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Violent clashes broke out between neo-Nazis and protesters at a rally in Sacramento today organized by the Traditionalist Worker Party, a group headed by Matthew Heimbach. Seven people have reportedly been hospitalized with stab wounds.
The details of the incident aren’t clear yet, but the LA Times reports that one member of the group declared on a livestream of the event that “they got one of us but we got six of them.” At least two of the victims “suffered life-threatening stab wounds,” according to NBC affiliate KCRA. [UPDATE: Officials are now telling NBC that 10 people were injured overall, with 5-7 of them suffering stab wounds; all are expected to live. The TWP is boasting that the overwhelming majority of the injured were on the antifa side; see my post here for more details.]
You may remember Heimbach as the long-time white supremacist organizer and Trump fan who was filmed assaulting a young black woman at a Trump rally in March. Before the rally today, Heimbach praised his “brave comrades,” who went to the protest obviously prepared to fight.
EDITED TO ADD: After the clash today, Heimbach told the Los Angeles Times that “this is a victory for us because more of them walked away injured.”
And in an interview with BuzzFeed News he suggested there would be more violent clashes to come:
We knew this was coming. They were threatening to kill us for weeks. This is the beginning of a new dawn for white nationalism in America. We are no longer going to hide in conferences. We are going to take to the streets and take them back.
The Washington Post did a detailed profile of Heimbach earlier this year.
Here’s a CNN report on the violence at the rally from earlier this afternoon; it contains footage of the clashes.
Here are some photos of the aftermath of the violence from Twitter. CAUTION: some of the following images are quite graphic. Note: The information accompanying the images may not be completely accurate or up-to-date.
Three reported stabbings by the Nazis to Antifacists in #Sacramento. #NoNazisInSac pic.twitter.com/2A7TyoBrzJ
— Bradley Allen (@BradleySA) June 26, 2016
https://twitter.com/KhorramiBreanna/status/747220419862630400
https://twitter.com/aurabogado/status/747207566799691776
Horrifying…Blood spatters all over the ground. Police trying to control crowds. @ABC10 pic.twitter.com/aPtjTAO6pj
— Frances Wang (@FrancesWangTV) June 26, 2016
Here’s footage of Hembach’s assault of a protester at the Trump rally in March:
Here's Matt Heimbach, guy who organized #Sacremento rally today. Charged for assaulting woman at Trump event in Mar. pic.twitter.com/PvgVw7PR9Y
— annette (@maryannemarin) June 26, 2016
I will update this post as new information becomes available.
Why do nazis always insist on looking like low-rent, shitty LARPers?
Seriously, though, this is awful and terrifying.
I’m getting conflicting reports of who started it and who stabbed who at this point. It’s tempting to say up front that Heimbach and his ilk started this melee but, well, I don’t know yet what went down. Suffice it to say I don’t want anyone getting stabbed and Heimbach et al are awful creatures regardless.
This will be the future if Trump winss. Even if he can’t legally and directly encourage this bullshit, neo Nazis will be encouraged by his victory anyway.
I’m sure most of the media will do everything it can to downplay that this Nazi rally was organized by a Trump supporter.
Stabbings shouldn’t be considered a valid means of political discourse. I mean, it works, but that’s what’s awful about violence. I just hope violence isn’t ever again considered the norm politically, but looking at this election, it just might be.
@WWTH
The media is bought by corporations and no one is willing to admit the rising fascism and insanity the right wing has climbed too. They won’t admit on soft balling him, or having him on to get more ratings, or never criticizing his flaws and instead go for the mild insults, or get that in their elitist ignorance have no idea why Trump appeals to alot of hateful people.
Expect that when he explodes and melts down on live TV, and anyone who sincerely believes that he’ll just get off safely without a hitch when the entire GOP was strung along to his bullshit, and suffer immensely for it, they’re just delusional. Completely and utterly delusional if they think after this the GOP and everyone else INCLUDING rape assaults that he’ll just move on like the last time, when he’s shown more and more to back off and make more mistakes.
