United States: several seriously injured during pro-Trump protests

More than a month after the US presidential election, the outcome of the election is still widely disputed. It is in this context that five people were injured in the United States, including four seriously with knives and one by bullet, during demonstrations, Saturday, December 12, to demand “four more years” of presidency Trump and denounce again, without proof, “massive fraud” in the presidential election more than a month after the election of Joe Biden.

Clashes broke out in several places between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators. Washington State Police (Northwest) tweeted on Saturday evening an arrest after a shooting following clashes near the Capitol building in Olympia.

23 people arrested on Saturday

In the US capital, four people were stabbed and hospitalized “with serious injuries,” Doug Buchanan, communications officer for Washington DC firefighters and emergency services, told Agence France-Presse. According to the daily The New York Times, 23 people were arrested during the day on Saturday. No other indication was available on the injured.

The day started in a festive atmosphere with several thousand red “Make America Great Again” caps gathered on Freedom Plaza, not far from the White House. A large crowd but a retreat from the 10,000 demonstrators supporting Donald Trump a month ago. Despite a final scathing setback the day before at the Supreme Court, supporters of the outgoing president remain fiercely convinced of his victory on November 3.

We’re not going to let go

Similar gatherings were held in Olympia, Atlanta, Saint Paul, Minnesota, and smaller towns including Nebraska and Alabama. In Washington, a few clashes between pro and anti-Trump from the start of the day, which the police tried to separate.

Pro-Trump protesters list their reasons for believing the election was “stolen” from them: “foreign interference”, election software that would have erased millions of votes intended for the president … “We’re not going to let go” , promises Luke Wilson, sixty-year-old from Idaho, waving a flag defending the carrying of weapons. “The American people are the victim of a great injustice,” assures Agence France-Presse Dell Quick, a regular at the meetings of the Republican billionaire, for whom the election of Democrat Joe Biden seems “completely impossible”.

The Nazis out!

For lack of tangible evidence to back up accusations of “massive fraud”, the fifty or so complaints filed by Donald Trump’s allies across the United States have all – with one exception – been dismissed by the courts or dropped. All states have formally certified their results, giving the victory to Joe Biden, and the voters must register their vote Monday to validate it.

The president himself still refuses to concede defeat. His ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, whom he pardoned at the end of November after being implicated in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, was among the speakers. “Wow! Thousands of people are gathering in Washington to prevent the election from being stolen from us, ”Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday, before his helicopter flew over the crowd singing the American anthem.

Among the processions, the far-right Proud Boys militia, recognizable by the yellow and black outfits and bulletproof vests of its members, is regularly acclaimed by the crowd. “The Nazis out! “: A few streets away, activists from the Black Lives Matter movement are cursing the pro-Trump. Counter-demonstrations, much more modest, are taking place in the capital, in particular on Black Lives Matter Plaza, the street overlooking the White House, towards which thousands of people had converged to celebrate the victory of Joe Biden in early November.