Police investigating Sacramento rally violence

The Sacramento Police Department in California said on Monday it was investigating the violence that erupted a day earlier before a scheduled rally by a neo-Nazi group.

In a statement posted online about the incident, which led to 10 injuries, including two people with critical stab wounds, the department said the rally organized by the Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) was permitted by the California Highway Patrol (CHP).

Aware of a counter-protest effort organized by an anti-fascist group in Sacramento, the state capital some 140 kilometers north of San Francisco, and in anticipation of the potential for unrest, the department said it deployed over 100 officers to areas within the city jurisdiction while CHP officers guarded state Capitol grounds.

In an apparent response to some witness accounts that police did nothing to stop violence, the local law enforcement clarified that "the majority of these violent altercations took place on the state Capitol grounds which are within the jurisdiction of the California Highway Patrol" and that it "is aware of two assaults that took place within the city jurisdiction and is currently investigating those incidents."

No arrests were made either by the department or the CHP as of Monday afternoon.

Matthew Heimbach, chairman of the TWP, told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday that his group and the Golden State Skinheads organized the Sunday rally, adding that one of his protesters was stabbed in an artery and six of the counter-protesters were also stabbed.

Despite the fact that more counter-protesters were injured, TWP spokesman Matt Parrott was quoted as saying by a report in the Sacramento Bee on Monday that he does not "think there's any controversy about who started it... People rushed our guys." He said that "what we hadn't anticipated was that the Sacramento police were going to actively and deliberately set us up for ambush by allowing angry mobs to come at our guys."

However, some counter-protesters said the neo-Nazis sparked the violence by pepper spraying and attacking them.

Witnesses said there were about 25 TWP members on the west steps of the Capitol building, outnumbered by more than 150 counter-protesters.

The TWP claims to be "America's first political party created by and for working families" and states on its website that "European-American identity is under constant attack by members of American institutions such as the state, education, culture and even churches." It planned the Sunday event for several weeks and said members of its California affiliate would be "marching in the city of Sacramento to protest against globalization and in defense of the right to free expression."

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit organization that combats hate, intolerance and discrimination in the United States, identifies the TWP as a white supremacist and neo-Nazi hate group and reveals that it was formed in January 2015 as the political wing of the Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN), a small umbrella group established in 2013 that aims to indoctrinate high school and college students into white nationalism.

In its statement, the Sacramento Police Department said its officers were approached during the event by a citizen who located a loaded handgun on the state Capitol grounds, and the firearm was turned over to police custody and was booked as evidence. Endit