After weekend protests that force one rally’s cancellation, GOP contender vows ‘to start pressing charges’
Police said they used pepper spray twice outside a Trump rally in Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday evening and two people were arrested for refusing to follow the law.
In a Twitter post late Saturday, Kansas City police did not say if the use of pepper spray was on demonstrators or Trump supporters. Television images showed one protester rubbing his eyes and saying that he had been sprayed.
While a boisterous group of protesters gathered outside the theater where Trump spoke in downtown Kansas City, the event concluded without significant incident. Police said the majority of people exercised their rights to gather peacefully.
Trump’s remarks were interrupted about a dozen times by protesters who managed to get into the theater, and they were escorted out.
Amid the interruptions, Trump asked law enforcement officers securing the site to arrest the protesters, telling the audience that fear of an “arrest mark” on people’s records may put an end to the near-constant disruptions at his rallies.
He said he was “going to start pressing charges against all these people,” a day after he called off a planned Chicago event because it attracted so many protesters.
Arrests, Trump said, were “going to ruin the rest of their lives. We’re not going to have any more protesters, folks.”
The latest interruptions follow a weekend of protests at Trump rallies that saw the Republican frontrunner surrounded by Secret Service agents as one man rushed the stage in Ohio, as well as a rally canceled in Chicago over concerns protesters would disrupt it and make the event unmanageable.
As reported by The Times of Israel