From FoxNews: Neo-Nazi March Causes Riots.
Protesters at a white supremacists' march threw rocks at police, vandalized vehicles and stores and cursed the mayor for allowing the event.Mayor Jack Ford said when he and a local minister tried to calm the rioters Saturday, they were cursed and a masked gang member threatened to shoot him. ...
At least two dozen members of the National Socialist Movement, which calls itself "America's Nazi Party," had gathered at a city park to march under police protection. Organizers said they were demonstrating against black gangs they said were harassing white residents.
The violence broke out about one-quarter of a mile away along the planned march route shortly before it was to begin. One group of men pounded on a convenience store, and others overturned vehicles. ...
When the rioting began, Ford tried to negotiate with those involved, but "they weren't interested in that." He said people in the crowd swore at him and wanted to know why he was protecting the Nazis.
They were mostly "gang members who had real or imagined grievances and took it as an opportunity to speak in their own way," Ford said.
"I was chagrined that there were obvious mothers and children in the crowd with them," he said.
Thomas Frisch, 76, said a large group of men destroyed the exterior of a gas station next to his home of 30 years.
"A whole big gang started to come in here. Next thing you know, they're jumping on the car. Then they overturned it. Then they started on the building, breaking windows, ripping the bars off," he said.
Ratajski and his nephew left Jim & Lou's Bar as a crowd gathered in front, pelting police with rocks and breaking the windows. "I was shaking. I feared for my life," said Ratajski's nephew, Terry Rybczynski.
UPDATE I: FoxNews has updated the above link, adding and deleting information. This was added:
The neighborhood northwest of downtown, full of tree-lined streets and well-kept brick homes, once was a thriving Polish community. But within the last decade it's become home to poorer residents. ...The neo-Nazi group became interested in the neighborhood because of a white resident's complaints to police about gang violence, Bill White, a group spokesman, said earlier this month. ...
Rioters set fire to 86-year-old Louis Ratajski's neighborhood pub, Jim & Lou's Bar, but he and his nephew, Terry Rybczynski, escaped the flames.
And in a Reuters article, Mayor Ford said of the violent reaction by gangs: "That's exactly what (the white supremacist group) wanted."
UPDATE II -- Oct. 17: More interesting links and commentary by Michele Malkin, Martin Lindeskog, and Committees of Correspondence.
UPDATE III: From CNN: Mayor: Nazis had right to march in neighborhood.
Posted by Forkum at October 16, 2005 05:24 PM
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