A rally for Donald Trump held at the University of Illinois at Chicago was cancelled in the interest of safety as protesters and supporters of the presidential candidate clashed March 11.
Chicago police, university police, Illinois State Police and federal authorities struggled for hours to keep order at the rally, where tensions between crowds of Trump supporters and protesters were high.
The rally was set to take place at the university’s pavilion, which seats almost 10,000. Hours before Trump was set to take the stage, however, it was clear there would be problems as thousands of people came to the campus to wait in line for tickets.
Although protesters have attended Trump rallies across the country, they were expected to be especially numerous in Chicago, a historically democratic and racially diverse city. Roughly 10,000 people had agreed to march to campus on an anti-Trump Facebook page, and police eventually stopped allowing people on campus.
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University staff and faculty members had urged the school not to allow the rally and submitted a letter to administrators requesting they distance themselves from the event, according to the New York Times.
Trump’s decision not to speak at the rally came minutes before he was set to take the podium and was met with cheers by protesters as his supporters, who had waited hours for him, slowly filed out of the arena in anger.
Students from the university participated on both sides of the rally.
By the end of the night, Chicago police had made two arrests, university police had made two arrests and the Illinois State Police had made one. The Chicago Fire Department reported three injuries, including a police officer.
