Phoenix police hear voices of supporters
Comments are in contrast to criticism of last week
“It’s our turn to speak and we are going to speak loudly that the Phoenix Police Department did an excellent job and we have our cops’ backs.”
The minutes following an Aug. 22 rally for President Donald Trump in downtown Phoenix again became the focus of public discussion at a Phoenix City Council meeting Wednesday, with many this time offering support for the police actions.
Last week, City Hall was overrun by more than 200 protesters who strongly criticized Phoenix police for their crowd-control tactics after the rally.
On Wednesday, a dozen speakers instead thanked the Phoenix Police Department for its efforts at the rally. Some chided City Council members for allowing the protesters to upend last week’s meeting.
“I was at the Trump rally, and police in my opinion did an amazing job,” Lesa Antone said.
Antone called last week’s meeting a “sad state of our state” and said Phoenix police thwarted the kind of politically laced violence seen in Charlottesville, Va., and Berkeley, Calif., recently.
“Whether you’re on one side or the other, the violence should stop,” she said.
Nohl Rosen, another speaker, gathered with the supporters outside City Hall more than an hour before the meeting began.
“Last week, the protesters took over the City Council meeting,” he told The Arizona Republic. “Now, it’s our turn to speak and we are going to speak loudly that the Phoenix Police Department did an excellent job and we have our cops’ backs.”
The Aug. 22 rally drew thousands of Trump supporters to downtown Phoenix, many waiting in line for hours to cheer on their president, who spoke at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Thousands more came to protest the president’s appearance.
The event came several days after a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville that resulted in violent clashes between rally goers and protesters. One
protester was killed when run down by a vehicle driven by a man identified as a white supremacist sympathizer.
Phoenix police deployed maximum manpower to prevent a repeat of Charlottesville. They separated the groups with barricades and human shields, and the event remained largely peaceful until the end.
The clashes at the Phoenix rally, which occurred after the Trump event ended and he had headed back to his Paradise Valley hotel, came not between Trump protesters and supporters, but protesters and police.
Police said protesters in the crowd lodged lit objects and gas at police officers, and also had pushed against fencing designed to hold them back. Police responded with tear gas, flash bombs and pepper balls.
Many of the protesters, including those who showed up at City Hall last week, complained that they were given little to no warning before police used force. They complained that many people who weren’t doing anything wrong were affected by the gas that was fired.
Phoenix officials, including police Chief Jeri Williams, have stood by the department, saying its actions left no one injured and may have prevented more violent chaos on city streets.