Protests starting right now with Heather Childers and leland bitters. We will see you back here at 5 00 p. M. Eastern today. Today. Violent protests outside of a donald trump rally in new mexico prompting a heavy Police Response as trump scores another win in Washington State. Im Heather Childers. Nice to be with you and nice to be with you at home. Im leland bitters. The protests, if you are call them protests really, some hooligans on the street at this point. They threw stuff at police and Police Horses out there. Authorities say they fired smoke grenades to disperse the crowd though it continued to get worse. We have team coverage. Garrett has the latest on the primary results, but first Jonathon Hunt is on the scene of the protests in albuquerque and
is joining us with the latest. We have been watching as the scene unfolded for what seems like hours. Whats it look like now . It quieted down a great deal right now, heather. To my left, you can see we have a line of riot police keeping the crowd back. We swing to the other side of the intersection here, you can see the protesters have pretty much disappeared. There are a few behind the fence you are looking at right now. We have seen rocks coming in and a few Police Officers moving in to try to identify and stop those rock throwers. As we were standing here, we heard several landing behind us and obviously aimed at those police. Let me take you thru what happened chronologically. This has been going on for hours. 4 00 p. M. , 6 00 p. M. Eastern, the crowds began to gather in large numbers. It started off pretty much every time theres been a donald trump
rally. The antitrump protesters lined up behind police barricades, shouting at Trump Supporters as they move in to the rally site, which was the Albuquerque Convention center in this case. It is name calling. It is political slogan exchanging. Pretty straightforward stuff. But then a couple of hours later, just as trump was beginning his speech inside of the Convention Center, the protesters moved there were several hundred of them. They broke down what i have to say was a relatively flimsy police barricade. I have been at a few of these things and i have to say, i dont think the Albuquerque Police department with respect to the bravery were best prepared for this. The protesters broke through and tried to bust down the doors and get inside. They were prevented from doing that. Thats when the police came in. Seven horses as we counted them
and as we understand it that is the full complement of mounted Police Officers in albuquerque. They came and thats when bottle throwing started, small fires set and rock throwing. As Trump Supporters left they had to be taken out of a different entrance because the one they had gone in to was overwhelmed by the protesters. Then police tried to move the protesters away. Thats when we seen the running street clashes is the best way to put it. Rock and bottle throwing. The bottles have been as far as i have seen plastic Water Bottles, not any glass at the Police Officers but the officers you see behind me, the front line all in full riot gear. Behind them, you can see there are a lot of officers who do not have riot gear on at all. Thats the case when this got going. I counted probably a dozen who were in full riot gear. Not much more than that. Again, you have a Police Department that appears to me, at least, heather and leland that were not fully prepared for this and perhaps arent that well equipped to deal with this situation, which got out of hand very quickly. In terms of arrests, weve not heard of any on the streets of albuquerque. There may have been isolated arrests we did not witness but i have not heard of any at this point. We heard from the reporting of our own cameron inside the Convention Center there were a couple of arrests in there as the protesters tried to disrupt Donald Trumps speech. On the streets no arrests. A reflection of the policing here. Im not the mind of any police chief. I have no experience as a Law Enforcement official obviously but it strikes me that perhaps they didnt want to move in, they didnt want to take people in to custody because sometimes they begets further violence, gets them in to for lack of a
berth phrase gets them in handtohand combat. We are backing up now. Police going back to the Convention Center. The last couple of hour we have been out here, i hesitate to think how far we have come from the Convention Center, a half mile to a mile. They are backing up to the command center which is outside of the Convention Center. I hesitate to say this is over but it is certainly quieting down a great deal in the last 15 minutes or so. Jonathon, as you are our viewers understand, we have you on one side of the screen an video from an hour ago with some of those clashes you were talking about on the street. I mentioned did you get a sense there are different groups of people here or true protesters, what you might call
people upset with donald trump and want to voice their opinions and then a smaller, more violent subset of that group, or is everybody pretty much the same and mixed in together . I think your initial analysis is correct. I would guess at 500 protesters outside of the Convention Center. Union members, members of pro immigration groups, carrying wellprepared signs, et cetera. There have been a couple of facebook pages set up to encourage people to come out and to have their legitimate political say. Their make protests and voices heard. Then you certainly theres a different set, i think that was involved in the violence here. They may well be motivated by their dislike of Donald Trumps policies, particularly in a state like new mexico which is 48 hispanic on immigration. But they are obviously a subset as you call it of protesters that are prepared to
