Outside Manhattan courthouse, cheers, jeers over Trump guilty verdict

Shouts of “guilty!” broke the news to Donald Trump’s fans, foes and other gawkers awaiting the verdict Thursday afternoon outside Manhattan Criminal Court. Fifteen floors up, the cheering on the street was audible in the courtroom as Trump became the first U.S. president, current or former, to be convicted of a crime.

Within 15 minutes, giant anti-Trump banners celebrating the verdict had been spray-painted. A Trump impersonator in an orange jumpsuit made the rounds. A man sang a song: “Lock him up!”

Red-hatted Trump supporters were outnumbered.

Trump’s foes cheered the news as a vindication of the rule of law, at last a reckoning for a man who’s long skirted justice for his misdeeds. His fans jeered that same news as the latest in a series of politically motivated witch hunts, more fuel to power Trump’s return to the presidency in 2024.

Collect Pond Park, a space dating to Colonial times that has served as a makeshift caldron of protest since the first of several grand juries indicted Trump last year, was where hundreds gathered yet again to commiserate or celebrate — or fight — over the verdict.

“Guilty! Guilty! 34 times!” a woman shouted in refrain over another man, who was wearing a “TRUMP 2024” hat, who shouted back, “you’re full of hate!” as yet another man taunted the Trump fan that Joe Biden is “an unconvicted president.”

Several NYPD officers stood between the shouters.

Belio Martinez, 31, of Harlem, wearing a MAGA hat, used a barnyard expletive to describe the verdict before using more polite language.

“It’s a bunch of malarkey. It’s a sham trial,” he said.

Gene Jacobson, a 72-year-old paralegal who lives in TriBeCa, was sitting outside listening to the radio near the courthouse when he heard the verdict.

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” he said. “I hate Donald Trump.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think it means much in terms of what matters to the next election. I wish it would matter a lot, but people who vote for Trump are morons,” he said.

Crowds also gathered outside Trump's namesake tower in midtown after the verdict.

Florida tourist Andrew Larson, 16, had his camera out.

"It’s an interesting time to be alive,” he said. “What are people going to say 30 years from now? Crazy.”

Kevin Burke, 47, of Rochester, said he was is in town being treated for stage 4 cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

“I thought there would be more happening. More chaos,” he said. “More sparks flying.”

At the park, Amanda Guinzburg, a writer who lives in lower Manhattan, rushed down to the courthouse when she heard there would be a verdict.

“I think it’s a great day for the rule of law and New York City and the United States of America, because he’s a person who’s been committing crimes for upwards of 50 years and this is the first time he’s ever been held criminally accountable for any of them. I think it’s important that one of these cases was decided before the election. Whether or not it has any impact I still think it’s important that it happened.”

Stefano Grassi, 29, a tourist and salesperson from Torino, Italy, was at the nearby 9/11 museum and went to see the verdict aftermath. Grassi was carrying an American flag he had just purchased at the museum.

“I hope that American people finally would see Trump for who he is,” he said: “a criminal and not a representative of what United States' values are.”

Surveying the scene, Tyler Fischman, 20, a Brown University rising sophomore from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said he considered what was happening — the political arguments, the dueling signs, the passionate screaming — as a microcosm of where the country America is today.

“It’s a spectacle,” he said, adding: “It’s a reflection of what’s going on in America.”

With Janon Fisher and Craig Schneider

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.