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"It was horrific....right as we got to the policeman, fortunately or I don't know we would have survived, we got to the policeman and I don't think the policeman recognized me and as I came closer the crowd was shouting my name and it doubled to 60 and it double again to 120. I can't tell you how...I'm not sure we would have made it. They were attempting to push the police over to get to me...you've seen the pictures of what they do to you.
"If the police are not there, if you defund the police, if we become Portland, if America becomes Portland, what's going to happen is people are going to be pummeled and kicked in the head and left senseless on the curb.
"That would have happened to us I promise you, had we not had the D.C. police to support us...Thank God for the police. Had we not gotten to the police I truly believe that the police saved our lives and we would not be here today or we would be in a hospital today if the police had not been there.
"We can't walk down the street safely in D.C. now, that's how bad it is. I don't hear Joe Biden or Kamala Harris saying one thing about the violence. This mob is their voters. This is the New Democrat party."
Barriers were erected around the White House to keep protesters away, but noise and drumbeats could be heard from behind the fencing. Protesters yelled: "No justice, no peace!" and "Join us!" while holding anti-Trump and Black Lives Matter banners.Protesters were leveling accusations at Paul, when it was Paul who introduced the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act in Congress:
In a bizarre twist, demonstrators also posed with an imitation guillotine and a Trump effigy, with one protester heard saying "off with his head!" A while later, police moved in to push demonstrators away from some locations around the White House, sparking scuffles and altercations.
The protesters could be heard chanting "Say her name!" They were referring to the unprosecuted death of Breonna Taylor, a young black Kentucky woman fatally shot by plain-clothes police who entered her apartment during a "no-knock" search. However, the Kentucky congressman did, quite famously, "say the name" of his killed constituent when he introduced the legislation, which was rejected. It would have banned unannounced "no-knock" searches.Paul calls for FBI arrests:
Another critic noted that the partisan conversation around criminal justice reform could be easily flipped nowadays. They pointed to the Democratic nominee for president being Joe Biden, author of the controversial 1994 crime bill, which is widely considered to have been a key contributor to the mass incarceration of black Americans.
Fireworks were a surprise ending to the ceremony, meant as a distraction and crowds attending the event were harassed and threatened:
Throughout the entire night there was an effigy of Trump in a Guillotine.
Hateful anarchists surrounded Trump supporters, spat at them, threw items at them, and followed the to their hotels, attacking, punching and drawing blood with a few of the attendees.
Threatening violence, threatening to burn down the White House and surrounding buildings and assaulting the elderly were on the agenda:
Trump gave his acceptance speech to a live audience of more than 1,000 on the final night of the RNC, a number of activists congregated around St. John's Episcopal Church less than half a mile away from the White House (the one damaged by fire during unrest that broke out in June) and others ratcheted up the noise level with chants and horns to obliterate Trump's address:
At least two different organizations planned demonstrations near the White House on Thursday night, according to USA Today, including Refuse Fascism - which held a rally in Black Lives Matter Plaza - and the Party Majority PAC, a group founded by former Hillary Clinton aides. Though a co-founder of Refuse Fascism, Carl Dix, said he expected only a small crowd to show up to the event, he noted a spike in interest due to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin on Sunday, which has spurred heated demonstrations across the country.
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