‘Get Him out!’ Tensions Explode at Donald Trump’s Rallies.

Protesters and supporters of Donald Trump clashed in sometimes-violent fashion in St. Loius and in Chicago on Friday, the latest in an escalating series of confrontations that have come to define the front-runner’s rowdy campaign rallies even as he gets closer to securing the Republican nomination.

In the evening in Chicago, Trump canceled a rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago after brawls broke out at the event site.

Trump’s camp issued a statement saying that “for the safety of all the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date. Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.”

Inside the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis earlier in the day, protesters interrupted Trump eight times, prompting catcalls and chants from the crowd as security officers removed them. Scores were injured or arrested in clashes between Trump supporters and critics outside the venue, where thousands had gathered in an overflow area to listen to the event over loudspeakers.

Trump is known for his massive, raucous rallies — part campaign events, part media spectacles, part populist exaltations for his most loyal supporters. But the events have also become suffused with the kind of hostility and even violence that are unknown to modern presidential campaigns.

The candidate himself often seems to wink at, or even encourage, rough treatment of protesters.

“Come on, get ’em out, police, please. Let’s go!” Trump shouted here on Friday, complaining that protesters could not be removed more quickly because “nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.”

In incidents around the country this month, local police officers and security personnel frequently have been unable to keep anti-Trump protesters safe when their largely peaceful, if noisy, demonstrations have been met with physical attacks. The confrontations have only grown as Trump events have become a regular destination for liberal demonstrators, who are increasingly organizing large contingents through social media.

The clashes almost always feature an uncomfortable racial component as well: Many of the protesters are black or Latino, while Trump’s crowds are almost entirely non-Hispanic whites.

In Fayetteville, N.C., on Wednesday, local police were escorting a young black protester out of a Trump rally when an older white man suddenly punched him in the face — and the officers threw the victim to the ground rather than the assailant.

At a recent event in Louisville, a young black woman holding an anti-Trump sign was violently shoved by several white men while people around her called her a n----- and a c---. Security seemed unable to stop them.

Source: The Washington Post.