There were no arrests, police said, despite several tense moments that saw officers step in between protesters pushing and shouting at each other during some of the biggest, most raucous gatherings in downtown Cleveland since the four-day convention began on Monday.
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Police also said two officers were assaulted and suffered minor injuries.
Police have mostly kept back and allowed peaceful protests to occur, with few arrests.
The Cleveland police chief says 300 officers from more than a dozen law enforcement agencies are being deployed on bicycles in downtown Cleveland during the Republican National Convention.
But Christine Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of OH, said Clevelanders have little experience assembling large-scale protests.
Two of those arrested were charged with assaulting police; the rest were charged with incitement to violence, a misdemeanor.
One of the last confrontations involved a man arguing with police late Thursday after they confiscated his papier-mache pig adorned with a Donald Trump wig after he tied it to a light pole.
Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams claimed the trouble started when Johnson set himself and others on fire on while lighting up the flag, forcing police to intervene as a scuffle broke out. Protests on Tuesday in nearby Public Square had attracted hundreds of police but no one was detained.
Police ordered demonstrators to disperse and arrested at least five after a group called the Revolutionary Communist Party began burning the symbol outside Quicken Loans Arena.
Officers said firefighters extinguished and took the flag that protesters attempted to destroy while they cleared the streets.
The expansive square was a free-flowing mix of ideas and beliefs along with colorful characters pounding on bongos and wailing on a sousaphone.
They arrested “many” protesters, and loaded them into trucks before sending them away.
The day’s demonstrations started peacefully, with a few dozen people holding banners.
Ben Carson, a former GOP presidential candidate and current adviser to presidential nominee Donald TrumpDonald TrumpDonald Trump Jr.: Cruz’s decision “galvanized everyone” Eric Trump: Cruz “classless” for snubbing my dad Clinton camp slams Trump for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation comments MORE, told The Hill that the protests have been “considerably calmer” than expected.
Police are showing patience, looking less like an army and riding bicycles, which they’ve used as shields to separate groups with opposing points of view.
Jesse Gonzalez, 26, of Lakewood, Ohio, carried a rifle on the Public Square while wearing a camouflage-style “Make America Great Again” hat.
Police added syringes to the list of items banned through much of downtown in the final hours of the Republican National Convention.
Dix said he would be in Philadelphia next week at the Democratic National Convention.
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Williams also says three people were arrested and charged with criminal mischief Tuesday morning for climbing flagpoles outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, where they hung an anti-Donald Trump banner.
