Bo Erickson’s Twitter
On Saturday, roughly 50 Ku Klux Klan members and supporters held a rally at Justice Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. The city had decided to remove a statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee from the park, and this unsurprisingly made the KKK very angry.
Charlottesville mayor Mike Signer told residents to avoid the gathering, so they wouldn’t give these racist jackasses the attention and publicity that they were desperately craving. But citizens couldn’t resist the chance to give the KKK a piece of their mind, as approximately 1,000 counterprotesters showed up to the rally.
Here’s CNN with all of the pertinent details on how the counterprotesters clashed with the protesters.
Shouting “racists go home,” the crowd drowned out the Klansmen’s chants of “white power.” Despite police lines, a few brief scuffles broke out. Counterprotesters tried to stop the Klansmen from entering and leaving the park, video showed.
After about 40 minutes, police helped the KKK members push through the crowd to reach their vehicles, Dickler said. Some protesters tried to block the Klan vehicles and police then declared the gathering an unlawful assembly, Dickler said.
As police began to move back toward Justice Park, a large crowd followed, Dickler said. There were a number of incidents, including the use of pepper spray by the crowd, Dickler said. When the crowd didn’t follow orders to disperse, state police released three canisters of tear gas and the crowd left, Dickler said.
She said three people were taken to the hospital — two for heat-related issues and one for alcohol usage.
Twenty-three people were arrested. It was not clear what they were charged with or whether those arrested were Klan supporters, counterprotesters or some from each group.
To further illustrate the wild scene in Charlottesville, here are a few videos from Twitter.
Goddamn, the KKK is the worst. The Civil War was like 150 years ago. You lost; get over it.
