'Are They Going To Kill Me?' Trump Supporter Talks About Being Injured During Melee
COSTA MESA (CBLA.com) A political blogger who was injured during an anti-Trump rally in Orange County Thursday spoke out today about the unruly mob.
Cole Bartiromo of Mission Viejo is also a Trump supporter. He says he became quite fearful when a mob turned on him.
"Suddenly, out of nowhere, " says Bartiromo, "I felt this thud in the front of my head."
He needed six stitches to close his head wound.
Bartiromo told Gile he only got in the middle of the melee to document it, not to participate.
Within moments, he says someone knocked off his Trump hat, hurled slurs at him and then slugged him.
"And I started panicking," Bartiromo says, "Getting scared, thinking 'When are they going to stop? Are they going to kill me?' I mean, these aren't rational people."
A Costa Mesa Police officer and a horse with the Huntington Beach Police Mounted Unit were also assaulted in the fracas.
Thousands of anti-Trump protesters staged a demonstration Thursday night outside the Orange County Fairgrounds where Donald Trump was addressing thousands of his supporters.
Some of the demonstrators blocked traffic, threw rocks, held profane signs and vandalized at least two patrol vehicles. The cars were described as "badly damaged."
More than 300 police officers worked the anti-Trump rally and Gile reports that will cost the fairgrounds, which is run by the state, tens of thousands of dollars.
Seventeen people in all were arrested by Costa Mesa Police for refusing to disperse, authorities said. All but two of the people taken into custody were in their teens and 20s from LA and Orange Counties and the Inland Empire.
