So it looks like Donald Trump's rally in St. Louis was one big bucket of crazy
UPDATED 3:40 p.m. PT with details on arrests.
A Donald Trump rally at the Peabody Opera House in downtown St. Louis provided some of the tensest moments yet between supporters of the billionaire businessman and protesters opposed to his controversial candidacy for president.
Protesters who managed to get into the venue disrupted his speech at numerous points, and each time the crowd responded with chants of "USA!", "Trump! Trump! Trump!" or, "Get a job!"
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The clash resulted in 32 arrests, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Most of the arrests occurred inside the venue, while four took place outside. One person was charged with 3rd degree assault (knowingly or recklessly causing bodily injury to another person) while the rest were slapped with general peace disturbances.
After several interruptions, Trump said, "These are not the people who made our country great." He complimented police and security officers who escorted the protesters out of the opera house.
"I think we set a record with the wise guys," Trump remarked after one of the interruptions. According to a local CBS affiliate, the event was interrupted at least six times.
At least one protester, a black man in a white outfit, was seen being escorted away by St. Louis police, his face and sweatshirt bloodied. It is unclear how that happened.
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Trump's rallies have seen increasing threads of violence in recent days, as emotions between anti-Trump protesters and supporters of the billionaire businessman have slowly boiled over.
The St. Louis event comes five days before Missouri votes in primaries for both parties, and marks the first rally since a Trump supporter was charged with assault for striking a protester in what witnesses described as a "sucker-punch."
Some of those who protested on Friday wore Black Lives Matter t-shirts. Others carried signs that read, "Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler, Same Hate, Same Rhetoric," and "Mr. Hate, Leave My State."
A crowd gathered outside chanted, "The people, united, will never be defeated," and cheered as fellow protesters were sent to the street.
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Earlier in the day, reporters covering the event posted images and video of protesters and Trump supporters going toe to toe with one another, occasionally being physically separated by police.
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Trump has been criticized for encouraging violence against those who protest his rallies, as recently as Friday morning telling a reporter, "These are people that punch, these are people that are violent people."
Speaking specifically about a February 23 incident where he said he personally wanted to punch a protester, Trump — who has said he'd pay the legal bills for anyone who punches a protester — defended the ones who did.
"The audience hit back," Trump said. "That's what we need a little more of."
Additional information from the Associated Press.
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Topics Donald Trump Elections
Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
