Trump Supporters Gather in Oklahoma for Large Rally

2020-06-20

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Tens of thousands of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump converged Saturday on Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Trump will hold his first large-scale rally since the coronavirus shutdown and nationwide protests of police brutality.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a request Friday to require everyone attending the rally to wear a face mask to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The state court ruled that several local residents who made the request did not have a clear legal right to seek such a mandate.

The Trump campaign said organizers would provide masks and hand sanitizer to anyone who wanted them. On Saturday, people wearing goggles, masks, gloves and blue gowns used thermometers to check the temperatures of those entering the rally area. Some rallygoers were wearing masks, and some took off their masks after clearing the checkpoint.

Six Trump campaign staff members helping to prepare for the event tested positive for COVID-19, the campaign said. Tim Murtaugh, the campaign's communications director, said they wouldn't attend the rally and would follow quarantine procedures.

The managers of the Bank of Oklahoma Center, the indoor multipurpose arena in Tulsa where the rally will take place, asked the president's campaign for a written health and safety plan. BOK Center officials said they requested the plan because Tulsa has experienced a recent increase in coronavirus cases.

The arena has seats for 19,000 people, and the Trump campaign said more than a million people sought tickets.

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said a crowd of 100,000 people or more was expected in the area.

Tulsa city workers erected a high metal fence Friday to barricade the rally site.

Protests were taking place Saturday, and some of Tulsa's black leaders said they were worried violence could break out in a city with a history of racial tension.

One protester arrested Saturday. a woman who was sitting in peaceful protest inside a secure area outside the arena, was pulled away by her arms and handcuffed by police.

She identified herself as Sheila Buck from Tulsa and said she had a ticket to the rally. She said officers told her she was being arrested for trespassing. She said she was not part of any organized group.

Trump tweeted on Friday, "Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!"

A White House spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany, said Trump was referring to violent protesters, not peaceful ones.

Nationwide protests erupted last month after the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minnesota. Floyd, who was African American, died after a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee to Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes.

The Tulsa rally was originally scheduled for Friday but was pushed back a day after criticism that it fell on Juneteenth, the date that marks the end of slavery in the United States, and takes place in a city that has a history of racial tension. Tulsa was the scene of attacks by a white mob in 1921 that left several hundred African Americans dead.