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LOS ANGELES (KNX) - Supporters of former President Donald Trump have gathered outside the Miami courthouse where he’ll be arraigned on 37 felony charges Tuesday afternoon. Multiple agencies are on the ground, including the Department of Homeland Security, as authorities brace for possible unrest.
Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told KNX News that law enforcement is “as prepared as you can be” to control the crowd at the arraignment. The mayor and police chief have activated the entire Miami Police Department, as well as the Miami-Dade county police.
“They have looked at social media, they have done estimates, and their estimates run between 5,000 and 50,000 people,” he said. “That sounds like a lot, but in truth, we handle demonstrations of up to a million people sometimes.”
Davis said there may be a small number of agitators in the crowd, but the main risk of violence comes from potential confrontations between Trump’s supporters and counter-protesters. Police are also on heightened alert for online personalities who may try to incite violence on social media.
“If there are well-known people that have a lot of followers that are able to rile people up and then make the statement, ‘go down there and do this or do that,’ that’s the scenario that I think police are most concerned about, be it in Miami or across the country today,” Davis said.
Brian Levin, professor at Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said that given the intense spreading of anger on social media, unrest in Miami isn’t the only thing to worry about.
“Because of the diverse and clustered and somewhat fragmented sociopolitical online world we’re in, these retransmitters – I’m talking about congresspeople, for instance, who are talking in militaristic terms – can really galvanize disparate anger into something different,” he told KNX News.
Levin thinks that anger could play out nationally over a period of months. Some experts worry that testimony in Trump’s trial could trigger violence as the 2024 election season begins.
Law enforcement agencies in the Los Angeles area said there has been no indication of local protests or demonstrations Tuesday related to the events in Miami.
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