But you know, expect the media to NEVER call any of this out because “balance.”
Can I just bash my head against the wall for an hour?
@WWTH
I’m calling it now: The media’s going to focus all their time on that poor defenseless patriot stabbed by vicious anti-free-speech thugs and forget about the six other victims by the end of the week.
@media
Prove me wrong. Prove that there’s something, anything in America worth saving. Please.
WWTH and scented f***ing hard chairs
Yeah and they’re going to excuse this pr*ck for being “a mentally ill, lone wolf” for the thousand time the media has labled white male terrorists. And everyone in the comment sections will say “he’s just a poor guy defending his free speech and second admendment and this is why we need to help the poor men and boys to get them medical care” or some sh*t.
We need to have body guards, etc; this is getting out of control.
Ooglyboggles
Please no ableism.
His ”brave comrades”，yuck.
Don’t use that work Heimback, you shit weasel.
That term belongs to us Socialists.
I only call my closest compatriots “comrade”.
They’re proud that they stabbed more of the people from the other side? That’s nothing to be proud of. It’s a sign that they resorted to armed violence because THEY ARE LOSING.
Fucking cowards.
@Ooglyboggles
Not to mention that outrageous people doing outrageous things makes for good TV.
My admittedly limited reading of reaction to Brexit says that quite a few people voted Leave as a protest against the status quo, and were surprised to see that Leave had actually won because they didn’t want to actually leave the EU. Said limited reading also suggests that the Remain campaign was lackluster because they failed to take Leave seriously as a threat.
That’s what terrifies me about Trump. Regardless of what the electorate actually wants, if he can channel their frustrations into votes for him, he becomes the President. And unlike the Brexit referendum, this one is going to be binding.
It’s all fun and games until someone puts an actual goddam Nazi in the White House.
I just shared the news on my Facebook page and now we wait.
Fruitloopsie, isn’t that kind of an ugly meme?
This may not be a very sensitive comment but…
Color. Me. Shocked. /s
I can’t wrap my head around the idea that no one was arrested.
People were STABBED and HOSPITALIZED and there were NO ARRESTS.
What.
In the everloving.
FUCK.
The fuck? What’s wrong with LARPers? How about not shaming people for their hobbies?
Holy shit. This reminds me: didn’t Trump joke that he’d pay for his supporters’ legal bills if they got charged with violence? Not the best thing to say, inciting violence and all, and I hope even someone as odious/egotistic/bigoted as him realizes it.
From what I see, it does look like Heimbach’s group started it. It’s not as if anti-fascists would never ever instigate violence, but the interview afterwards and the photo of the fascist group with shields point to that conclusion (and is that a stick/bat on the ground next to the guy on the left, or just the edge of the sandbox thing?)
POM
Ugly?
KKK 1.0, after the Civil War, drew from angry defeated whites. KKK 2.0 in the 1930’s drew from insecure middle class whites. Ditto the Nazis about the same time. Joe McCarthy appealed to middle class people afraid of communism.
Do not radicalize the middle class. It gets real ugly.
Goddamnit. I had sincerely hoped that my hometown wouldn’t be featured on this blog anytime soon. I can’t wait to move away from here.
Or at the very least, we’d be on here for some silly shit, not for Trump-supporting Nazis stabbing people and gleefully bragging about it.
I shouldn’t be having these thoughts, but I always do. It shouldn’t be this often. Silver lining: only 7 this time. Fuck people
What NiOg said.
@fruitloopsie
“Uneducated” can come off as a little classist, is all. ^^; Especially since right wingers tend to use it as a dog whistle for “Poor black people.”
You know I’ve been accused of war drum beating, but I no longer think that counts considering a very, very real rise in violence as a result of this man tapping into the very heart of racist America. Expect to see more “lone wolves” in the coming months especially when he loses/gets fucked over by the GOP convention.
According to Heimbach, via WaPo, one of his goons was stabbed in an artery, while six of the counter demonstrators were stabbed. Still waiting on unbiased details.