Thousands across the country continue to take to the streets to protest Donald Trump’s election Tuesday.
The New York Times reports that cities such as Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta; Portland, Ore.; Tempe, Ariz.; Raleigh, N.C.; Olympia, Wash.; and Madison, Wis., all experienced protests ranging from a few hundred participants to thousands.
With shouts of “Not My President,” “America was never great” and “Make America safe for all," many anguished citizens exercised their constitutional rights to peaceful protest by doing just that. Most of the protests remained peaceful, and many blocked traffic in their dissent.
Portland, in a Northwestern state that went to Hillary Clinton in the general election, was the site of the most heated protests. The police reported a shooting around 1 a.m. Saturday on a bridge that had been blocked by demonstrators. Witnesses said that a protester had been shot in the leg after an altercation with people in a car who were angry about traffic being stalled. The police released a description of a suspect, an “African-American male,” who fled by foot after gun play.
Despite the shooting, the city was relatively calm compared with the night before, which police characterized as a riot and arrested 26 people. There was widespread property damage. The Times reports that Portland’s police were out in greater force Friday night, deploying gas and pepper spray as they faced off with more than a thousand demonstrators before the shooting on the bridge.
In Atlanta, protesters rushed over a bridge to block a highway, and reportedly burned a U.S. flag at the state Capitol. In Miami, protesters shook signs and chanted during a demonstration Friday evening, blocking the causeway that connects the city’s downtown and South Beach. In Madison, they interrupted commuters near the University of Wisconsin. Near Iowa City, they blocked traffic on a section of Interstate 80.
On Thursday, Trump spoke out in response on Twitter, calling the demonstrators “professional protesters” and saying that they were incited by the media.
Then, on Friday, he toned it down a bit saying that the “small” groups of protesters have “passion for our great country.” The next morning, the president-elect seemed to reconsider. “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country,” he said. “We will all come together and be proud!”
No word from the president-elect on the Ku Klux Klan parade to celebrate his victory that is planned for early December.
Read more at the New York Times.