12-Dec-16 – Despite crowds downtown estimated by Chicago police at 2,000 in the days following the General Election, police reports from that week describe only nine arrests and minor injuries. The reports include notes by responding officers showing a plan that included crowd control, documenting, and responding to specific complaints.

The first arrest outside Trump International Hotel & Tower happened at 1:15 a.m., early on November 9, the day after the election. The second arrest near Trump Tower was not until 3:00 p.m.

Over the next few days, and as late as November 15, demonstrators flooded the streets of River North, at times pushing police officers, knocking over barricades, and engaging in civil disobedience in both the 18th and 1st police districts.

On November 10, there were just two arrests related to the protests, one for reckless conduct in the 400 block of North State Street, one block west of Trump Tower, and an arrest for battery one block east of Trump Tower on Lower Michigan Avenue. On November 11, within a few blocks of Trump Tower, there were two reports of criminal damage and one arrest for criminal trespass.

The last public demonstration that resulted in a police report was on November 25 at 10 a.m., in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue.

First demonstrators arrested were from east coast

Among the first arrests was one man from Arlington, Massachusetts, eight miles northwest of Boston, and a man from Norway, Maine, 45 miles northwest of Portland, Maine.

21-year-old Samuel Flavin, of Massachusetts, and 22-year-old Miles Laidlaw (left), of Maine, were arrested outside Trump Tower in the early morning of November 9, along with a 20-year-old woman from Illinois who police did not identify.

Flavin, wearing a black shirt over his face, was caught on security video spray painting, in white paint, “FUCK TRUMP” on a wall and window at Trump Tower at about 1:15 a.m. When security personnel went outside to confront him and the two others, Flavin ran west across Wabash Avenue and jumped from an overpass onto Kinzie Street below. He broke one ankle and injured both. He was taken by ambulance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

(Right) The stairs at left were apparently inconvenient for a protester last month, who chose instead to leap from the Wabash Avenue overpass onto Kinzie Street below.

Laidlaw and the unidentified woman were detained until police arrived, then charged with criminal trespass. Flavin was charged with criminal trespass and criminal damage to property and will be in court on Monday. All three were released on their own recognizance pending court dates.

That evening at around 11:17, protesters entered the hotel. One who refused to leave was Ethan Boner (left), age 21, from Morton Grove, Illinois. He was arrested and charged with criminal trespass. Released on recognizance, he will be in court on December 15.

A 17-year-old man, not identified by police, was also taken into custody even after he, says a report, “pulled away, stiffened his body, and pulled his arms into his body to defeat the arrest.”

Mounted officer sustains minor injury

On the Wabash Avenue Bridge, south of Trump Tower on November 9, at about 9:25 p.m., one protester broke through a metal barricade. The 21-year-old Illinois man, whose name was not released, tried to grab the reins of a mounted police officer. Robert Galassi took action, says a report, and injured a finger. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Police had set up a line to control what they described as “a massive flowing crowd.” A 21-year-old man in the crowd started screaming at police lieutenant Godfrey Cronin. The man incited the crowd to push forward, says a police report, and when they broke through the police line, a woman fell to the ground and was trampled, though she was apparently able to leave the area before police could find her.

(Right) Lieutenant Godfrey Cronin of Chicago’s Near North police district checks his phone as thousands of anti-Trump protesters march north on Michigan Avenue on November 12. Photo by Steven Dahlman.

As he was arresting the 21-year-old, someone grabbed Lieutenant Cronin’s hat and ran off with it.