Four people were on Saturday stabbed and one shot as rallies backing US President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud led to clashes in major US cities.
Scuffles broke out in many places between rally-goers and counterprotesters who turned up to criticize the president, who lost the Nov. 3 presidential election to US president-elect Joe Biden, but has yet to concede.
Late on Saturday, the Washington State Patrol wrote on Twitter that a shooting had taken place after clashes near the Capitol building in Olympia, and that a suspect had been detained.
Photo: Reuters
In the US capital, District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department communications chief Doug Buchanan said that four people had been stabbed and were hospitalized “with serious injuries.”
The New York Times reported that 23 people had been arrested throughout the day.
There was no indication of whether any of the victims had been involved in the protests, on either side of the divide.
The day had begun with a festive atmosphere as thousands of red-hatted protesters filled Washington’s streets to support the president, undeterred by the US Supreme Court’s rejection on Friday of what might have been his last chance to overturn the results.
Similar events took place in Olympia, Atlanta, and St Paul, Minnesota, as well as in smaller towns in Nebraska, Alabama and elsewhere.
Demonstrators at the DC rally — noticeably smaller than a similar protest last month — said that they were steadfast in their support for the embattled president.
“We’re not gonna give up,” said Luke Wilson, a sixty-something protester who had come all the way from the western state of Idaho.
“I believe there is a big injustice being done to the American people,” added Dell Quick, a regular at Trump’s political rallies, as he brandished a flag defending gun rights.
Protesters offered no shortage of explanations for the poll results, even though they have been affirmed by state election officials — several of them Republican — and by judges in several key states.
Every state has now certified the results, giving Biden 306 votes in the Electoral College to Trump’s 232. Electors are to formally cast their votes today.
However, protesters insisted, as Trump has repeatedly, that there was widespread fraud in the election.
Some pointed to “foreign interference,” others to software that allegedly erased millions of votes for the president — but not those for other Republican candidates on the same ballots.
Susan Bowman, a 62-year-old from Hampton, Virginia, said “this is not a banana republic. We need to fix the election.”
Those who addressed the crowd included Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was recently pardoned by the president after admitting that he lied to the FBI over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump, in stark defiance of the clear result and of US tradition, has refused to concede to Biden.
“Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal,” he tweeted on Saturday. “Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them!”
Not long afterward, his helicopter lifted off from the White House grounds and passed over the crowd — many singing the US national anthem — as Trump headed to New York to attend the annual army-navy football game.
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