Jesse Marx

The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, spent Wednesday at the Anaheim Convention Center trying to court women, blacks and Latinos — groups that have largely been targets of the candidate's derision and who, as a result, have resisted Trump's rise.

Outside the rally, one found a different scene: protesters punched and stomped a piñata made to look like Trump, and devoured the candy inside. A woman then grabbed the fake severed head and held it high, laughing.

It signaled the start of an unrest that lasted several hours, during which police marched upon and carefully separated protesters, eventually tiring them out, with the threat, rather than the actual use, of violence.

Around the same time Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders rallied in the mostly working-class Cathedral City. His appearance was part of his week-long tour of Southern California. This state's June 7 presidential primary — historically irrelevant — has been deemed all-important this year, at least for Sanders, whose chances of taking the nomination from former secretary of State Hillary Clinton are dwindling.

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Sanders' latest event was — in comparison to the concurrent Trump event in Anaheim — a peaceful affair.

Trump’s tour of the Southwest has been turbulent from the get-go, which shouldn’t surprise anyone given the way he’s insulted some of the same people he's now attempting to woo in order win the White House in November.

A rally Tuesday in Albuquerque, N.M., turned tense as anti-Trump demonstrators lashed out at police, throwing bottles and rocks. Police, in turn, used tear gas to disperse the crowds.

The push back that greeted Trump in Anaheim Wednesday was reminiscent of the unrest that erupted in April in Costa Mesa, where protesters outside another rally damaged police cars. At least 17 people were arrested.

On Wednesday, Trump promised that he would stop undocumented workers from taking American jobs. "And I'll tell you what," he added. "One of the great beneficiaries will be ... African Americans."

Before he took the stage, the crowd was told to leave protesters alone. Better yet: drown them out by chanting. By the time Trump finished talking, at least three people had been escorted out for interrupting.

The scene on the lawn outside the Anaheim Convention Center started out well enough. Cops handed out a list of rules for the anti-Trump demonstrators, which included some basic stuff, like don’t fight and don’t stand in the street.

"We want this demonstration to be as forceful and powerful as we can get it to be,” said Shanta Driver, a Detroit-based lawyer and activist who was among the first to arrive. She had hoped the protest would remain peaceful, but she was clear in her message: The license that Trump gives racists and racist organizations is not acceptable.

Some protesters seemed genuinely disappointed when they heard that media and rallygoers were entering Trump's event through different doors. Early on, law enforcement personnel appeared to have carefully cordoned off the event so that there'd be little interaction between the groups.

Their actions seemed to be working until a group of bald, bearded preachers turned up and started calling protesters “homos.”

“This ain't Ferguson. This ain't Baltimore,” one member of the group said. “Time for you to get to know the God of the Bible. And if you're an illegal alien, I pray to God that that wall gets built 10 times higher.”

Police eventually asked the bald-bearded group to leave for their own safety.

Soon, demonstrators were tossing water bottles at the police officers. One man took off his shirt and told his buddies he was ready for a fight.

In an attempt to calm the crowd, police Sgt. Daron Wyatt crossed the barricade and told reporters that the noise from the demonstrators was OK, but “physical violence and vandalism is not.”

As police tried to separate and move people away from the convention, moving in with batons and horses, protesters set fire to a trash can, kicked up bushes, pulled down a stop sign, threw rocks and a Slurpee. Any Trump supporters with nerve enough to venture into the crowd were immediately surrounded and shouted down.

Forced into a corner behind a restaurant, a young blond man barked in his defense: “I’m not no Nazi, bro!”

Watching the crowd cross through the parking lot — as a line of mounted police officers crept closer — one hotel owner flashed a stun gun and sparked it in the direction of a young woman who waived an anarchy flag.

Unfazed by the threat, the woman responded with a promise: “If Trump is elected, this is what you'll see every day.”

Contributing: Richard Lui, The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun and the Associated Press. Follow Jesse Marx on Twitter: @marxjesse