I also noticed a strange dude. Tall, late 20s/early30's. He was first over where the hispanic or whatever who tore the sign in half was, on the upper level behind and to the left of the podium. He was going through the rows, like he had dropped something and was searching for something. I thought he was maybe looking for extra Trump signs. Then, after the guy with the torn sign was escorted out, this young man came over behind us, where we had just wandered a few minutes before, directly behind Trump, thinking to get an wide audience pix. I noticed him because he seemed rushed, and he was standing with his back to us, fiddling with something. When he took his backpack off his shirt was sweaty and he was wiping sweat off his face. I expected him to sit down. I mean, if someone rushed to find something they'd dropped, wouldn't they want to rest a second? But instead he took some sort of battery pack or something that had a white wire and hung it around his neck, along with a round base (magnetic?) for a iPhone. This fiddling went on for a bit and my better half walked to the section exit and mentioned the behavior to the agent there.
A minute or two after that, this guy starts reaching up into the ceiling tiles (!) like he was trying to mount his camera there? I couldn't understand why. We had already discovered that we were too far away for a good clear view of the audience with our own phones and he had been fiddling with his phone long enough to discover that too. All this drew the attention of at least two guys on the lower level, who I saw were pointing him out. All of a sudden a guy in a white shirt came from my left towards the guy and the agent got up to where the guy was and they talked a bit. Next thing I know, the guy is now sitting 4 seats from us, with the iPhone in this maybe magnetic base, trying to balance it on the rail - like he was trying to show what he was doing, but wasn't keeping the camera steady and also was not saying anything. Then he gets up, moved a section over and did the same thing with the iphone, and another section over and then he disappeared. Just like the guy who tore the sign in half, and then waved it around until someone noticed, it was like 'ceiling tile' guy was trying to get noticed.
When I got home, I learned the first person booted (also booted in Costa Mesa) from the rally, Naui Huitzilopochtli, who complained he was "tackled going to the restroom," said he was a photographer. I saw his photo, and it's not the same guy we saw messing with the ceiling tiles. It's a little strange that there would be two or maybe three wonky photographers at the same event, but maybe SoCal just has some really, really weird photographers?
The good news for us was, we were in overflow parking so we were able to drive out the side away from the parking garage and missed all the 'fun'.( Which I'm sure it wasn't being trapped in a parking garage!!) As we're driving home, expecting everything to be pretty much over and done, we're listening to talk radio about rocks being thrown at horses by a few dozen protestors which was thinned to 12. Then we hear the numbers grew to 40 by 5pm and 100ish by 6pm, all of them trying to get ugly with the PD, which probably outnumbered them by 4 to 1 ! It was 9pm before things were quiet again.
Wonder if that base was a charging device of some time !
Were you able to get a signal with your phone ?
I suspect somehow the cell phone signals are turned off or maybe the sound system interferes with it as in the rally In Indiana and at least one other people were unable to make calls while DT spoke We could text
Interesting report. Thanks for sharing.