The night Trump came to Phoenix and I prayed my city would survive

He started the day in Yuma at the Marine Corps air station. He arrived in Phoenix in the afternoon, his motorcade passing my street around 4pm on the way to the hotel about two miles from me. The police presence in the city was stunning.

Everyone was on eggshells all day.  Someone out of state texted me to ask if I was going to the rally. “Hell no” was my response. “I need to be at home with my family in case SHTF.” As I typed those words, it hit me just how real this is. Before the election, protesters here successfully blocked his motorcade temporarily on the day of a rally.  What would be their plan tonight, I wondered?
Well, the Phoenix PD took care of that, as they took care of everything else last night.
The rally itself was packed, as several pictures today showed. People were lined up before dawn. By 4pm, the line stretched probably a quarter mile down the block and around the building.  I saw video of this on twitter, but now I can’t find it. People waited for hours upon hours.
It was 108 degrees here yesterday.
These were “normal” Trump supporters. There weren’t any white nationalists or neo-nazis. You saw them during the speech. White, black, Hispanic, men, women, old, young, Middle America. You could see a sense of hope in their faces.  They just want to be treated fairly, and they are angry about being lied to for so long. Two of the biggest cheers of the night were when Trump trashed McCain and Flake, our two traitorous RINO senators.
As speech time approached (7PM) I could feel the tension as all the local news outlets were all over it as Antifa converged on the scene from three different muster points, some of them open carrying ARs and AKs, which of course is perfectly legal here. Most “only” had bricks, tear gas, and bottles. The convention center is smack downtown, amid all the skyscrapers, churches, stadiums, museums, etc. I wondered if my city would be smashed/burned.

The speech ended about 8:25pm, and the supporters began exiting the building. Antifa made their move, but the way the police had corralled the crowd, and the manner in which they had placed the barricades, meant that Antifa’s surge was blunted precisely due to their angle of attack. Frustrated anarchists began throwing bricks and gas canisters at police, and the police wasted no time. The ROEs must have been made pretty clear to them. The few minor injuries among the rally goers were mostly due to not following directions and getting caught behind enemy lines. Next time, maybe give a little more thought to where you’re going to park.

As the police formed their line and began pushing Antifa back away from the convention center, the only path of retreat took them directly in front of the local NBC affiliate, which has a glass-walled studio facing that side of the street. Of the four legacy network affiliates in Phoenix, NBC 12 is left of the bunch. But you should have heard them shrieking for justice as the mob came up against the glass.
At the end of the night, thanks be to God, it ended quietly. I walked outside around 9:15 and saw the motorcade heading back to the hotel for the night. The route from the convention center to the hotel is mostly freeway, until the last three miles, which is a surface street with about five stoplights. Those last three miles were blanketed by police, and several threats were removed ahead of time. I spoke to a friend who told me that every single Phoenix PD officer/detective was on duty last night, and they did the job they’re trained to do.
Lest we gloss over that last point… People don’t realize that 90% of police training involves crowd and traffic control. All cops know the proper tactics. That’s why what happened in Charlottesville is so obviously a set up. If you haven’t watched the videos, you really should. The vile Nazis were gathered in the park where they had legally obtained a permit to peacefully assemble. They were spewing their disgusting but protected free speech, peacefully, legally, for about one hour. Then a cop with a bullhorn announced that the permit had been terminated and this was now deemed an illegal assembly, and ordered the Nazis to disperse immediately. As the police forced the Nazis out of the park and into the open streets filled with Antifa fascists, who could know there would be trouble, am I right? It’s not possible to claim that the police could be caught off guard in any way regarding this. It’s literally the very thing they receive the most training on. They knew EXACTLY what was going to happen, and even after it did start happening, they stood down. They didn’t even give chase to the driver of the car… there is video of him driving away from the scene at a low rate of speed.  They did NOTHING.
Are you prepared in the event of a public disturbance in your neighborhood where the police do NOTHING?  Are you?