Name: Tempers revved up outside West Gray polling site after report of suspicious backpack
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Tempers revved up outside West Gray polling site after report of suspicious backpack

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateClusters of vocal campaign supporters appeared to outnumber voters outside the popular West Gray Multi-Service Center polling site Tuesday morning, as a car circled the block revving its engine and swerving close to a line of people along the curb holding flags and placards supporting Donald Trump.Zana Gibson, 49, of Spring, was waving a Trump flag when she said, “A goldish Toyota Corolla rust bucket swerved and tried to hit me and then came back and tried to do it again.” Another woman captured a video of the car she was sharing with Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, who had come by to investigate a suspicious backpack left among the Trump supporters.Election Day 2020 Live Updates:&nbsp;Acevedo said by 7 a.m. the West Gray voting center had about 300 voters, but the crowd had lightened by midday. He said the department had received no reports of voter intimidation at the site.Across the street, Max Fleischer, a 15-year-old volunteer for Democrat Ann Johnson’s Texas House District 134 campaign, said the Trump contingent had been blasting messages through a bullhorn and setting off sirens in the early morning. He said they were also blocking voters along the sidewalk, yelling about Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama being pedophiles and dissuading them from casting a vote.&nbsp;Lisa Riles, 49, who was campaigning with Democrats, said she heard someone from the Trump contingent across the street call Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee “dingy” and “dirty.”&nbsp;Malachi Hollies, a Black Lamar High School student canvassing for the GLBT Caucus, said a Trump supporter with a Mexican flag had been talking about Obama putting people in cages called him a “monkey.” The man he pointed to, Jose Casares, denied calling Hollies or anyone else “monkey.”&nbsp;“I was at Black Lives Matter, my best friend is Black,” Casares said. “I used to be a Democrat.” He said he’d had a spiritual awakening about the presidential race during the pandemic when Donald Trump said he would re-open churches.A masked Acevedo said an unknown man had left a bag and said he was going to McDonald’s.More for you“They don’t know him so they’re a little nervous about the bag just being there,” the police chief said. “Most people aren’t going to just leave their belongings behind, so we’re treating it as suspicious bag and we’re getting (the explosive ordinance disposal unit) to come out here and have a dog take a look at it and see if it hits on it.”&nbsp;Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who is on the ballot, was across the street talking with other supporters in the parking lot.&nbsp;Shortly after, on the Trump side of West Gray, a man who appeared to be in his 20s showed up with a McDonald’s bag and retrieved the black backpack that had been the focus of police investigation. The man in a Republican party of Texas T-shirt and Astros World Series ball cap declined to give his name.&nbsp;&nbsp;Sitting in a portable chair tucking into his French fries, he said he really didn’t mean to stir up a fuss. He’d come to support his friend Martha Fierro, but he wasn’t sure what office she was seeking. A sign on the ground next to his chair had the information: Texas House District 145.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateClusters of vocal campaign supporters appeared to outnumber voters outside the popular West Gray Multi-Service Center polling site Tuesday morning, as a car circled the block revving its engine and swerving close to a line of people along the curb holding flags and placards supporting Donald Trump.Zana Gibson, 49, of Spring, was waving a Trump flag when she said, “A goldish Toyota Corolla rust bucket swerved and tried to hit me and then came back and tried to do it again.” Another woman captured a video of the car she was sharing...

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Tempers revved up outside West Gray polling site after report of suspicious backpack

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