A massive caravan of President Trump supporters paraded for 60 miles through Riverside County on Sunday afternoon before converging on a large Temecula sports park, snarling traffic and upsetting some voters, officials there said.
The winding caravan of pickup trucks and other vehicles adorned with pro-Trump signs and American flags began at a Riverside restaurant and sped west along the 91 Freeway and then south on Interstate 15. They had been organized under a Twitter hashtag associated with similar events in other states.
The destination was the Ronald Reagan Sports Park in Temecula, a sprawling community center with soccer fields, a skate park and a voting location. An estimated crowd of roughly 4,000 people crowded the facility about 2 p.m., officials said.
Capt. Zach Hall with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said his officers made no arrests but did field a few complaints from intimidated voters — and scrambled to unwind a massive traffic jam in an area where officials weren’t prepared for so many vehicles at once.
“They kind of caught us off guard,” said Hall, who heads the department’s Temecula station. “We had a lot of traffic issues. The infrastructure there is not really designed for that kind of traffic.”
The caravan, which was peaceful if boisterous, caused a disturbance for some voters at the Temecula Recreation Center, a voting location. The partisan signs, shirts and other materials near the center prompted complaints to authorities about potential violations of the 100-foot electioneering rule in state law.
“Law enforcement was contacted to ensure that access to the parking lot and voter assistance center were clear,” said Brooke Federico, a spokeswoman for Riverside County, said in an email. “The Sheriff’s Department responded and cleared access to the parking lot and voter assistance center.”
Hall said deputies investigated the complaints and talked to poll workers, concluding that the Trump supporters had largely kept their distance.
The parade and mass gathering came the same day Trump supporters gathered in vehicles at another park near Grandview Drive and Newhall Ranch Road in Santa Clarita. Videos of the event on Twitter showed dozens of pickup trucks and vans, some painted with pro-Trump slogans, slowly moving and honking at the intersection.
The events came a day after hundreds of Trump supporters rallied in Beverly Hills. Wearing “MAGA” hats, waving U.S. flags and shouting “four more years” and “turn California red,” the demonstrators gathered at the intersection of Beverly and Santa Monica boulevards.
Times photographer Gina Ferazzi contributed to this report.
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