carry out violence in registering that protest. We look at the street here. These are some of the rocks, et cetera, that have been thrown through the evening at the police in the middle of the street here. You can imagine, as i was saying to you, as you look at those, you can imagine one of those striking a single officer without any helmet on the head, it could have been a very, very different situation. And we appear at this stage extremely lucky that nobody as far as we are aware, nobody has been hurt in any of this. Jonathon, you yourself, i saw get hit by a rock during the five. Im glad you are okay, as well. It was a small one. Okay. That helps. Jonathon talked about the bravery of the police there. I have to hand it to the bravery of him and his crew. Jonathon hunt will stand by for us on this the street and see if
things deteriorate or get better there. Now 111 07 in albuquerque. Thank you, jonathon. For more on this right now and the primary contest in Washington State, which was going on, we are joined by Susan Hutchinson nchs the states party chairwoman. Thank you for joining us. Are you there . I am. I have to get your reaction to tonights protests and the melee that ensued. I dont think that protesters cause is well served which enthey do this. You look at the Police Officers there. The police for starters really like donald trump. They are voting for him in high numbers. But besides that, the American Public is not sympathetic to people protesting free speech rights of donald trump. Yes, weve got disagreement in this country about various political points of view, but causing this kind of violence is uncalled for. I dont think it helps their cause whatsoever and i think it hurts Hillary Clinton. What about the reflection on Washington State . Anything you would like to say on that . Had you been made aware there was a possibility of this and were you prepared . Are you talking about the results of the state primary today . Im still talking about the protests. Oh, i see. Well, we didnt have a rally here. Although at the two rallies that donald trump has done in the state there were small protests. But theres a different kind of protest in the daytime, in the Early Morning or midday. When the sun is shining, you get a different kind of protest. I think it feels a lot more scary to people in the darkness. Especially when protesters have to faes pepper spray. It has a totally different feel. It is unfortunate. When i was at the trump rally in
spokane, they gave a speech to all of the folks at the rally and they said we believe in free speech, which means the protesters have a right to speak out but you have free speech rights, as well. Feel free. Dont touch them. Dont engage with them but exercise your free speech rights to shout the slogans you believe in. It was a good pep talk for the folks in the Convention Center. Lets move from new mexico to where you are. And talk about the results for tonight. Any surprises there . What will happen moving forward . Well, i dont think there are any surprises. I think if ted cruz were in the race he would have done better. Now he dropped out, people know the race is about the presumptive nominee and he still needs the delegates to get to the magic 1237. So we provided 44 tonight. I think we are a mailin state which means there are a lot of ballots that havent even arrived at the election headquarters yet but i think trump has won every single county. He will get all of our delegates. Heres the thing. The Gop Convention there last weekend in Washington State, cruz supporters won 40 of the states 41 delegate slots even though trump won the primary today. So they are bound, obviously, in the first but if they should be unbound, will they stick with what the people voted for and go with trump or will they go with cruz . This is how it works. The cruz folks were organized even last fall. They were the first to come in and did the best job organizing. So they won delegates over the month at the county convention. Those delegates want to vote for their friends and buddies to go to the National Convention and
they won seats on them platform in the rules committee and in that way they can have a small impact on what goes on at the National Convention. So, i think you will find they understood full well that their nominee is out of the race and we have donald trump. They knew they would be bound by the primary but still wanted to go to a National Convention. I know them. I was chairman of the convention. It was a moment in the convention where i spoke to them about unifying to help our state candidates win and to help beat Hillary Clinton and everybody jumped to their feet and cheered wildly for the unity of the Republican Party. Everyone gets it. Washington state is on the map this year and were really excited about that. You believe when it comes down to it, that all of those delegates, the 40 that went for cruz will end in the end support
