Left’s Latest Anti-Free Speech Tactic: Road Blocks

Protesters block a street during an anti-Trump rally outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel where
JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images
Lee Stranahan

The latest tactic by leftists looking to prevent political speech they disagree with is blockading the roads outside Republican political events in order to disrupt them.

At a number of recent events, community-organized protesters have shut down roadways and blocked access to Donald Trump’s speeches and rallies. These tactics are worth noting as we get closer to the Republican national convention to be held in Cleveland this summer.

The first known, successful road shutdown happened miles from a Trump event near Phoenix, Arizona in March. Scores of protesters defiantly blocked a road in order to stop people from being able to hear Donald Trump speak.

Breitbart News reporter AWR Hawkins was caught up in the blockade and unable to get to the event. As he wrote at the time:

At about 1:10 pm an Arizona state trooper and a Scottsdale police vehicle passed with lights flashing and sirens blaring–they were driving eastbound on the westbound side of Shea in order to reach an intersection at divert traffic. They pulled their vehicles into the intersection at Shea and 136th and forced all three eastbound lanes to U-turn. The point of the U-turn was about 2.8 miles from the location of the rally.

I tried to talk to an officer when I reached the front of the line. I told him I was going to the Trump rally, but he said, “Sorry, but you’re going to u-turn.”

At more recent events last week in Burlingame, California and Eugene, Oregon protesters once again blockaded roads. In Burlingame, Donald Trump and his cadre of Secret Service agents were forced to leave their car.

https://youtu.be/gnc50KHbvuM

https://youtu.be/xrqJjJpQCU4

https://twitter.com/emeraldopalite/status/729180104111235072

Leftist protesters have created an iterative movement, which will continue to develop and use tactics so long as they’re successful. Thus far, police and Secret Service agents seemed unprepared to deal with roadblocks set up by leftist protesters.

Unless law enforcement is able to get a grip on the free-speech haters roadblocks that is more effective than “sorry, you’re going to have to U-Turn” expect to see this tactic continue throughout 2016.

Follow Breitbart News investigative reporter and Citizen Journalism School founder Lee Stranahan on Twitter at @Stranahan.

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