On Monday, though, the preemptive removal of about two dozen black college students from a crowd waiting for the candidate at Valdosta State University in Georgia raised an obvious question: Why, exactly, did a local police force apparently obey orders from the Trump campaign to help screen his audience by removing dissenters?

The ejection of the students, who had tickets to the event, and their subsequent argument with officers from the city of Valdosta's police department, who led them outside and directed them to a "designated protest zone" about a five-minute walk from the college gym, was extensively documented on video by participants and reporters.