donald trump . Well, i dont know how much they will support him, but they are bound by the vote of the people at the cleveland convention. So we will see 44 delegates who are bound to support donald trump. Okay. Thank you so much, susan. Appreciate you joining us. I know you had a busy day there in Washington State. Thank you and congratulations for getting through it. Thank you. Thanks. Washington state results, who would have thought that tonight one mailin primary would turn in to such a big news night. We continue to monitor the situation out of albuquerque right now. It is 11 15 at night in albuquerque and as Jonathon Hunt was reporting the violence there had been going on about two hours. And the protest itself for about five or six hours right now. Hes working the scene there. Hes safe, but moving around there to a different location. This is some of the best or worst of the video from earlier
where things went far beyond a protest. This was outright street violence. In the end it was like a lot of people out there causing trouble to get on tv. I want to ask jonathon and i will if he comes back with us, if he had an opportunity to attempt to speak to any of these protesters at all. If they knew they were out there protesting. I would be interested to hear what they had to say. We saw jonathon get spoken to by some of the protesters. There were some rather choice words, as we look now at pictures. Is this live pictures coming in still . These are live pictures. Joen on this hundred is now back with us. Jonathon, if you can hear us, heather has a question for you. Jonathon, i was wondering if you were able to speak to any of the protesters out there, and if you could repeat anything they said to you that didnt include some fourletter words. Did they know what they were protesting for . Yeah, they did. Speaking to them, which is certainly something we did. We also got spoken at a great deal, if i can put it that way. Yeah. The large group of protesters, the 500 or so outside of the Convention Center certainly knew what they were protesting about. The number one issue, as you would imagine, in a state that is 48 hispanic was immigration. That is what drove most of those protesters to come out and register there their antidonald trump thoughts. As you got out to the situation we see here and what police are mopping up here, certainly you had people who i think it would be fair to say were more interested in the ability to cause trouble on the streets of albuquerque, than they were in the politics of this president ial campaign. So both sides were represented. Yes, those there were those
who simply wanted to throw rocks and bottles at police, cause whatever trouble they could. In the majority, at the Convention Center, before we had these running battles on the streets of albuquerque as i dodged traffic soming through here, they were certainly motivated, i would say, in almost entire part by the immigration issue which is obviously a hot button issue in this particular state. And will be in california. Thats one of the things we have been talking about is where does this go now . We know that you get tend to get copycat situations after events like this. You have to be concerned for Law Enforcement, policing the rallies that are to come in the run up to the june 7th primary. Obviously all of the candidates thereby there. Mr. Trump is in california, in fact tomorrow. So every Law Enforcement agency,
i think has a trump rally in particular scheduled is going to be on high alert indeed. You are based in los angeles. I was talking to brian, our reporter for fox news and also for fox news latino. He was saying that the big fear is in california because latino groups are much more organized out there. Are you hearing anything from lapd and the other major Law Enforcement agencies there in california to try to be prepared more than the Albuquerque Police department was tonight . Yeah. They are saying they are always prepared for any and all situations. They are not about to give us details of those as you well know. But they are prepared and i have to say certainly within the l. A. Area, in san francisco, you have Police Departments that are perhaps more experienced at dealing with these kind of situations than they are in albuquerque. I was saying earlier that it
felt to me that it was a flimsy police line that those several hundred protesters broke through when they first made their rush toward the Convention Center earlier this evening. You have the majority, the large majority of Police Officers who were not in any kind of riot gear at all. When the rocks started coming in, that is an extremely dangerous situation. I dont think you will see that kind of situation in most of the bigger california cities. They are more used to dealing with protests, with riots, however you want to term it. I think they will be better prepared than the Albuquerque Police department. While having said that, of course, you have to pay tribute to the officers standing on the lines right now. They have been out here many hours and they ultimately, as we stand here at this point, they have restored peace to the streets of albuquerque. As far as we are aware without resorting to many arrests if
any. I have not heard of any at this point. Obviously we are not getting every piece of information from the Albuquerque Police department in our situation here but it appears they have restored peace now, as i said, without a large number of arr t arrests having taking place. Great job they did this evening. Great job by you and your crew, as well. Standby for another few minutes before you guys get some shut eye to see if the streets stay calm. You have to hand it to the Albuquerque Police. The initial emails that came through of the lines being breached, the officers were standing there in nothing. In nothing. People are in their face as jonathon put it, screaming at them. They showed enormous restraint through that.