Trump crowd grows, clashes with protesters ahead of rally
Mayor rescinded curfew after call with president
TULSA, Okla. — Supporters and detractors of President Donald Trump continued to gather Friday in Tulsa, where Trump is scheduled to take the stage for the first of his signature rallies during the coronavirus pandemic.
Verbal clashes sparked at times as hundreds of people converged amid a nationwide push for racial justice, and tensions over the continued health and economic threats of COVID-19. And the gatherings happened on Juneteenth — a day celebrating the end of slavery in the United States — in a city with a long history of racial tension. Trump’s event, scheduled for Saturday night, will be held just blocks from the site of one of the worst racial massacres in U.S. history, and Black leaders in Tulsa say they fear the president’s visit could lead to violence.
Oklahoma’s Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request to require everyone attending Trump’s rally in a 19,000-seat arena to wear a face mask and maintain social distancing inside the arena to guard against the spread of the coronavirus. The court ruled that the two local residents who asked that the thousands expected at the BOK Center be required to take the precautions couldn’t establish that they had a clear legal right to the relief they sought. In a concurring opinion, two justices noted that the state’s plan to reopen its economy is “permissive, suggestive and discretionary.”
The request was made by John Hope Franklin for Reconciliation, a nonprofit that promotes racial equality, and the Greenwood Centre Ltd., which owns commercial real estate, on behalf of the two locals described as having compromised immune systems and being particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.
While city workers erected a high metal fence Friday to completely barricade the Trump rally site, tempers got heated as several Black Tulsans walked up to a corner where the Trump faithful shouted religious messages through bullhorns.
Abrienne Smith squared off with one after the other of the Trump backers, talking about killings of African Americans. Smith said she did it for her Black son.
“I am worried about him. He’s 4. I am scared for his life because of stuff like this,” she said while pointing at the Trump supporters.
Pamela Drake, an older African American woman, wore a red “Make America Great Again” cap and carried a small American flag as she walked in sprinkling rain to claim a place in line for the Trump rally. She and her friend, Kathy Minartz, said they had no fear of catching the coronavirus or of violent protests.
“When you have the Lord in your life, you’re protected,” Minartz said.
Meanwhile, Tulsa’s Republican mayor, G.T. Bynum, rescinded a day-old curfew he had imposed for the area around the BOK Center ahead of the rally. The curfew took effect Thursday night and was supposed to remain until Sunday morning; however, Trump tweeted Friday that he had spoken to Bynum and that the mayor told him he would rescind it.
Bynum said he got rid of the curfew at the request of the U.S. Secret Service. In his executive order establishing the curfew, Bynum said he was doing so at the request of law enforcement who had intelligence that “individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other states are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.”
The mayor didn’t elaborate as to which groups he meant, and police Capt. Richard Meulenberg declined to identify any.