Left-wing rioters attacked supporters of President Donald Trump leaving a rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Thursday evening — assaulting them in groups, setting fire to pro-Trump hats, and attacking the police.
Riot police stood by as members of Antifa were seen dragging steel fences away from the Target Center. They were filmed by Elijah Schaffer, a correspondent for The Blaze, a conservative news site — who was maced as he filmed.
Local Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter Liz Sawyer noted there were several hundred rioters, and that some were singling out Trump supporters and surrounding them in groups before attacking them. Some also attacked police:
The scene was reminiscent of the riot outside a convention center in San Jose in June 2016, when anti-Trump rioters attacked Trump supporters leaving the venue in full view of the media — and Mayor Sam Liccardo blamed Trump.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey proclaimed Thursday as “Love Trumps Hate Day” in the city, in solidarity with protests against Trump. Evidently, however, some of those among the “protesters” felt “hate” trumped “love.”
In one instance, a bystander who was not a Trump supporter reported being attacked by the anti-Trump mob:
The Target Center had attempted to charge the Trump campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars for additional security. The rally itself — with a capacity crowd inside and tens of thousands outside — passed without serious incident, but local police seemed unprepared for the violence by anti-Trump rioters after the event was over.
This story is developing.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.