Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

VIDEO: Protestors Dragged Out of Trump Plaza Hotel Event

By Ben Fractenberg | December 11, 2015 4:21pm
Trump Plaza Hotel Protest
View Full Caption
Zakaria Kromemer

MIDTOWN — A group of protesters were violently thrown out of the Plaza Hotel Friday afternoon after disrupting an event where Donald Trump was the keynote speaker, according to video and the demonstrators.

Trump was speaking at the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s annual Commonwealth Club luncheon when groups of about a dozen protestors — some of whom had bought tickets while others snuck in — started to sing and chant.

“Mama, mama tell me why, why our people gotta die. Trump is trying to bring us down. Attacking people black and brown,” a group of four protesters started to sing after getting into the event.

The protestors said Trump's security quickly grabbed them. 

 A group of protestors were kicked out of the Plaza Hotel Friday after disrupting an event at which Donald Trump was speaking, Dec. 11, 2015. 
Trump Plaza Protest
View Full Caption

“They immediately started going after us. Once we got midway through the room we were starting to get dragged out,” said Zakaria Kronemer, 22, a Muslim-American protestor from Brooklyn. “We were able to sing the song several times over by then and it disrupted the event.”

"What is wrong with you? No, no, that's not that's not appropriate behavior," shouts Jamila Hammami, executive director of Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, after she is seen in video being thrown to the ground.

Other protestors are then heard chanting "Dump Trump!"

Another protestor, Iraq War veteran Jorge Gonzalez, said that he was thrown down a flight of marble stairs for disrupting the event at the plaza.

Officials with Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

The Republican presidential candidate took the protesters in stride, according to a person attending the event.

“[Trump said] ‘Maybe we should increase the ticket prices that were charged,’” said Pennsylvanian Republican Marc Scaringi. “He was smooth, he rolled right along.”

A second group of protesters, who had purchased tickets to the event, stood up one at a time to speak against the candidate.

“We are kind and welcoming people and we are singing against hate,” Jewish activist Judith Plaskow told DNAinfo she sang during the event.

Plaskow said the she was then tossed from the Plaza.

Trump was driven out of the hotel’s garage and did not address reporters or protestors outside.  

His campaign did not return an immediate request for comment.