Cops, Communists and Characters at the GOP Convention
Veterans for peace
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Vermin Supreme, the ubiquitous political performance artist who has run for president and other elective offices in multiple states, appeared in Public Square Tuesday. At one point, he joined a line of radical Christian fundamentalist protesters and began mocking their message, at one point claiming that one of the men in the group had sexually "propositioned" him.
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Bicycle police officers from the cities of Akron and Cleveland took a brief yoga class outside a space on 4th Street that was rented by the Washington Post.
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The USA Freedom Kids, a singing group that gained brief Internet fame after singing a song to Donald Trump that contained lyrics like, "Deal from strength or get crushed every time."
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Police from around the country are represented in Cleveland.
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Artist Julian Raven stood on Public Square with a smaller version of his wall-sized painting "Unashamed and Unafraid." An immigrant to the US himself, Raven chanted "Build that wall! Build that wall!" in support of Donald Trump's immigration policies and his promise to build a wall between the US and Mexico.
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Peace activist Yusif Barakat, 80, was in Cleveland with a group of individuals who intened to help de-escalate crisis situations by placing themselves physically between groups of protesters.
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Matthew Wallbeck, of Texas, poses with his PTSD service dog, "Titan" inside the Quicken Loans Arena on Monday.
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Members of the FBI bomb squad, the Secret Service, and the Cleveland Police Department Bomb Squad moved people in Cleveland's Public Square away from a pair of suspicious packages on Monday.
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Unaffiliated protesters on the streets Monday night. The green and black flag on the chest of the man at left is a symbol associated with the internet message board 4chan.
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Civil rights activist and noted academic Dr. Cornel West, appeared with representatives of the Revolutionary Communist Party in downtown Cleveland on Tuesday to denounce police shootings of black men. He said the disproportionate rate at which black Americans die at the hands of police is part of a "vicious legacy of white supremacy." He called for people of all races to work together to hold police accountable for unnecessary violence.
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"Police getting away with murder must stop," said civil right activist and Revolutionary Communist Party co-founder Carl Dix. "Police terror must stop. and we're going to be in the streets fighting to make that happen."
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Some of the protesters were allegedly there to disrupt the GOP Convention.
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A protest that dates back to the founding of the country.
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This young man and his family were protesting the shooting of Tamir Rice, the young Cleveland boy who was shot by a police officer while holding a toy gun that the officer believed to be real. (The gun Rice held looked more authentic than the colorful water guns they held in protest.
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A police swat unit guards the protest stage.
Noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose InfoWars.com website has sponsored "Hillary for Prison" signs and banners around town, clashed with members of the Industrial Workers of the World union in Cleveland's Public Square on Tuesday. Jones would later claim that he was attacked, but in fact it had been Jones, supported by his pack of black-clad bodyguards, who pushed across the crowded square to get to the IWW protesters, getting richt in the faces of several with his megaphone.
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My T-shirt, myself.
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Two anti-Trump performance artists walking down Euclid Ave. Wednesday morning. Their point, if they had one, was not exactly clear.
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More statements from the T-shirt set.
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Brandon Krapes, of Longwood, Ohio, brought his children Mason (13) and Holden (11) to protest Trump. Krapes said, "They wanted to come, so I said, 'Let's go.'" His daughter Mason said, "I thought it would be fun and I wanted to voice my opinion." Krapes, plainly aware of the violent protests the day before, said he planned to have his kids off the street by about noon.
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New Yorker Laurie Arbeiter discusses her group, We Will Not Be Silent, and their installation on the ground in Cleveland's Public Square.
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