In 2016, violence broke out between anti-fascist protestors and neo-Nazis at a Sacramento, California neo-Nazi rally. Ten people were injured, five of them stabbed.
Demonstrators battled with sticks, protest signs and other weapons as the Traditionalist Worker Party group – which said it wanted to assist supporters of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump – began setting up for a scheduled noon rally on the west steps of the Capitol.
Even before the event began, clashes broke out at numerous locations around the Capitol grounds among the 400 people gathered for and against the rally, which had been heavily promoted – and denounced – in recent days on various websites. Injuries were reported on both sides of the altercation.
Subsequently, Sacramento police arrested three anti-fascist protestors. The arrested party have been arguing that this process by the state amounts to the the state being complicit in the systemic white supremacy plaguing America.
Defense attorneys following the Wednesday hearing alternately called Sacramento County’s prosecution of the trio “silly,” “ridiculous,” and politically motivated, and said they will ask county prosecutors to turn over more evidence in the case.
“There are a lot of critical omissions that we’re going to be requesting,” including police reports and chain-of-evidence information, said Felarca attorney Ronald Cruz, adding that he will soon draw up a motion to dismiss charges.
The charges against Felarca, who has been associated with the antifa movement, are “entirely political in character,” Cruz said. “They’re only prosecuting her on her political views.” He also cited video footage from the scene that he contends “clearly shows Nazis stabbing people.”
Keep in mind that the one neo-Nazi arrested was caught on camera attacking someone with a pole; and while anti-fascist protestors were stabbed repeatedly, there have been no charges against anyone for stabbing. In fact, if you read this diary by our very own Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter Poza you can see the well-documented movements of police in treating stabbing victims on the anti-fascist side as criminals. The Guardian has gotten their hands on court documents that seems to illustrate even further how unsettling our law enforcement apparatus is with white supremacists.
The records, which also showed officers expressing sympathy with white supremacists and trying to protect a neo-Nazi organizer’s identity, were included in a court briefing from three anti-fascist activists who were charged with felonies after protesting at a Sacramento rally. The defendants were urging a judge to dismiss their case and accused California police and prosecutors of a “cover-up and collusion with the fascists”.
The details are considerably more disturbing.
On one phone call with Doug McCormack, identified by police as the TWP affiliate who acquired the permit for the Sacramento rally, CHP investigator Donovan Ayres warned him that police might have to release his name in response to a public records requests. The officer said he would try to protect McCormack.
“I’m gonna suggest that we hold that or redact your name or something until this gets resolved,” Ayres told McCormack, adding that he didn’t know who had requested records of the permit and noting, “If I did, I would tell you.”
Ayres’s reports noted that McCormack was armed at the rally with a knife.
According to a study by Southern Poverty Law Center California ranks number one in the United States with 79 “active” hate groups.
In the Sacramento area, the report cited six active hate groups: Golden State Skinheads, a racist skinhead group, the Traditionalist Worker Party, a white nationalist group, the Pacific Justice Institute and Verity Baptist Church, both anti-LGBT groups, and As-Sabiqun and European-American Evangelistic Crusades, general hate groups.
The harsh fact of the matter is that our country’s law enforcement apparatus have long been compromised by white supremacy, and more specifically white supremacists. District attorneys using right-wing video “evidence,” is also suspicious considering how well documented a history of unreliable narration accompanies that evidence. There is also the very real danger of domestic terrorism that has accompanied many white nationalist movements over the past forever in our country. In supporting white supremacy our law enforcement puts all of our lives in jeopardy, creating an environment of fear that can only be reconciled through violence.