At least 35 taken into custody in nighttime protests
Hundreds of Sen. Bernie Sanders' most devoted followers vowed Wednesday to keep their political revolution alive, returning to the streets with renewed energy on the third day of the Democratic National Convention.
"This revolution will not end after the DNC!" shouted Gary Frazier, Philadelphia coordinator for the advocacy group Black Men for Bernie, which helped organize the rally. "We will never, ever vote for Hillary Clinton."
Then hundreds more rallied at Broad Street and Pattison Avenue shortly after 10 p.m., chanting, drumming, and waving signs.
And shortly before 11 p.m., seven people were arrested for scaling a fence outside the Wells Fargo Center and getting into the secure zone. The Secret Service said those people were charged with entering a restricted area. They face initial court hearings Thursday.
Altogether, since Sunday, 11 people have been charged by federal officials for allegedly breaching the security perimeter at the arena and Philadelphia police issued 103 citations to protesters, including 44 on Wednesday.
Another small group set a flag on fire. But the scene quickly de-escalated as some groups splintered off back to FDR Park and the protesters' campgrounds.
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"I think everybody's a little low today," said Andrew English, 29, of Charlotte, N.C., as he sat on a bench beside a friend who was munching on a beet as if it were an apple.
"We all knew . . . Hillary Clinton was going to get the nomination, but we still had our hopes and dreams," English said. "But they were crushed yesterday."
Others were not beaten down.
At the Bernie rally, voter after voter and Sanders delegate after Sanders delegate climbed the stage and shouted into a microphone as the crowd clapped, cheered, and thrust signs into the air. The anti-Clinton sentiments were unmistakable.
But mostly, they said, the appeal of Sanders came from his ability to buck traditional politics.
"No more Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton - no," said Denise Groves, a 40-year-old delegate from Maine who walked out of the convention Tuesday night after Clinton was nominated. "Let's do this! Peace, love, and Bernie."
Stein went with it, blasting Clinton as the "lesser evil" and the Democrats as "that zombie political party whose days are numbered." She said the Green Party and a bloc of voters united on such issues as ending police brutality, fracking, and immigrant deportation "are the solutions to the Donald Trumps of the world."
Tensions flared only in fleeting moments.
Hours after the event started, members of a group denigrating homosexuality appeared, hoisting large signs that read "Stop Being a Sinner" and "Judgment Is Coming." As protesters yelled back, police formed a line to separate the two groups.
Later, a group holding a large sign that said "STOP Murder by Police" made its way to the front of the crowd. Police followed closely behind. But an event organizer on stage called for police to step back, saying he had the situation under control.
Police backed away. He called to the crowd to cheer for a political revolution.
The crowd went wild.
As the event wound down, attendees clustered around Colorado delegate Gabriel McArthur, who was handing out green T-shirts for a demonstration Thursday.
The goal?
A mass de-registration from Democratic voting rolls.
McArthur said he was planning to change his party registration and would vote for Stein. He participated in the walkout from the Wells Fargo Center Tuesday night, his first convention.
"I thought we were going to have a vote, something a little more democratic," he said. "Instead I felt like a seat-filler in a commercial."
Around 9 p.m., a group of about 40 protesters at the Wells Fargo Center blocked an exit for delegates. Police officers had to detour delegates around a security fence so they could get to waiting buses. Eventually, most of the protesters were taken into custody. They were expected to be given civil citations. Prior to those detentions, Philadelphia police reported they had issued citations to 69 individuals.
The Wednesday arrests for a similar incident brought the total number of arrests for the convention to 11. All have been charged in federal court.
"I'm very concerned about the expansive use of federal power to designate certain locations to be national security sites to the exclusion of First Amendment rights," said Paul Hetznecker, a Center City lawyer. "I think it's a dangerous precedent for our democracy and our civil rights."
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Contributing to this article were staff writers Aubrey Whelan, Julia Terruso, Justine McDaniel, Steve Bohnel, Jeremy Roebuck, Michaelle Bond, and Joseph A. Gambardello.