About 400 pro-Trump demonstrators turned up on Utah’s Capitol Hill on Wednesday to show their continued loyalty to the White House occupant who so far as refused to accept his reelection defeat. The protest in Salt Lake City was one of more than a dozen at state Capitols around the nation, according to news reports. But violence at the state-centered rallies was only sporadic — a sharp contrast to the mob scene in Washington, D.C., where backers of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, forcing evacuation of Congress members and staff to disrupt the Electoral College vote count, breaking windows and destroying property and resulting in the shooting death of at least one person. The Utah protest was mostly peaceful, although it was marred by several skirmishes or threatened confrontations with a small group of Black Lives Matter counterprotesters, the escort of one man off the premises by members of the Proud Boys and Utah Citizens Alarm (UCA) armed with bats and guns, and the unprovoked pepper-spraying of a Tribune photographer. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, sworn in just two days earlier, told his staffers to work from home, as did some other elected leaders and state offices, based on precautionary advice from Capitol Security. In a video message from the governor’s mansion, Cox condemned the “cowardly acts of violence” in Washington, D.C., but said he was grateful the demonstration at the Utah Capitol was “mostly peaceful.”
Full Article: Protesters outside the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City prompt the building to be evacuated