SWAMPSCOTT — Former radio host and Massachusetts 4 Trump founder Dianna Ploss was arrested at a demonstration in Plymouth over the weekend following an altercation in which she allegedly punched a counter-protester.
Ploss has become known in Swampscott for the rally she organizes each Thursday in support of President Trump.
The incident that led to Ploss’ arrest began around 12:30 p.m. Saturday at “President Trump’s Plymouth Rock MASK-uerade,” an event that Ploss had organized.
According to Rita Fiorello, the counter-protester involved in the altercation, the issue began when Ploss was agitated by a wall of rainbow signs that the counter-protesters were holding.
“(Ploss) was angry that we made a wall of rainbow signs blocking Plymouth Rock and got there before she did,” Fiorello said. “When she arrived, she tried to violently push her way to the street. When she was removed from one part of the wall by police, she moved in front of me. I annoyed her with my sign which she and her friend tried to grab out of my hands.”
“I told her to stop touching my property or I would touch hers,” Fiorello said. “She continued, so I knocked over her tripod and she took a swing at me and punched me in the mouth. She was arrested because the whole scene was in view of the police.”
Ploss was released shortly after her arrest and returned to the rally just after 2:30 p.m.
Ploss’ Swampscott rallies began in April, when Ploss — who was a radio host at WSMN in Nashua, N.H., before being let go in July following an incident in which she filmed herself telling a landscaping crew to speak English and questioning their immigration status — and dozens of her supporters gathered outside Gov. Charlie Baker’s home, initially to protest Baker’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
Since then, the event has evolved into weekly demonstrations in support of President Trump and law enforcement. This summer, a weekly counter-protest formed with demonstrators showing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ploss’ Swampscott rallies have included the presence of Confederate flags and “White Lives Matter” signs. One man, who said he was an interloper unaffiliated with either side the demonstrators represented, showed up in a Ku Klux Klan robe, and then in blackface, on successive Thursdays.
Many demonstrators go maskless despite the large crowd being at close proximity to one another.
“She’s never gotten physically violent with anyone in Swampscott,” said one Marblehead woman who has attended the counter-protests since June. “But we’ve felt a constant barrage of threatening language. It was only because of our restraint that things haven’t gotten worse.”
“(Ploss) is the human personification of an internet troll,” she added.
In response to the rallies, Swampscott Racial Justice Action Group circulated a petition on change.org demanding that Ploss denounce white supremacy and encourage her supporters to obey social distancing guidelines. As of this report, the petition has received 1,397 signatures.
Ploss could not be reached for comment on the Plymouth incident.
Guthrie Scrimgeour can be reached at [email protected].
