Protester Pushes Officer Guarding Rand Paul Near White House

(Bloomberg) -- Protesters in Washington, D.C., confronted people leaving the White House after President Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention speech, with videos showing demonstrators raising middle fingers and shouting expletives.

In one such video, protesters surround Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, and chant about Breonna Taylor, who was killed in a no-knock raid in Louisville. A demonstrator is then seen shoving a police officer guarding Paul, who stumbled back into the senator.

Videos of the incident were widely shared on social media including by Trump campaign officials and Senator Ted Cruz, a fellow Republican from Texas. In a statement on Twitter, Paul thanked police officers “for literally saving our lives from a crazed mob.”

Republicans made support for law enforcement a central focus of their nominating convention this week, amid protests and riots that have erupted across the country since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May. Protests intensified this week after a police officer in the southeastern Wisconsin city of Kenosha shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back.

“When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will,” Trump said. “We must never allow mob rule.”

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