Sanders supporters practice convention protests

Supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential bid, which is all but officially over now that Hillary Clinton has the pledged delegates needed to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, practiced disruptive behavior on Saturday at the People’s Summit conference in Chicago. 

{mosads}Sponsored by National Nurses United — a progressive union that backed Sanders — the People’s Summit aims to unite progressives to put pressure on the Democratic Party and Clinton, BuzzFeed reported. 

In the basement where the conference was held, some younger Sanders supporters prepared for “direct action” — loud, consistent and perhaps disruptive protests outside the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia next month. 

Several dozen attended a training session on how to march, how to follow a chant, how to defy police orders to creating human chains, and how to conduct themselves when police step in and physically remove them.  

Thousands of Sanders supporters have signed a Facebook petition promising to protest the Democratic convention, and many said Saturday they expected the police to step in.

“They’re going to arrest people, period, end of story. So we just want to prepare ourselves,” Cassidy Turner told BuzzFeed. “We’re not going to be violent. We don’t really have a reason to get arrested, but it’s going to happen. So we want to prepare ourselves.”