untethered

Nobody drew more consistent negative attention in Cleveland than the group of Westboro-esque extreme evangelists with their fire-and-brimstone-for-the-homos routine. Utilizing their strength in numbers, police simply cordoned off any two groups that squared off in potential conflict, often with quick-reacting platoons swooping in on bicycles, dismounting and using them as barriers.

I saw at least one spotter (or sniper) on a parking garage rooftop; perhaps they helped coordinate from their vantage, as sometimes harried police hustled from one potential flashpoint to another.

More often than not police outnumbered protesters on both sides, often comically so. Sometimes you’d see a contingent around a lone character surrounded by opponents; for the life of me I couldn’t tell why this one in particular was seized upon.

Emily Williams of Nashville.

Thanks to the reader who pointed out to me video can be easily rotated in a video editor. I also found
the first part of the encounter between Alex Jones and some young communists:

 

I was walking down the street, trying to decide if the young woman gathering her things from a sidewalk cafe table was Michelle Fields, when a man approached her from the other direction.
“Hey, Michelle Fields!” He says. She sort of acknowledges him as a minor nuisance, and he comes toward her quickly–threateningly so–and starts heckling her about the Corey Lewandowski faux-scandal.
“I won’t leave a bruise on your arm! I won’t leave a bruise on your arm!”
She starts yelling some version of “get the fuck away from me” and a guy I hadn’t noticed before steps in between them and does the same. A few bystanders break it up, and that quickly it’s over.

The most coherent speaker of the day, by my reckoning:

 

Yes, that is the real, live Trigglypuff front and center.

 

Not exactly German and British soldiers calling and unofficial Christmas truce, but I was heartened to find political opponents in Cleveland playing an impromptu game of capture the flag.