PHILADELPHIA — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tried his best inside the Democratic National Convention to foster unity within the party by closing out the roll call vote nominating Hillary Clinton to be presidential nominee, but outside those secure confines his legion of vocal fans vowed to never back the former secretary of state.
Chants of “hell no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary,” reverberated up and down Broad Street, as Sanders backers banged their signs against the temporary 8-foot tall metal walls separating them from the delegates inside the secure Wells Fargo Center arena zone:
Sanders loyalists numbered in the thousands and tried their best to make their presence felt, hurling chants of “shame!” and “election fraud!” at delegates who could be seen walking inside the secured area:
Temperatures soared well into the 90s as the afternoon wore on, and the vocal brigade of Sanders supporters showed no sign of stopping their marches and chants. The epicenter of the action centered around the arena’s subway stop, where delegates could exit the transit system and enter the secure zone without having to mingle with protesters.
One unidentified police officer unleashed a stream of pepper spray from between the bars of a gate at several protesters:
Asked how it felt after catching a face full of spray, one woman said, “it hurts like hell.”
Several protesters later managed to scale a section of fence, where police promptly placed them under arrest once they came down on the hother side. Sanders supporters chanted “thank you!” after each successful fence-climbing effort:
As nighttime set it, the Sanders crowd marched north on Broad Street and encountered Black Lives Matter protesters marching south en route to the convention site:
The two groups marched together back to the area outside the Wells Fargo Center. Other activist groups also gathered in the area, including an aggressive apparent uber-left crowd that denounced the Sanders brand of liberalism and proceeded to burn an American flag:
The action sparked anger from others who both took offense to the flag burning:
Meanwhile, a legion of Sanders supporters held a candlelight vigil on Broad Street. The group formed a circle and softly chanted, “one people, one nation, one tribe.”
Others however elected not to participate in the vigil and instead directed their energy at one of the convention area’s bus access routes. Protesters matched up against police officers lining the gates to the exit route as law enforcement clad in riot gear stood watch from within, drawing the ire of the crowd:
Bruce Carter, founder of Black Men for Bernie, was front-and-center, speaking to police. Carter alleged that an officer intentionally tried to blind him by shining his bicycle light in Carter’s face:
Later it became apparent that buses full of delegates would be leaving from another arena complex exit. Carter questioned whether it was still worthwhile to occupy the access point:
(Evan Lips — New Boston Post) 
