Posted on 06/26/2016 1:55:16 PM PDT by Wolfie
Multiple people stabbed at Sacramento white nationalist rally
Multiple people were stabbed and beaten in a brutal clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters just outside the California capitol building in Sacramento on Sunday, city fire officials said.
Five people were taken to hospitals with injuries, some with “critical trauma stab wounds”, the fire department said after what it called a “mass casualty incident”.
Sacramento police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Fire Department spokesman Chris Harvey said the main fight broke out when people carrying sticks rushed into the rally area, a park by the capitol building. California highway patrol officers eventually broke up the fight, he said.
Photos and video posted online showed chaotic fights between people clad almost entirely in black and other protesters, some of whom carried signs labelled “anti-fascist”, “Nazi scum” and “smash patriarchy + racism”.
Despite the presence of police in body armor and mounted on horses, violence broke out, leaving blood spattered on sidewalks and people visibly wounded.
People used pepper spray and flagpoles to attack each other, and video showed others swinging blunt objects wildly, beating people to the ground and dragging and kicking bodies.
Police intervened, sometimes riding horses to break up crowds, but they were unable to separate all combatants before serious injuries were inflicted.
At an impromptu briefing, an officer told reporters that the force was working to disperse the protests while respecting peaceful demonstrators’ right to free speech.
“Our primary focus was to de-escalate the situation,” the officer said. “We are going to continue working with the California highway patrol to ensure that the event is held in a relatively calm fashion.”
A group calling itself the Traditionalist Workers party had planned a rally near the capitol for several weeks, and some arrived bearing shields and shirts covered in Nazi imagery.
Counter-protesters also spent weeks planning what they called a “shut down Nazi rally”. Dozens turned out to protest.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based watchdog that monitors hate groups, calls the Traditionalist Workers party a white nationalist group.
The march was organized by the Golden State Skinheads, the California wing of the group. Their leader is Matthew Heimbach, a 25-year-old former radical rightwing student organizer whom the SPLC describes as “the face of a new generation of white nationalists”.
In a post to the organization’s website, Heimbach wrote that he was aware of plans to counter-protest but said: “After carefully weighing the pros and cons, we have decided that this would be our Thermopylae, no matter what it costs. “We will defend ourselves by any means necessary, and if the police in Sacramento do not protect our right to speak, we will do it ourselves.”
Heimbach was accused of assaulting a black woman at a Donald Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this year. He was named in a lawsuit filed by protesters against the candidate for president, and acknowledged in an online post, as described in the lawsuit, that he had shoved her. The incident was caught on video.
The counter-protesters organized in part via Facebook, writing: “Anti-Fascist Action Sacramento does not believe in allowing hate to have a platform and we are calling upon the community to shut down their rally. Fighting fascism is a moral duty, not a political one.
“We believe most people are good and are willing to stand up against racial hatred,” they added. “Our objective is to force the nazis off our streets and to send a strong message that they are not welcome in society and especially Sacramento.”
Probly another one of George Soros' 501(c)3 front groups.
The Guardian. Any American outlets reporting?
No doubt about it, there’s signs all over the world is getting so much better and more pleasant.
People charged into the rally area armed with sticks and get met with a violent response?I sense a Darwin Award in this somewhere.
What is this “counter protestors” crap all over the article?
All those people hurt - and no arrests?
The tolerance of the left on full display here....
Heimbach was accused of assaulting a black woman at a Donald Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this year. He was named in a lawsuit filed by protesters against the candidate for president, and acknowledged in an online post, as described in the lawsuit, that he had shoved her. The incident was caught on video.
Does anybody else, besides me, see a contradiction in this narrative?
The SPLC?
What a bunch of donation whores.
THEY should be outlawed.
It’s all over CNN and MSNBC live right now. The “white nationalist” group had a permit and was attacked by an “anti fascist” mob.
This is the summer of our discontent. I hope they Use sunscreen.
Leftist totalitarian thugs oppressing kooks on this one.
But look for ramped up violent oppression as time passes.
Why are they considered Nazis? That word gets thrown around very carelessly.
I lived in CA for 15 years and never heard of such a group.
I DID hear LOTS of Ultra Left wing crazies sabotaging just about anything you could think of.
My bet is this is a liberal group playing games.
It is pretty funny, really. A libtard screaming for anti fascist action. You can’t make this up.
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