5 arrested, deputy injured as Trump protesters break through barricades at GOP convention
Trump protesters clash with police outside the California Republican Convention in Burlingame, Calif.
Reporting from Burlingame, Calif. — Five protesters were arrested and a sheriff’s deputy was injured in Northern California on Friday during a raucous anti-Donald Trump demonstration in which some threw eggs at police and pushed down barricades separating them from the hotel where the GOP presidential candidate spoke later in the day.
Several hundred protesters arrived as the California Republican Party gathered for its convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Burlingame. Some protesters were clad in black clothing, their faces covered with handkerchiefs.
Rocks and an apple were thrown at police, and the protest grew tense at times, with officers advancing with shields and batons and demonstrators flattening metal barriers and rushing to the hotel’s entrance.
The crowd of demonstrators were kept away from entering the Hyatt, however, after officers and sheriff’s deputies lined the perimeter of the hotel.
A San Mateo County sheriff’s deputy arresting one protester was kicked in the face by a second protester, said Burlingame Police Sgt. David Perna. The second protester was arrested, and the deputy’s injuries were not serious.
Trump’s arrival at the convention was slowed by the protest, but the New York developer was able to get into the hotel through a back door after hopping a concrete barrier.
Some protesters did manage to enter the hotel. One team dropped a banner reading “stop hate,” with an image of a gun-wielding GOP elephant aimed at a man. At a rally outside, one protester yelled, “Mr. Hate, leave our state!”
Protesters break through a crowd-control barrier outside of the California Republican Party’s convention in Burlingame, Calif., where Donald J. Trump was to speak.
Some supporters of Trump were pushed and kicked as they tried to cross through the crowd of protesters.
One Trump supporter, Adam Harry of Discovery Bay, said he had his phone snatched from his hands and thrown across a parking lot into a bush. He was spat on and shoved as he walked away from protesters, he said. Some activists called him a racist while others crowded around him to keep others back.
“They just completely got out of control,” he said.
Another Trump supporter, Christopher Conway, 51, of Burlingame, said he was was pushed through the crowd, punched in the head and ended up jammed into a corner against a police barrier.
“I walked through and these guys felt free to hit me,” he said.
Shekhiynah Larks, an 18-year-old student at the University of San Francisco, said she came out to protest Trump but left disappointed with some of the protesters’ tactics.
“I don’t think tagging or throwing eggs accomplishes anything,” she said.
San Mateo resident Oscar Herrera, 19, said the protest was a success because Trump had to pull to the side of the road and cross a barrier to get to the convention.
“We succeeded, man. We made Trump jump the border wall,” he said.
But he acknowledged the protest got violent at times, with protesters throwing bottles and eggs at police officers.
“It could have gotten very ugly, but people were chanting ‘stay peaceful’ and it eased down. We didn’t want it to be like Costa Mesa,” Herrera said. “We got our message out in the end. Trump is not welcome in California.”
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Times photographer Marcus Yam contributed to this report from Burlingame, Calif., and Times staff writer Rong-Gong Lin II from Los Angeles.
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