Monday, June 27, 2016
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
Authorities say a total of 10 people were taken to the hospital after counterprotesters clashed with members of right-wing extremist groups outside the California state Capitol building in Sacramento.
The Sacramento Fire Department says the injured included nine men and one woman ranging from 19 to 58 years old. At least five suffered stab wounds.
The incident occurred Sunday when members of right-wing extremist groups rallying outside the California state Capitol building in Sacramento clashed with counter-protesters, authorities said.
Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Chris Harvey said emergency crews transported people who were stabbed, some critically wounded, and that many other people had cuts, scrapes and bruises.
“There was a large number of people carrying sticks and rushing to either get into the melee or see what was going on,” Harvey said.
California Highway Patrol officers managed to break up the large fight, but some members of both groups remained in the area an hour after the fight first broke out, Harvey said.
Videos from the melee posted on social media showed mounted police officers dispersing a group of mainly youths, some with their faces covered, while some throw stones toward a man holding a stick and being shielded by police officers in riot gear as he enters a glass building.
The victims all were present while a protest took place, said Sacramento Police spokesman Matt McPhail, but he said it was still unclear whether and how they were involved.
The Traditionalist Workers Party had scheduled and received a permit to protest at noon Sunday in front of the Capitol. McPhail said a group showed up to demonstrate against it.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has described TWP as a group formed in 2015 as the political wing of the Traditionalist Youth Network, which aims to “indoctrinate high school and college students into white nationalism.”
Matthew Heimbach, chairman of the Traditionalist Worker Party, told the Los Angeles Times that his group and the Golden State Skinheads organized the Sunday rally.
Vice chairman Matt Parrott, who was not present at the Sacramento rally, said it was a peaceful march and blamed “leftist radicals” for instigating the violence.