During Trump protest on Santa Monica Pier, man sprays crowd with bear repellent
The alleged assailant has a fairly extensive criminal record, according to police. They're also looking for a second person who may have also been spraying the crowd.
I don't know much about bear repellent, but they said it was something like pepper spray.
The clash occurred around 1:20 in the afternoon after a group protesting Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made their way from the beach onto the pier, one of the region’s busiest tourist attractions, said Santa Monica Police Sgt. D. Hicks, who declined to give his full name.
The protesters were met on the pier by a group of Trump supporters, Hicks said. The two groups traded chants and taunts for about 10 minutes and then “everything went to crap,” according to Hicks.
Trump supporters appeared to begin pushing and scuffling with some of the protesters. A video of the expletive-filled skirmish posted to YouTube shows a man wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat circling the crowd, holding aloft a canister and unleashing a torrent of spray from it.
The substance, which Hicks said was bear repellent, sent the crowd scattering and people can be heard screaming on the video. As other Trump supporters held a protester on the ground, the man rushed back into the fracas and doused the protester at close range, the video shows.
The alleged assailant has a fairly extensive criminal record, according to police. They're also looking for a second person who may have also been spraying the crowd.
I don't know much about bear repellent, but they said it was something like pepper spray.