A Lens on the GOP Convention: Protests, Police and Politics on Day 2

A member of the West Ohio Minutemen stand on the perimeter of Cleveland’s Public Square, one of the main hubs for activists to gather. “We’re here to back up the police and exercise our rights,” he said. (Michael Nigro)

Cleveland is the city where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by police while playing with a toy gun. Squirt guns are banned from the convention. This squirt gun was being used as part of a protest but was later confiscated and thrown away. (Michael Nigro)

Banned from the Republican National Convention. (Michael Nigro)

Former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio denied having a photo op with the Donald Trump impersonator in the background. From 1977 to 1979, Kucinich was the 53rd mayor of Cleveland. (Michael Nigro)

Today’s car shot is brought to you by a Trump fan. (Michael Nigro)

Cleveland police Chief Calvin Williams posed with a protester after breaking up the day’s first heated Second Amendment argument. The group eventually huddled together in prayer and then apologetically hugged (see video in body of story). (Michael Nigro)

After various skirmishes, police craftily split the crowd and then hollowed out the middle. As more and more reinforcements arrived, they expanded their real estate by pushing outward.
(Michael Nigro)

More than 3,000 cops from many states including Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana and California have traveled to Ohio to back up the Cleveland Police Department. Here, a California Highway Patrol officer in riot gear enters the west side of Public Square. (Michael Nigro)

Members of a radical right-wing Christian group preached until police moved in to separate them from their opponents (see video in body of story). (Michael Nigro)

Because he says so. (Michael Nigro)

A gun owner who said he was exercising his Second Amendment rights. (Michael Nigro)

Members of Code Pink, the Brady Campaign and the Center to Prevent Gun Violence dropped 500 tennis balls just outside the Republican National Convention entrance. The direct action was to staged to highlight the hypocrisy of allowing guns on the streets during the convention,although authorities considered possession of a tennis ball an arrestable offense (see video in body of story). (Michael Nigro)

Brady Campaign and Code Pink members dumping tennis balls, which were confiscated. No one was arrested. (Michael Nigro)