A judge on Tuesday denied an emergency motion to stop president Donald Trump’s rally that will be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday. A group of Tulsa lawyers came together to file a law suit against president Donald Trump to stop him from hosting the rally. They were asking his administration to take heed to their own social distancing recommendations to slow the spread of COVID-19.
What We Know:
- The decision came after the attorneys requested a hearing to ask for an emergency temporary injunction to prevent the rally from happening while the lawsuit moves forward.
- The petition states that the rally will not only endanger people in attendance, but also the Tulsa community and any community guests that may travel to Tulsa. The petition also states that if ASM Global continues to move forward with the rally without adequate review, planning, training, protective equipment, and safeguards, cases of COVID-19 and the unavoidable attendant deaths will increase.
- This rally will be Trump’s first major campaign event since the coronavirus pandemic. Officials are expecting hundreds and thousands of supporters to be in attendance. The Bank of Oklahoma Center holds about 20,000 people but the Trump campaign has claimed that more than 1 million individuals have already made an online RSVP to attend.
- There has been controversy surrounding the rally since it was announced. There are mounting concerns about the spread of the virus but also fears that Trump’s presence in the city will cause racial tensions.
- Paul DeMuro, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, stated that the decision to sue to stop the rally was not political. “We’re not asking to stop the rally. So you need to understand that, first, if Joe Biden, if the Thunder (the NBA team in nearby Oklahoma City), if Garth Brooks was wanting to have a 19,000-person event and this center on Sunday, without abiding by the government mandated CDC guidelines, with respect to mass events, we’d be making the same allegations and filing the same lawsuit,” DeMuro said.
Although DeMuro made it clear that the lawsuit was not political, there was a message included. The lawsuit notes the Tulsa race massacre which is one of the most violent racist events in American history in which a white mob killed hundreds of African Americans and destroyed the Greenwood neighborhood, also known as Black Wall Street.
