HAMMOND | About a dozen people from Gary and Hammond protested outside City Hall on Friday in the wake of criticism by Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. over the busing of Gary high school students to Crown Point for early voting.

Gary officials contend the trip was conducted as a learning experience, as it has been in previous years. McDermott countered that the practice is a misuse of tax dollars and smacks of politicking.

"I came out here because I was embarrassed by what my mayor said," Diane Dillard, of Hammond, said Friday. "I wanted to show my support for (the students') right to vote."

Another Hammond resident, Charles Burns, said he was deeply disgruntled by the mayor's comments.

"He came out publicly and very graphically to discourage those actions in the future," Burns said of the students' first-time voting experience Wednesday.

Dillard, Burns and others said they were there largely to support views similar to Chester and Ollette Washington, of Gary, the parents of a high school senior who voted early Wednesday.

Chester Washington said he supported the practice to get the high school students involved early on and believes it should be done in Hammond, too.

"I don't know who my daughter voted for," Chester Washington said. "I didn't ask her, and I didn't persuade her to vote for anyone."

But Gary community activist Dwight Taylor, who organized the event, proclaimed McDermott a racist who should personally visit Gary schools and apologize to their students.

McDermott later said what he opposed was using tax money to get out the vote.

The Gary School Corp. used tax money to fuel buses with gas to bus students to Crown Point, he said.

"I never brought race into this," he said. "I will defend myself all day long against charges of racism. Anybody who knows me knows it's a hollow charge."