Bay Area wary after clashes
Officials warn against planned rallies, citing deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.
Officials in Northern California are pushing back against planned rallies in the region this month that they say will attract white nationalists.
The Bay Area, long a hotbed for activism, has been the site of violent clashes between right-wing and leftwing protesters since President Trump took office.
But after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., that left one counter-demonstrator dead over the weekend, officials said they want to avoid similar clashes here.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin characterized a demonstration set for Aug. 27 at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park as a white nationalist rally. “This rally, and its hateful rhetoric, is not welcome in Berkeley,” Arreguin said in a statement Tuesday.
“The city has not approved this gathering. It is an event organized online. No one has tried to obtain a permit, nor has one been granted,” Arreguin said of the event, set to take place in front of Old City Hall.
A Facebook page advertising the rally calls it “No to Marxism in America.” A Facebook user who posted June 19 about plans to attend the event said that “wearing sweaters or jackets might be doable, which would help concealing ar-
mor or equipment.”
“I’m going to suggest that anyone attending this event invest in at least a cheap helmet,” he wrote, saying he was concerned that counterprotesters would throw rocks, bricks and bottles.
A person listed as an organizer did not respond to a request for comment.
Arreguin urged residents to avoid the park Aug. 27. “The best way to silence white nationalists is by turning your back on their message,” he said.
And to the demonstrators, he said: “Anyone who threatens to engage in violence — and we have seen from earlier events that this is exactly their intent — will be arrested and punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
A conservative “Patriot Prayer” rally is scheduled for a day earlier, on Aug. 26, at San Francisco’s Crissy Field. A group of lawmakers — all Democrats representing San Francisco — on Tuesday called for the National Park Service to rescind a permit issued for the event.
The lawmakers — state Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblymen David Chiu and Phil Ting — cited concern over clashes at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, where Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, was killed when a driver plowed a sports car into a crowd of anti-racist counter-protesters. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, was identified by authorities as a white supremacist, arrested and charged with murder and other crimes.
“Allowing a likely violent rally of White Supremacists so close to all of this is of deep concern to us,” the lawmakers wrote. “While we believe in the right to free speech and free assembly, we believe the National Park Service does not have the capacity to safely control this situation and therefore should not be issuing a permit for this rally at Crissy Field.”
The rally is being organized by blogger Joey Gibson, who says he condemns white supremacists. But white nationalists have spoken at and attended past rallies.
There has been much debate about the line between free speech and public safety following violent protests.
The American Civil Liberties Union of California issued a statement Wednesday, saying that it didn’t believe the 1st Amendment protected “people who incite or engage in violence.”
“If white supremacists march into our towns armed to the teeth and with the intent to harm people, they are not engaging in activity protected by the United States Constitution,” it said. “The 1st Amendment should never be used as a shield or sword to justify violence.”
A scheduled appearance at UC Berkeley in February by far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled amid a violent protest on the campus.
In March, seven people were injured as supporters of President Trump clashed with counter-protesters at a “March 4 Trump” rally at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley.
In April, hundreds of activists on the right and left converged in Berkeley at a “Patriot’s Day” rally. Attendees were part of a spectrum of far-right groups, including the paramilitary group Oath Keepers, the men’s group Proud Boys and those with openly anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi slogans.
They were met by counter-demonstrators, many wearing black masks massed under the red-andblack flags associated with socialist ideology.
Before the event was set to begin, fists flew, people were bloodied and 21 were arrested.
Meanwhile, conservatives scuttled plans to protest Saturday outside Google offices in nine communities, including Mountain View, Venice and New York. Organizers said the march for free speech was inspired by James Damore, the Google engineer fired last week after posting an internal memo arguing that the lack of women in tech could be attributed to biological differences.
A group called America First plans to gather Sunday at Laguna Beach’s Main Beach to rally for victims of crimes that organizers say have been committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Laguna Beach Police Sgt. Jim Cota said three previous America First events yielded no arrests, and the organizers are not affiliated with groups involved in Charlottesville.