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 — at least 185 in Los Angeles alone, the Associated Press reported — amid demonstrations that have included highway blockades, angry chants of “not my president” and a rampage through Portland.
Police in New York on Friday erected barricades and placed sand-filled trucks in front of Trump Tower. Protesters illuminated by the flashing red and blue of police car lights chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go.”
And in Atlanta, protesters marched through the Georgia State University campus and blocked roads. “Tonight appears to be the largest group yet,” tweeted Justin Wilfon, a reporter with Atlanta’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, protesters convened for a “heal-in” Friday night at city hall, a day after the protests there had turned violent. 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 still gathered downtown, with police closing in from the east and west to send a clear message: leave or be arrested.
A protester opposed to Donald Trump confronts law enforcement personnel on Friday in Portland, Ore. (Leah Sottile for The Washington Post)
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.
“Once I saw other people protesting white supremacy, I said, ‘You know what? We need to do one in Miami,’” Michael said. “We got the word out on social media like Facebook, all of that.”
Protesters opposed to Donald Trump took to the streets of Miami on Friday. (Francisco Alvarado for The Washington Post)The sense of potential crisis in protests across the nation was reinforced by clashes that included the vicious beating, caught on video, 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 “You voted Trump” and “Don’t vote Trump.”
“What’s happening to America?” 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 — even though Obama himself had derided Trump during the campaign and described him as unfit for the presidency.
“When 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,” 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 Portland’s demonstration late Thursday, about 4,000 people took to the streets, confronting drivers, spray-painting buildings and smashing electrical boxes with baseball bats, Pete Simpson, public information officer for the Portland Police Department, told The Washington Post.
Police used pepper spray and “rubber baton rounds,” among other things, in efforts to disperse protesters.
What began as a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest at about 6 p.m. escalated as the night wore on because of demonstrators not affiliated with the group, said Teressa Raiford, a community organizer in Portland.
“They’re not coming to show solidarity, they’re coming because they know there’s going to be a big crowd,” Raiford said. “They don’t respect our movement.”
Simpson said anarchists “aligned with the Black Bloc groups” infiltrated the peaceful demonstration “covered head-to-toe and carrying weapons.”
“Their tactic is go out and destroy property,” Simpson said. Peaceful protesters tried to stop the more violent individuals, but “they’re not having any luck,” he said.
A protester holding a baseball bat prepares to throw a newspaper stand as people march through the streets of Portland, Ore. (Alex Milan Tracy/AP)
After protesters began throwing objects at police and refusing orders to disperse, authorities used nonlethal flash grenades to move the crowd. “It’s definitely fair to say we are significantly outnumbered,” Simpson said. Thursday’s protest was “one of the larger marches we’ve seen in the last few years,” 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 “never my president” or “not my president,” 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.
[Forget reconciliation. For thousands, it’s #nevermypresident when it comes to Donald Trump.]
Protests began early Wednesday in the biggest U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — 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, about 600 “anti-Trump” protesters marched to downtown Baltimore and blocked streets. Following a rally in downtown Minneapolis, 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 night’s violence. Several incidents of graffiti — with phrases such as “Kill Trump” — 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, “We reject the president-elect!” 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 drew many fewer participants than the crowd of thousands on Wednesday night.
[‘Not my president’: Thousands protest Trump in rallies across the U.S.]
By 1 a.m., multiple arrests had been made by the Los Angeles Police Department 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. “Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!” Trump said on Twitter. He did not specify what he meant by “incited by the media.”
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, Trump tweeted: “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!”
Early Friday morning, Trump took a different tone, tweeting this message: “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!”
On Thursday, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Trump supporter, chimed in, calling the protesters “a bunch of spoiled crybabies” in a Fox News interview.
In Portland, the Oregonian newspaper reported, protesters chanted “Not my president” while carrying signs that read: “Oppression thrives off isolation. Stand united,” “We reject the fascist agenda” and “You’re fired!”
Mike Bivins, a local freelance journalist, said the protest took a noticeable turn as demonstrators passed a Northeast Portland car dealership, where some started breaking car windows. A dumpster and a newsstand were set on fire.
Numerous cars at a Toyota dealership were smashed as protesters marched through the streets of Portland. (Alex Milan Tracy/AP)
As protesters reached the Pearl District, a wealthy Northwest Portland neighborhood, “it became a free for all” of property damage, Simpson said.
Protesters lit fires and shot flares into the air, and some dragged newspaper boxes into lines across streets. Other demonstrators took photos of themselves — giving the camera a thumbs-up sign — in front of a line of cops wearing riot gear.
Trump opponents hold a protest in front of City Hall in San Francisco on Thursday. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)
Leah Sottile reported from Portland and Murphy from Washington. Francisco Alvarado in Miami; Renae Merle in 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.
Source: Anti-Trump protesters take to the streets in many cities for a third night – The Washington Post
