Over 70,000 sign up for Trump rally

The Houston Police Department will be “fully mobilized” to handle the more than 70,000 people who have signed up to attend President Donald Trump’s rally in downtown Monday, Chief Art Acevedo said Friday.

Police will begin closing off streets — including Bell, Clay, Crawford, Jackson, La Branch and Polk — around the 18,000seat Toyota Center around 5:30 a.m. Monday, Acevedo said.

Attendees must have tickets to enter the 5 p.m. rally and will be admitted in the order in which they line up. People are expected to line up overnight, Acevedo said. He advised people who work downtown to plan accordingly for delays because of the large crowds.

“Keep in mind that once the capacity is met, you won’t get in, whether you have a ticket or not,” Acevedo said.

More than 77,850 hopefuls had signed up by Friday morning, but the Trump campaign was not considering moving to a bigger venue, a person familiar with the event said.

Trump, who is expected to speak around 6:30 p.m., is holding the rally with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is facing a re-election challenge from U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso. Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Trump’s Texas campaign chairman, will also speak at the rally.

Acevedo said HPD had heard unconfirmed reports of a separate nearby rally for O’Rourke that could draw thousands more.

“We will have many many officers out and about,” Acevedo said. “We will have officers on the high ground, low ground, in the air. We will have officers in plainclothes, we will have undercover officers, we will have react teams.”

He added that officers from the federal, state and county levels would lend support, with the usual Secret Service presence accompanying Trump.

The police department expects people to “exercise their First Amendment rights in a lawful manner,” Acevedo said, including protesters and counterprotesters. “You would be foolish not to.”

Rain is expected Monday, with projected temperatures in the high 50s to low 60s.