Students turn out to protest Trump speech at Shale Insight Conference
September 27, 2016
View more photos in our Trump Protest: through the lenses of our photojournalists series here.
A group of protesters that included Point Park students gathered outside of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center during Donald Trump’s speech at the Shale Insight Conference in demonstration last Thursday. They then attempted to interrupt a Trump fundraiser at the Duquesne Club in Downtown Pittsburgh after the conference.
Trump promised deregulation for energy companies at the conference, telling attendees, “You are going to like Donald Trump,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Trump also promised to return the steel industry back to western Pennsylvania.
The demonstration covered a litany of topics, ranging from climate change to social justice movements like Black Lives Matter. The event was partially organized by One Pittsburgh, a worker’s rights organization, and NextGen Climate PA, an environmental advocacy group.
Though the protest was initially planned as a statement against the environmental policies of Donald Trump and the Shale Insight Conference, the Black Lives Matter movement became of prominent aspect of the demonstrations.
As the protesters made their way down Sixth Avenue after Trump’s speech, their path was momentarily blocked by police officers trying to clear the street, though the crowd pressed forward and made their way to the Duquesne Club.
Once there, marchers sat down on Sixth Avenue and started chanting at the men and women entering the club. One man was arrested for blocking the revolving door entering the Duquesne Club, the Pittsburgh Public Safety Department said. Michael Badges-Canning, who is running for a seat in the state House of Representatives on the Green Party ticket, was charged with defiant trespass, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Point Park students participated in the events on Thursday as both spectators and artists.
Alex Cromer, a senior advertising major at Point Park, was in the middle of the protest, utilizing his artistic skill to build an interactive sculpture of his own design that he said was about environmental activism.
His project, entitled “The Poetry of Freedom,” was a model tree with paper leaves upon which other protesters could write poetry, song lyrics or anything else they wanted to use to express their views on the injustices they were opposing.
The protest turned violent when police on horses came, according to Point Park freshman political science major Dannys Marrero.
“What I did find unnecessary was when they brought in the cavalry,” Marrero said.
Extra police supervision was put in place to prevent another riot like the one that broke when Trump visited the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in April. Four officers were injured and three individuals were arrested on various charges, ranging from aggravated assault to rioting, that day.
Marrero noted that his mother was a police officer in Puerto Rico, that he has the utmost respect for them and found much of the behavior by the protesters unnecessary as well.
While no major injuries were reported, Point Park student Harleigh Foster, a freshman sports, arts and entertainment management (SAEM) major, said she sustained an ankle injury after being forcibly pushed off the sidewalk and onto the street by a police officer.
“The police with riot gear on wanted us off the sidewalk, so they started pushing back. And we were all moving, but weren’t moving fast enough,” Foster said. “This police officer shoved me and I fell off the sidewalk into the street.”
At the demonstration, Foster said she did not plan to file a police report.
Point Park freshman broadcast production major Donethe Cyprien described the scene as “straight chaos”.
“Police officers were pushing us,” Cyprien said. “I felt like a criminal or something. I don’t hate police. I know they’re good guys, but this was scary.”
Primary concerns of the Point Park student body in the upcoming election tended to vary by area of study.
“I want to give a message with acting that it’s okay to be who you are. It’s okay to be diverse. Trump won’t do anything for that,” said freshman acting major Nadia Abdelaal.
Nate Grossi, a freshman SAEM major, expressed his concern for his future under a Donald Trump presidency.
“I want to use my future in entertainment to communicate an accepting view.” Grossi said. “He has ideas that go against everything like that and everything the entertainment industry stands for.”
