Those arrested face charges including inciting violence and felonious assault on a police officer.
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Several protests took center stage outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Wednesday.
News media swarmed the scene – on alert for trouble between rival protesters since the opening of the party convention, which Tuesday saw Donald Trump officially nominated as the Republican candidate for president.
A fight has broken out, outside of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
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.
Lt. Michael Butler of the Cleveland Police Department said Wednesday that charges were pending for between 10 and 16 people, but a tweet from the department’s Facebook page later on said 17 had been arrested.
The protest is reminiscent of several earlier this week with numerous police officers on hand trying to keep the peace. While pleased with the peace, they worry that the heavy police presence will now be mirrored across the nation at future political events.
The protests that had previously been relatively peaceful went south shortly after a group of demonstrators began burning American flags, stoking the ire of other competing groups of protesters.
Anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 protesters are expected to swarm Philadelphia each day, with groups such as the “Bernie PeaceKeepers” preparing with civil disobedience training for the protests-and arrests-they’re planning for later this week.
That agreement followed the acquittal of an officer in the 2012 fatal shooting of two unarmed residents, which prompted a wave of protests in the city, and the November shooting of a 12-year-old boy killed while playing with a toy gun in a local park.
More than a dozen protesters and Donald Trump supporters had said that a group planned to burn a U.S. flag, and officers and medics with fire extinguishers stood at the ready a block away on Euclid and E. 4th Street in the minutes before the incident kicked off.
Police wearing riot helmets arrived on the scene and police horses were being used to create a path to a van for people being detained. Large groups of journalists and other observers surrounded the area, too, watching as police descended into the area.
Cleveland police Calvin Williams said Wednesday night that brings the total to 22 people arrested during the convention, including the previous weekend.
In the run-up to the convention in Cleveland, some law enforcement officials had feared hundreds of arrests every day.
In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag is a legal form of protest.
CLEVELAND- The city of Cleveland continues to receive praise for its role as host for the Republican National Convention last week.
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This article was written by Hannah Wise in Dallas. The ruling invalidated laws against flag burning in 48 states.
