Police officers intervene after a fan unrolled a banner in support of former U.S. President Donald Trump during Game Two of a doubleheader between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on May 27, 2021.Photo: Sarah Stier/Getty
Trump supporter Dion Cini, a self-described “Professional Provocateur,” displayed his banners at Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Fenway Park and Citizens Bank Park,according to Insider, and has shared body camera footage of his interactions with security upon being asked to remove them.
Once the MLB got word of Cini’s continued displays, he says, they sent him a letter banning him from stadiums.
“During the course of the past several weeks, you entered Major League Baseball stadiums in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia for the purpose of conducting ‘flag drops.’ This activity is prohibited at each of these stadiums, and your fan code of conduct violations resulted in the ejection from each of them,” read the letter, whichCini shared on Twitter.
The MLB did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for further comment.
Cini appears to sell the banners himself online and since his ban has shared instructions on social media encouraging others to continue the controversial flag drops.
His ban came one month after he displayed a banner at Yankee Stadium bearing the words “Trump Won, Save America.” Insider reports that Cini and a friend were escorted from the stadium after they unfurled the banner but were allowed to keep it.
Footage of the exchange shows a security guard telling the men, “I’ll respect you all day long, just throw the same respect back to the cops and to my guys. I got no problem with Trump. I got no problem with the Trump flag!”
Prior to his ban, Cini told Insider that he felt many security guards shared his political leanings and would therefore protect him from being kicked out.
“There’s a reason why they keep me in the baseball stadiums. I’m welcome back at any baseball stadium, even once I’ve already dropped that, any time I want,” he told Insider in the earlier interview. “The reason, I think, I’m not kicked out of the stadiums is because, I think, the people at the top are conservatives.”
Mother Jonesreported in Aprilthat Cini, who has previously organized pro-Trump boat parades, could be seen shouting “White power!” on a video posted to social media earlier this year. He later told the outlet that he was shouting the phrase “as a troll.”
The outlet added that Cini, while something of a fringe figure, has been pictured with Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr., and former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka.
CNN described Cini in a2017 articleas a “former Marine from the Upper West Side.” At the time, Cini was known to row an 18-foot rowing boat outfitted with a large “Trump 2020” flag along the Manhattan shoreline.
His favored “Trump Won” slogan echoes the lies Trump and many conservatives have spread about the 2020 presidential election in which lost both the popular and electoral votes to PresidentJoe Biden.
Trump has also claimed that theEmmy Awards- The Apprentice Has Lost Eight Times">Emmy AwardsandGoogleare rigged against him.
source: people.com
