A protest centered around the removal of a Confederate statue turned violent on Saturday as racist, homophobic neo-Nazis, many supportive of Donald Trump, clashed with counterprotesters, the Washington Post reports:
Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency shortly before 11 a.m.
Using megaphones, police declared an unlawful assembly at about 11:40 a.m., and gave a five-minute warning to leave Emancipation Park, where hundreds of neoNazis, Ku Klux Klans members and other white nationalists had gathered to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. They were met by equal numbers of counterprotesters, including clergy, Black Lives Matter activists and Princeton professor Cornel West.
But fighting broke out way before the noon rally, starting Friday night and then again Saturday morning.
Trump has so far refused to denounce the rally.
PREVIOUSLY: White Nationalist Extremists are Uniting This Weekend for Largest Hate Gathering in the U.S. in Decades
Here’s one ugly scene: the neo-Nazis chanting “f**k you faggots.”
You heard that right. They're chanting "Fuck you faggots." 2017. #Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/pMwbSXZ3wW
— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) August 12, 2017
David Duke said that the hate rally “fulfills the promises of Donald Trump:”
https://twitter.com/jowrotethis/status/896392449760698368
UPDATE: Trump tweeted.
We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2017
Am in Bedminster for meetings & press conference on V.A. & all that we have done, and are doing, to make it better-but Charlottesville sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2017
UPDATE 2: A man has died after a car rammed into a street crowded with counter protesters.
Disturbing video shows car slamming into counter protesters of white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA as violent clashes continue. pic.twitter.com/2qwc8SdP71
— ABC News (@ABC) August 12, 2017
