Picture courtesy of the Center for the Study of Hate and extremism shows a counter-protester (L) tackling a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Anaheim, California ©B. Levin (Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism/AFP)
Three people were stabbed and 13 others were arrested in California when a Ku Klux Klan rally erupted into clashes with counter-protesters, witnesses and police said.
Around midday, half a dozen members of the white hate group, whose ranks still number several thousand in the United States, arrived at the protest site in Anaheim, officials said.
At that point the Klan members were “swarmed” by protesters, who attacked them with at least one wooden plank, witness Brian Levin told AFP.
Local police spokesman Sergeant Daron Wyatt said it appeared that “six KKK people arrived and were immediately attacked by counter-protesters, which led to a counter-protester being stabbed.”
The initial clash spawned several separate fights, Wyatt added, noting that the three stabbing victims were all counter-protesters, while another two KKK members were stomped by the crowd.
One of the victims, he said, was stabbed with the decorative end of a flagpole, according to The Orange County Register.
Of those arrested, six were KKK members and seven were from the rival demonstration, Wyatt said. All were men, except for one woman in each group.
Police collect evidence at the scene where three people were stabbed during a clash between counter-protesters and Ku Klux Klan members staging a rally near Pearson Park in Anaheim, California, February 27, 2016 ©Ringo Chiu (AFP)
The counter-protesters “smashed the side window of the Klan SUV and the front windshield,” said Levin, who heads the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino.
“At that point, the crowd got extremely violent.”
Some of the protesters started kicking a man wearing a shirt that read …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
