreading around the city. Police in riot gear stood firm across one downtown street until after 8 p.m. when protesters threw glass bottles at the police.

By 10 p.m., the police had deployed tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets, warning protesters that they would be arrested if they remained on scene. An hour later, hundreds of people were stillย gathered downtown, with police closing in from the east and west to sendย a clear message: leave or be arrested.

Earlier Friday in Miami, hundreds of demonstrators clogged a major thoroughfare, the MacArthur Causeway, halting traffic for more than an hour shortly after dusk. They eventually moved downtown and by 9 p.m. had blocked northbound lanes on Interstate 95.

Protest organizer David Michael, a 30-year-old community activist who voted for Jill Stein, carried a bullhorn to direct the orders to the Miami demonstrators.

โ€œOnce I saw other people protesting white supremacy, I said, โ€˜You know what? We need to do one in Miami,โ€™โ€ Michael said. โ€œWe got the word out on social media like Facebook, all of that.โ€

The sense of potential crisis in protests across the nation was reinforced by clashes that included the vicious beating, caught on video,ย of a 49-year-old man, David Wilcox, being viciously beaten by a group of young men and women in Chicago. The attackers screamed phrases such as โ€œYou voted Trumpโ€ and โ€œDonโ€™t vote Trump.โ€

โ€œWhatโ€™s happening to America?โ€ Wilcox asked in a recorded interview with the Chicago Tribune.

At Arlington National Cemetery, Obama used his Veterans Day remarks to try to remind the country of its common bonds โ€” even though Obama himself had derided Trump during the campaign and described him as unfit for the presidency.

โ€œWhen the election is over, as we search for ways to come together, to reconnect with one another and with the principles that are more enduring than transitory politics, some of our best examples are the men and women we salute on Veterans Day,โ€ Obama said.

For the moment, Portland has emerged as a bellwether for signs of the scope and tone of the protests.

At the peak of Portlandโ€™s demonstration late Thursday, about 4,000 people took to the streets, confronting drivers, spray-painting buildings and smashing electrical boxes with baseball bats,ย Pete Simpson, public information officer for the Portland Police Department, told The Washington Post.

Police used pepper spray and โ€œrubber baton rounds,โ€ among other things, in efforts to disperse protesters.

What began as a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest at about 6 p.m. escalatedย as the night wore on because ofย demonstrators not affiliated with the group, saidย Teressa Raiford, a community organizer in Portland.

โ€œTheyโ€™re not coming to show solidarity, theyโ€™re coming because they know thereโ€™s going to be a big crowd,โ€ Raiford said. โ€œThey donโ€™t respect our movement.โ€

Simpson said anarchists โ€œaligned with the Black Bloc groupsโ€ infiltrated the peaceful demonstration โ€œcovered head-to-toe and carrying weapons.โ€

โ€œTheir tactic is go out and destroy property,โ€ Simpson said. Peaceful protesters tried to stop the more violent individuals, but โ€œtheyโ€™re not having any luck,โ€ heย said.

After protesters began throwing objects at police and refusing orders to disperse, authorities used nonlethal flash grenades to move the crowd.ย โ€œItโ€™s definitely fair to say we are significantly outnumbered,โ€ Simpson said. Thursdayโ€™sย protest wasย โ€œone of the larger marches weโ€™ve seen in the last few years,โ€ he said.

Anger at the outcome of the election and a professed unwillingness to accept it are widespread on the Internet, despite conciliatory words from Hillary Clinton and Obama. Thousands of people have declared on social media that the president-elect is โ€œnever my presidentโ€ or โ€œnot my president,โ€ phrases that showed up on signs at protests. But only a relative few sharing that sentiment have actually taken to the streets.

Trump and some of his supporters were heavily criticized during the campaign when they suggested they might not accept the result if Trump lost.

Protests began early Wednesday in theย biggest U.S. cities โ€” New York, Los Angeles and Chicago โ€” and flared in places from Portland and Seattle to Philadelphia and Richmond, along with cities in red states such as Atlanta, Dallas, Omaha and Kansas City, Mo.

On Thursday,ย about 600 โ€œanti-Trumpโ€ protesters marchedย to downtown Baltimore and blocked streets. Following aย rally in downtownย Minneapolis,ย several thousand protesters blocked the heavily traveled Interstate 94 for about an hour Thursday night, causing a major traffic backup in both directions, the Star Tribune reported.

In Oakland, Calif., officials pleaded with demonstrators to remain peaceful Thursday after the previous nightโ€™s violence.ย Several incidents of graffiti โ€” with phrases such asย โ€œKill Trumpโ€ โ€” were reported. Protesters set many small street fires and smashed a handful of windows, but the disorder did not appear as widespread as the night before, SF Gate reported. At least a half-dozen arrests were made.

More than 300 people marched through downtown Los Angeles on Thursday night, many yelling, โ€œWe reject the president-elect!โ€ Protesters halted traffic, threw bottles at officers, tagged police cars with graffiti and launched fireworks, the Los Angeles Times reported. But the protest was mostly peaceful, and it drewย many fewer participants than the crowd of thousands on Wednesday night.

By 1 a.m., multiple arrests had beenย made by the Los Angeles Police Departmentย for vandalism or disobeying a lawful order, Los Angeles Times reporter James Queally tweeted.

The protests drew a rebuke from Trump, who met with Obama at the White House on Thursday morning. โ€œJust had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!โ€ Trump said on Twitter.ย He did not specify what he meant by โ€œincited by the media.โ€

It was his first comment about the protests and one of the few statements he has made since claiming victory over Clinton early Wednesday morning.

In 2012, after Obama was elected to a second term,ย Trump tweeted: โ€œWe canโ€™t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!โ€

Early Friday morning, Trump took a different tone, tweetingย this message: โ€œLove the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!โ€

On Thursday, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Trump supporter, chimed in, calling the protesters โ€œa bunch of spoiled crybabiesโ€ in a Fox News interview.

In Portland, the Oregonian newspaper reported, protesters chanted โ€œNot my presidentโ€ while carrying signs that read: โ€œOppression thrives off isolation. Stand united,โ€ โ€œWe reject the fascist agendaโ€ย and โ€œYouโ€™re fired!โ€

Mike Bivins, a local freelance journalist, said the protest took a noticeable turn as demonstrators passed a Northeast Portland car dealership, where someย started breaking car windows. A dumpster and a newsstand were set on fire.

As protesters reached the Pearl District, a wealthy Northwest Portland neighborhood, โ€œit became a free for allโ€ of property damage, Simpson said.

Protesters lit fires and shot flares into the air, and someย dragged newspaper boxes into lines across streets.ย Otherย demonstrators took photos of themselvesย โ€” giving the camera a thumbs-up sign โ€” in front of a line of cops wearing riot gear.

Leah Sottile reported from Portland and Murphy from Washington. Francisco Alvarado in Miami; Renae Merle inย New York; Mark Berman in Washington; Kari Lyderson in Chicago; Nick Romeo in Berkeley, Calif.; Les Neuhaus in Tampa; and Bobby Allyn in Philadelphia contributed to this report.ย 

Source: Anti-Trump protesters take to the streets in many cities for a third night – The Washington Post

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