2 kicked out of Trump rally in Warren recount ejections
Mark Hicks,
The Detroit News 1:11 a.m. EST March 5, 2016
2016-0304-dm-trump-warren0054Buy Photo
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally at Macomb Community
College in Warren, Michigan on March 4, 2016.(Photo: Daniel Mears / The
Detroit News)Buy Photo
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Though Saqib Javed stridently opposes many of Donald Trump’s positions, he
still attended a rally for the Republican presidential candidate Friday in
Warren
to hear the billionaire businessman up close.
The 22-year-old Wayne State University student hardly expected to cause a
commotion — or to be ejected from the crowd simply for speaking out.
“I got threatened to be arrested for voicing my opinion — that’s crazy,” Javed
told The News on Friday night.
Javed is among a group of attendees Trump ordered security personnel to remove
from his event at the Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center.
University of Michigan-Dearborn student Lauren Underwood claims she and a
companion also were forced out despite having remained silent throughout the
candidate’s
speech and even cordially interacting with a supporter.
“Every 15 or so minutes, a scene would happen where the crowd would yell about
protestors and Trump would scream, ‘Get them out, send them out of here!’
and the crowd would scream ‘USA, USA, USA’ until the attendees who were asked
to leave were escorted out,” Underwood wrote on her Facebook page. “So, about
45 minutes to an hour into his speech, a group of teenage boys (who had been
harassing us the entire time while we ignored their comments) screamed and
pointed at us, yelling for us to be kicked out.”
Underwood wrote she “wore a shirt bashing Trump.”
Trump has drawn ire for the tactics surrounding the ousters of people attending
his rallies.
Police are investigating at least two alleged assaults against protesters at a
recent Kentucky rally. One, captured on video, involves a young African-American
woman who was repeatedly shoved and called “scum.”
Friday in New Orleans, Trump’s rally was interrupted by a near-constant stream
of protesters, including many from the Black Lives Matter movement. At points,
campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was spotted personally assisting police as
they escorted protesters out of the building. Members of Trump’s personal,
private security detail were also on hand to assist.
And on Monday, black Valdosta State University students were escorted out of a
campus event in Georgia before it began. Ameer Junious, 19, said police directed
him to the back of the arena — with no explanation given — before Trump
arrived. Videos shot by Junious show a person who appeared to be police officer
telling him, “They asked me to have y’all moved,” adding, “I can’t explain
that, OK?”
Javed said a similar scene played out while he was a few feet away from Trump
at MCC in Warren.
After about 40 minutes, the student said he couldn’t hold his tongue when the
real estate developer “was talking about how much money Mexicans are taking,
how much money China is taking.”
At that point, Javed started raising his voice and denouncing some of the
stances for which Trump has been criticized during his campaign. “I was like:
‘Not all Mexicans are rapists! Not all Muslims are terrorists!’ ”
In a brief video clip Javed shot and posted on Twitter, he is then seen being
surrounded and escorted out by at least one uniformed officer while some
audience
members are heard shouting “Get him out of here!”
“They were so aggressive — they were holding me so tight, like I was going to
hit Donald Trump,” Javed said. “I could’ve been walked out peacefully. I wasn’t
resisting.”
In her Facebook post, Underwood wrote: “As the two men walked us out, one
explained that if we returned we would be arrested. Stephanie quickly asked why
that was. The man replied with ‘They don’t want you here,’ to which she said
‘Isn’t it a constitutional right to silently protest?’ The officer replied
‘Not here.’ ”
Javed, a Muslim American of Pakistani descent who attended the rally in a
traditional garment, blasted his removal and arrest threat.
“That is injustice,” he said. “Freedom doesn’t exist anymore — is that what
Donald Trump is saying?”
Despite the dust-up, Javed is thinking of another reaction.
“There’s a lot of hatred in the world. We don’t need Trump to use fear tactics
to gain votes and use fear tactics to get people against each other,” he
said, adding: “Before I even know what my religion was, I was human. I had
morals, I had values, I was taught right and wrong. ... People should not forget
their human morals, their human intuition, being kind to people, being
respectful, their human values that are there.”
mhicks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(313) 222-2117
The Associated Press contributed
