t least 10 people were injured at a rally outside the California
state capitol in Sacramento on June 26 as members of a white
supremacist group clashed with counter-protesters, authorities said.
The
melee erupted during a rally staged by the Traditionalist Worker Party,
described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist
extremist group.
One of its leaders, Matt Parrott, said the
party had called the demonstration in part to protest against violence
that has broken out outside recent rallies by Donald Trump, the
presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
The incident may
fuel concerns about the potential for violent protests outside the major
party conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia this summer and in the
run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election.
When the white
supremacists arrived at the capitol building at about noon on June 26,
“counter-protesters immediately ran in – hundreds of people – and they
engaged in a fight,” said George Granada, a spokesman for the Capitol
Protection Service division of the California Highway Patrol.
In
announcing the counter-protest, a group called Anti-Fascist Action
Sacramento said on its website that it had a “moral duty” to deny a
platform for “Nazis from all over the West Coast” to voice their views.
“We
have a right to self-defense. That is why we have to shut them down,”
Yvette Felarca, a counter-protester wearing a white bandage on her head,
told reporters after the clash.
The Sacramento Fire Department said 10 patients were treated at area hospitals for multiple stabbing and laceration wounds.
None
of the injuries was life-threatening and there were no immediate
reports of arrests, Granada said. The building was placed on lockdown.
Matthew
Heimbach, chairman of Traditionalist Worker Party, said his group had
expected violence even though it planned a peaceful rally and had a
permit.
“We were there to support nationalism. We are white nationalists,” Heimbach told Reuters. “We were there to take a stand.”
Video
footage on social media showed dozens of people, some of them wearing
masks and wielding what appeared to be wooden bats, racing across the
capitol grounds and attacking others.
Photos on social media showed emergency officials treating a victim on the grass in the area as police officers stood guard.