Posted on 10/16/2005 1:12:33 PM PDT by grundle
Emergency Declared After Anti-Nazi Riots
Oct 16, 2004
By JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press Writer
TOLEDO, Ohio
A crowd protesting a white supremacists' march Saturday turned violent, throwing baseball-sized rocks at police, vandalizing vehicles and stores, and setting fire to a neighborhood bar, authorities said.
When Mayor Jack Ford and a local minister tried to calm the rioting, they were cursed for allowing the march, and Ford said a masked gang member threatened to shoot him.
At least 65 people were arrested and several police officers were injured before calm was restored about four hours later.
Ford blamed the rioting on gangs taking advantage of a volatile situation. He declared a state of emergency, set an 8 p.m. curfew through the weekend, and asked the Highway Patrol for help.
"It's exactly what they wanted," Ford said of the group that planned the march, which was canceled because of the rioting.
At least two dozen members of the National Socialist Movement, which calls itself "America's Nazi Party," had gathered at a city park to march under police protection. Organizers said they were demonstrating against black gangs they said were harassing white residents.
The violence broke out about one-quarter of a mile away along the planned march route shortly before it was to begin. One group of men pounded on a convenience store, and others overturned vehicles. There was a report of a shooting but police hadn't found a victim, Police Chief Mike Navarre said.
About 150 police officers chased bands of young men through the area. Officers wearing gas masks fired tear gas canisters and flash-bang devices designed to stun suspects, but the groups continued throwing rocks and bottles. Several officers and firefighters suffered minor injuries, Navarre said. At one point, the crowd reached 600 people, officials said.
Finally, police marched shoulder-to-shoulder down the street shouting to people to stay inside, and the crowd of several hundred broke up.
At least 65 people were arrested on charges including assault, vandalism, failure to obey police and failure to disperse, Navarre said. He said the white supremacists had left hours earlier.
"We frankly could have made a couple hundred arrests easily," Navarre said. "We just didn't have the resources on hand to arrest all of them."
The mayor had appealed to residents the night before to ignore the march. He said the city wouldn't give the Nazi group a permit to march in the streets but couldn't stop them from walking on the sidewalks.
When the rioting began, Ford tried to negotiate with those involved, but "they weren't interested in that." He said people in the crowd swore at him and wanted to know why he was protecting the Nazis.
They were mostly "gang members who had real or imagined grievances and took it as an opportunity to speak in their own way," Ford said.
"I was chagrined that there were obvious mothers and children in the crowd with them," he said.
Thomas Frisch, 76, said a large group of men destroyed the exterior of a gas station next to his home of 30 years.
"A whole big gang started to come in here. Next thing you know, they're jumping on the car. Then they overturned it. Then they started on the building, breaking windows, ripping the bars off," he said.
Louis Ratajski, 86, and his nephew, Terry Rybczynski, left Jim & Lou's Bar as a crowd gathered in front pelting police with rocks and breaking the windows. They climbed down a fire escape from the apartment where Ratajski lived over the bar and only later saw the fire on television.
"I was shaking. I feared for my life." Rybczynski said.
Keith White, a black resident, criticized city officials for allowing the march in the first place.
"They let them come here and expect this not to happen?" said White, 29.
A spokesman for the National Socialist Movement blamed police for losing control of the situation.
Seems that the blacks in question were very violent to begin with. I feel for their victims.
I see they've changed the lying headline that blamed the rioting on White Supremacists. Or maybe that was a different source, since AP stories often get their headlines changed.
Fine. Next time just shoot them. You'll get no complaints from me.
Seems like the nazis are a more tolerant and much more peaceful gang in that town.
Is there a good source for STILL photos of this riot?
Some people never learn.
Keith White, a black resident, criticized city officials for allowing the march in the first place.
"They let them come here and expect this not to happen?" said White, 29
You mean protest with out being violent and trying to blow stuff up?
Hell Yea I expect them to come there and march as is their right and I expect you to protest like a man and not some punk...gee,asking too much
....can you hear us now?...we be speaking in our own way
Crash...*# Pow....#*...Bam *@#....Loot n Scoot
What ever happened to the whole concept of "Two wrongs don't make a right?"
Somewhere along the way, our culture abandoned that. Too bad.
Not that I know of.
Its pretty funny the press is saying this was anti nazi riots when they were anything but and its even more funny that this hood gets tore up and then the people that live there will be whining about racism as they walk 20 miles to get a loaf of bread when its their own idiots that did it
2004??
Great minds DO think alike don't they. :-)
These idiots were just looking for an excuse to raise hell.
"Organizers said they were demonstrating against black gangs they said were harassing white residents."
Well, the rioters sure proved them wrong, didn't they! Yes, neo-Nazis are dirtbags, but they have the right to protest just as much as they want. Also, these violent rioters probably drove quite a few disaffected working-class whites towards the Nazis with their actions, far more than the Nazis' dippy little protest could do.
Because conservatives are adults.
who are the bigger idiots?? the stupid neo-nazi socialists or the people who think their very presence is a good excuse to riot??
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