About 200 people attended a rally in Cleveland on Saturday to support President Trump, one of dozens of similar events around the country.
The “March 4 Trump” took place in Voinovich Park. The keynote speaker was Cleveland Pastor Darrell Scott. He says that, as a black man, he’s taken heat for his support of the president. But he foresees more African-Americans supporting Trump in the next election.
“He’s been making a great impression thus far, and he’s going to continue making a great impression so that a lot of people are changing minds now. He’s got four years to do it; he’s going to change a whole lot of minds. He’s going to make it easy to support him.”
Tim Collingwood from Lakewood was at the rally among about 100 counter-protestors, and he disagrees.
“The America that I’ve been experiencing for the past eight years has been healing, and I feel like he’s just tearing off the cast from the surgeon’s work. And I don’t want my country to bleed again.”
Cleveland Police union President Steve Loomis was also among the speakers, and said he’ll likely “take some heat” for attending -- just as he did after attending a pro-Trump rally in Akron last year – but he says it’s important to combat what he feels is a false narrative about police officers.
“If we get cooperation and respect from the law abiding citizens and they’re not fearful that they’re going to be retaliated against for helping us, that’s going to -- right now, we can’t do that: we’re not there.”
Loomis also told the crowd that adding police needs to be a priority for the city, and he foresees bringing in about 80 officers this year.
Around two-dozen Cleveland Police officers formed a barrier between the rally and the counter-protesters, with both sides remaining peaceful.
