Even a North Carolina police chief pulled his troops from the RNC, fearing the city was ill-prepared.
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In a coordinated move repeated several times throughout the day, police officers dismounted and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their bikes in front of them.
The Texas senator was heckled Thursday morning as he spoke to his home state delegation to the Republican National Convention. The chief told the protesters to disperse or face arrest.
Police officers used bicycles and their bodies to separate those with opposing views. No one was arrested or injured.
Previously, five people had been arrested in three different incidents.
City officials have been hoping for a mostly trouble-free convention to help fix the reputation of the Cleveland police, who are operating under federal supervision after a U.S. Justice Department investigation found a pattern of excessive force and violations of people’s civil rights.
Johnson was one of the 17 arrested, but Williams said none of the charges were related to burning the flag, which is legal.
The department claimed that two officers were assaulted and left with minor injuries.
The group had announced the flag-burning ceremony earlier this week, drawing a crush of media and counter-protesters determined to stop the desecration.
Carl Dix, a representative of Revolutionary Communist Party, said the group organised the burning of the American flag as a “political statement about the crimes of the American empire”.
The scene was further compounded by delegates and other Republicans who began singing “America the Beautiful” and waving American flags as the howling protesters were detained.
As it appeared to escalate, police quickly formed a line, forcing the protesters and members to clear the street where the protest was taking place.
Instead of holing up at a command center somewhere, Calvin Williams has been hitting the streets to keep the peace.
A small group protesting Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall between the USA and Mexico is making its own wall in downtown Cleveland. “But things have been going the way that they should be going”. Protesters refused dispersal orders and pushed police officers before firefighters extinguished and took the flag that protesters attempted to destroy.
That could still change.
Trump will close the four-day Republican National Convention with a speech Thursday night accepting the GOP presidential nomination. But those passionate and polarizing discussions haven’t boiled over into violence or disruption.
As a few hundred anti-Trump demonstrators marched through downtown Monday afternoon, they were shepherded by dozens of bicycle-riding police officers.
On one end of the square, Westboro Baptist Church was holding signs such as “Got Aids Yet?” and shouting comments at protesters holding signs such as “Queer Love” and “We Are Human”. Williams said police officers have been approaching those carrying guns to let them know what’s expected of them. She called the maneuvers “very well executed”.
WEWS crews near The Q said around 4:30 p.m. that they were being blocked by police from leaving the area through the East 4th exit. “We worked it up and down for a year and a half”.
“We’ll protest what he said, peacefully”. “It’s not something that has been in the mix for other conventions”.
Others held a banner saying, “Wall Off Trump”.
Lt. Michael Butler said 10 to 16 people were taken into custody and would be charged. There are 5,500 total law enforcement officers assigned to RNC security.
Hennon said he had no problem with the docile demonstrations.
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“This is the way it should be, man”, he said.
