Gregory “Joey” Johnson was one of 17 people arrested Wednesday during the protest near the arena housing the convention.
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It was the kind of tense scene that could quickly turn violent: frustrated police officers and stubborn protesters in a sweaty standoff in Cleveland’s stew-thick humidity.
Police have given protesters broad leeway, choosing not to make arrests over minor crimes. Charges range from Felonious Assault on Police Officer to failure to disperse and resisting arrest.
Trump, a wealthy NY real estate developer, has drawn the ire of many Americans with proposals that include building a wall along the U.S. -Mexico border and restricting immigration from Muslim-dominated countries.
Cleveland police and firefighters swiftly moved in with fire extinguishers and doused the smoldering flag.
“We have more Cleveland police officers in the neighborhoods than we do downtown, a lot more”, Williams said. The man assaulted the officer, and “things escalated from there”, Williams said.
Some protesters, too, had praise for the police during the opening days of the convention.
John Kasich rebuffed a request by the head of the Cleveland police union to suspend that law during the convention, saying he doesn’t have the authority to “arbitrarily” alter laws and constitutional rights.
He says those in custody will be formally booked at a city booking center.
Police moved in on foot and then horseback to secure the intersection outside the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention is being held.
The protests briefly made it hard for convention delegates and reporters to enter the arena.
At least one group of protesters was with the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Moments after the flag was set on fire, officers charged in to put it out with an extinguishing spray that some in the crowd thought was pepper spray because of similarities in the design of the canisters and the eye irritation caused by the fire-suppression substance.
Chaotic protests around the arena housing the Republican National Convention are making it hard for some delegates to get inside.
Police later told convention delegates to line up in the middle of the street and ordered bystanders to leave. Chief Williams says in those instances, tactical officers are deployed as a safety precaution.
The largest protest so far, a march to end poverty that followed a surprise performance by the rap-metal supergroup Prophets of Rage on Monday, involved only 300 people, police said.
One group draped banners along the ground with photos of people killed by those entering the country illegally.
There are 500 of them assigned to downtown protests.
Even the city’s location – a good day’s drive from Chicago or NY and other presumed hotbeds of anti-Trump fervor – may have helped keep the protests in check. On Tuesday, skirmishes broke out among demonstrators.
There are 1,300 Cleveland police officers.
Williams ended the melee by grabbing Alex Jones by the arm and hustling him away from the square.
The 52-year-old Williams said at a Wednesday morning news briefing that he spent three hours Tuesday evening riding with bicycle officers as they patrolled downtown.
Kasich, who has pushed programs to heal rifts between communities and police after several fatal police shootings, said those bonds must be “reset and rebuilt”.
Health officials say no additional people have shown norovirus symptoms after members of the support team for the California delegation to the Republican National Convention got sick. Not like the other people who stay in the office. Norovirus can be contracted from an infected person, contaminated food or water, or by touching contaminated surfaces.
A threatened flag burning and a wall-building stunt mocking Donald Trump’s Mexican border plan have potential to fuel already bubbling tensions outside the Republican National Convention. Some of the protesters’ trousers caught fire during the incident.
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A Latino social justice organization is holding an exercise on the city’s Public Square to “wall off” what they see as Trump’s hateful rhetoric. He planned to film the protest to ensure that “everyone’s First Amendment rights are respected”, and to help raise bail money for anyone who’d be arrested.
