CHICAGO — Raucous protests shut down a planned Donald Trump rally Friday night before the Republican presidential frontrunner even appeared, sparking scenes of chaos inside and outside the arena that the candidate said infringed his right to freedom of speech.

More than 30 minutes after the event was supposed to start, a representative stepped to the lectern to announce that the event was being canceled for safety considerations.


That set off an eruption of cheers and screams from hundreds of people who revealed themselves to be protesters: “We stopped Trump! We stopped Trump!” they said, jumping, shouting and tearing up Trump signs.

The moment revealed that hundreds of people had slipped into the event portraying themselves as Trump supporters. They instead unveiled protest banners, and some hoisted campaign signs for Bernie Sanders.

The crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago pavilion grew contentious long before the originally scheduled 6 p.m. start time, when an entire section of the stadium began protesting.

The intensity of acrimony inside became clear early on as security hauled off one person after another, each time to the screams of the demonstrators.

The anti-Trump contingent, some wearing “Black Lives Matter” shirts, stood and chanted “Let him stay! Let him stay!” as security removed an African American male from the building at another side of the arena. Across the aisles, Trump supporters chanted “USA! USA!”

Later, during another ejection, the protesters chanted, “Shame on you! Shame on you!”

Shortly after the protests broke out, an event announcement instructed supporters not to take matters into their own hands if there was a disruption.

“Please do not touch the protester,” an announcement overhead said. Instead, supporters were instructed, they should chant “Trump! Trump!” until security personnel were able to remove the disruptive person.

One African American male stood up at the announcement and tore a Trump sign in half.

As another male was being escorted up an aisle, he hoisted a sign that simply said: 1492.

An earlier announcement had praised the candidate, characterizing him as a fierce supporter of the First Amendment but describing the event as private and paid for by Trump. At that, Trump supporters cheered.

The announcement also said that protesters had a separate stage outside the arena where they were free to speak.

Tom Piper of Blue Island, wearing a Trump “Make America Great Again” red cap, was reveling in the event as political sport.

“I’m here because this is a great political movement,” Piper said, looking over the crowd. “People should be a little bit more informed. Maybe this will give them the impetus to be more informed.”

After the cancellation was announced, the Trump campaign released the following statement: “Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date.

"Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace."

Trump told MSNBC he cancelled the rally for safety reasons.

"I just don't want to see people hurt," he said. "We can come back and do it another time."

Trump spoke out on CNN later Friday night, claiming his freedom of speech was infringed upon and that he does not regret making earlier statements of violence against protesters.

“We made a decision, even though our freedom of speech has been violated totally, we made a decision not to go forward," Trump told CNN's Don Lemon in a phone interview.

"I don’t want to see anybody get hurt. So I made the decision in conjunction with law enforcement not to do the rally, we postponed it.”

The campaign also canceled a rally that was to be held Sunday afternoon in downtown Cincinatti. Secret Service detail did not complete preparation work in enough time to hold the event at the Duke Energy Convention Center, Cincinnati.com reported.

Trump also defended that the tone he has set at his rallies, insisting that the issues sparked during the rally were mainly tied to the economy.

"I don’t take responsibility," Trump said about the night's chaos. "No one’s been hurt at our rallies. We’ve never had anybody hurt, or certainly seriously hurt."





Trump's Republican rival Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also spoke out later Friday about the protests, saying that some Chicago residents are professional protesters and that they don’t have the right to disrupt an event if they don’t like what’s being said.

“It is clear from watching these images that there are people that are protesting tonight that are part of organized efforts to disrupt this event. This is not the sort of organic thing that happens. It’s Chicago there are a lot of groups that do this basically professionally in some instances,” he told CNN in a phone interview.

But he also jabbed his rival for his incendiary rhetoric on the campaign trail.

“I do think that Mr. Trump needs to own up to the fact that the rhetoric he has used at some of his events has also contributed that you’ve seen in other rallies he’s had. There are consequences to things people say in politics.”

Another Republican presidential candidate, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, also spoke out after the protests.

“The responsibility for that lies with protesters who took violence into their own hands. But in any campaign responsibility starts at the top,” Cruz told CNN.

“Any candidate is responsible for the culture of the campaign. When you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discourse,” he said.

John Kasich said in a statement: "Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly. Some let their opposition to his views slip beyond protest into violence, but we can never let that happen."

Hillary Clinton released a statement saying the "divisive rhetoric we are seeing should be of grave concern to us all," adding that "violence has no place in our politics."

Bernie Sanders tweeted: "We will continue to bring people together. We will not allow the Donald Trumps of the world to divide us up."

Police reported five arrests related to the Trump event. Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the department "was not contacted or involved in the decision to cancel the event." Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel praised officers for their handling of the event.

Well after the rally concluded, protesters circled the pavilion, carrying various signs including some that read "Heil Trump," and "My brother's not a rapist."

“We got together as a city and said, we’re not going to stand for this,” said a triumphant Sam Frank, 26, following the rally.

Frank said various groups talked over social media for days over on how to execute their demonstration.

Protesters said they had gotten tickets by claiming to be real Trump supporters. Many wore protest shirts under their clothes, or had banners stuffed in bags they planned to take out when Trump actually arrived.

Frank said he believed the plan was for at least dozens of people to walk out of the stadium once Trump arrived.

Frank said he pretended to be a Trump fan as he stood in the long line to get into the arena.

“I had to say some pretty scary things to fit in,” he said.

Jasmine Rico said she drove some 90 minutes from Rockford to get to the event. Carrying a sign that read “my brother’s not a rapist,” she said she teared up when she heard some racial slurs yelled out as people poured out of the UIC pavilion.

Hanna Trudo contributed to this report.