Anti-Trump demonstrations held in N.O. and across the U.S.

14th November 2016   ·   0 Comments

A day after GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump shocked the nation and the world by defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to capture the White House, a series of demonstrations by anti-Trump protesters were held in cities across the country including Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and New Orleans.

Several hundred anti-Trump protesters took to the streets in the Crescent City, marching through the French Quarter and along St. Charles Avenue. While the protest was mostly peaceful, several landmarks and pieces of property were defaced or suffered damage, among them a Chase Bank on St. Charles Avenue, the Robert E. Lee monument at Lee Circle and Gallier Hall.

The New Orleans protest came exactly a week after community activists and college students protested an appearance by former KKK grand wizard David Duke, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, on the Dillard University campus and a day after two people set a fire on the steps of the Confederate Museum. On Tuesday, the same day that the fire was set at the museum, someone spray-painted the words “Dismantle white supremacy” on the Robert E, Lee statue at Lee Circle.

The Lee statue is one of three monuments of Confederate leaders the New Orleans City Council voted in December 2015 to remove from public spaces across the city. A fourth monument, the Battle of Liberty Place monument, has also been targeted for relocation but that monument’s fate will be determined separately from the other three monuments.

The glass doors to Chase Bank in the Capitol One Building were smashed and someone spray-painted “No Trump, No KKK” on Gallier Hall, which is currently being renovated by the City of New Orleans.

Other sites that were damaged in the Wednesday night protest included One Shell Square, the Sewerage & Water Board Building, Hotel Monteleone and Hilton St, Charles hotel.

The morning after the protest, the City of New Orleans got an assist from the crew of the hit CBS television series “NCIS: New Orleans,” which was scheduled to shoot at Gallier Hall Thursday morning, WWL TV reported.

The crew cleaned up the area defaced by graffiti before it began filming Thursday. NCIS officials said the show would send a professional crew in later to do a better job of permanently removing the graffiti.

Gallier Hall, which once served as City Hall in New Orleans, is used as City Hall in the locally based television drama series.

NOPD officials said that no arrests were made and that only one citation was issued to a person who got involved in a fight.

A scuffle ensued after a protester snatched a Trump flag off a truck and ran. The unidentified driver attacked several protesters before he was subdued by others until police could handle the situation.

Although he was not arrested in the incident the man told Nola.com that he is consulting an attorney about the incident.

“The election doesn’t appear rigged, it appears fair. The people spoke,” a passerby told WWL. “They elected him. He’s our president-elect and no matter how distasteful he may be to some, this isn’t the way to go about it.”

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who urged the New Orleans City Council to vote to remove the Confederate monuments across the city two years ago, said Thursday that the City of New Orleans will not tolerate the destruction or defacing of public or private property.

“One of the hallmarks of American democracy is the peaceful transition of power. We don’t resort to violence and destruction when we don’t get our way in this country. We must move forward together. Those who wish to protest have a right to do so peacefully, however, lawlessness and destruction of property will not be tolerated in the City of New Orleans,” Landrieu said.

“I have instructed Chief Harrison and the NOPD to continue to maintain order on our streets and arrest anyone who damages property. I am confident that the people of New Orleans will demonstrate for the rest of the country how to exercise free speech in an appropriate manner.”

NOLA Against Trump, the group that led Wednesday’s demonstration, led another protest and march Thursday night from Lee Circle to the Central Business District.

With police cars on virtually every corner, Thursday’s protest went off without any reported acts of violence or vandalism.

NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison said that police would not allow anyone involved in the demonstrations to damage property or break the law in any way.

“The New Orleans Police Department will always make sure we give you the space and the place to demonstrate and protest, as is your right,” Harrison said hat a Thursday news conference. “However, we will not allow anyone to commit crimes, to commit the act of vandalism. You can protest, we will allow you to do that. But we will not tolerate anyone vandalizing anybody’s property, however you may feel about it.”

“It looked like a lot of millennials and Bernie Sanders supporters out there marching,” a woman who did not want to provide her name told The Louisiana Weekly. “I wonder how many of them actually went out and voted for Hillary Clinton or even bothered to vote at all since Bernie wasn’t on the ballot.”

NOLA Against Trump organizers told WWL News that they want to continue to protest the outcome of the election and make a difference before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in by the Electoral College on December 19.

This article originally published in the November 14, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.