Emergency Declared After Anti-Nazi Riots
Sun Oct 16, 7:29 AM
TOLEDO, Ohio - 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 one point, the crowd reached 600 people, officials said.
Rioters set fire to 86-year-old Louis Ratajski's neighborhood pub, Jim & Lou's Bar, but he and his nephew escaped the flames.
"To be honest with you, there weren't enough police to take care of them," he said.
At least 65 people were arrested and several police officers were injured before calm was restored about four hours later.
Ford blamed the rioting on gangs taking advantage of a volatile situation. He declared a state of emergency, set an 8 p.m. curfew through the weekend and asked the Highway Patrol for help.
"It's exactly what they wanted," Ford said of the group that planned the march, which was canceled because of the rioting.
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. There was a report of a shooting but police hadn't found a victim, Police Chief Mike Navarre said.
About 150 police officers chased bands of young men through the area. Officers wearing gas masks fired tear gas canisters and flash-bang devices designed to stun suspects, but the groups continued throwing rocks and bottles. Several officers and firefighters suffered minor injuries, Navarre said.
Finally, police marched shoulder-to-shoulder down the street shouting to people to stay inside, and the crowd of several hundred broke up.
At least 65 people were arrested on charges including assault, vandalism, failure to obey police and failure to disperse, Navarre said. He said the white supremacists had left hours earlier.
"We frankly could have made a couple hundred arrests easily," Navarre said. "We just didn't have the resources on hand to arrest all of them."
The mayor had appealed to residents the night before to ignore the march. He said the city wouldn't give the Nazi group a permit to march in the streets but couldn't stop them from walking on the sidewalks.
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.
Keith White, a black resident, criticized city officials for allowing the march: "They let them come here and expect this not to happen?" said White, 29.
A spokesman for the National Socialist Movement blamed police for losing control of the situation
No, you see them all the time. You just dont notice it. But they arent really Nazi's, they're just anarchists who call themselves Nazi's to scare people.
What really happened in Toledo...
The Police And The City Double Crossed Us And Started A Riot
10/15/2005 6:11:44 PM
Discuss this story in the forum
Bill White
Commentary -- Toledo Mayor Jack Ford said today that "someone will pay" for the rioting that occurred today in Toledo. Well, I hope someone does pay -- I hope he pays when the voters remove him from office. The rioting that is ongoing in Toledo right now is the direct result of Mayor Ford ordering the Toledo Police to betray us and set us up for a fight.
We had approximately 80 NSM members and 60 members of the public who showed up to demonstrate in Toledo. The plan which we had worked out with police had been this (and you can read old press releases on this website to confirm it):
We would gather at two locations -- one close to the rally site and one several miles away. We would send an advance security team to the public gathering place to secure it, and we would send another security team to secure the second staging area. Those security teams would arrive early, they would draw out the counter demonstrators, the counter demonstrators would do something stupid, like block a public street, get arrested en masse, and then we would have a peaceful march.
We realized there were problems the day before when the Toledo Police changed the parking situation. We had originally planned to enter the parking area through Mulberry. We told the Toledo Police we expected the protesters to march down Stickney. The day before the rally, the Toledo Police told us the protestors would march down Mulberry and that we would have to enter the parking area through Stickney. I told the police that the protestors would almost certainly block Stickney, and that they needed to be ready to have our members enter through Mulberry. They told me they had better intelligence than I did and that things were going to go their way. Well, they did -- they turned into a riot.
Our security forces deployed fine. We had twenty four men -- twelve at each location -- early in the morning. The communist demonstration drew about 40 people -- 20 members of the International Socialist Organization and 20 members of the One People's Project and the Northeast Federation Of Anarchist Communists, under the banner of "Anti-Racist Action".
The only surprise in the morning is that the police did not deploy a single person to the communist demonstration. We had told them that the communists would begin a roving mob and start attacking people very early in the morning. They didn't want to pay their men the extra overtime, and had not arranged for police officers to deploy until 10 - 11 AM.
The ARA showed up around 10:30 AM, but didn't have the numbers to take on our twelve advance guys, so they stared at us for a while, and then were forced across the street by police. They and the ISO were joined by about twelve kids, aged 13-17, wearing red, "the bloods", two other groups of about twelve black kids each, and maybe 50 onlookers, mostly black.
Around 10:30 I asked our other position to send me every extra security person they had. I then went to Lt Greg Sekela of the Toledo Police and asked him where he wanted to us to enter the parking lot from. He told me from Stickney. I pointed out to him that there was an angry mob of about 120 people standing on Stickney, and suggested he open up Mulberry. He told me that Stickney would be fine. At this point the police still had control, and I agreed.
By 11 AM we had 21 men and women. So far, so good. But by 11:30 there were people I knew who were in town who were not arriving. Then five guys from Toledo came over and said "you know there are a lot of people standing at the barricades who can't get in".
I asked Lt Sekela about this. On camera, he told me that the police had decided to seal the whole area and that no one was being let in. I pointed out to him that we had over 40 of our members coming who had not yet arrived, plus members of the public. He said they could park on the street and walk in. I asked him where they should walk in -- and how would they know to walk there? He said they had to walk in Stickney, and that we should tell them. I pointed out that I didn't have communications open with all these people. He told be "too bad, they can go home."
Well, what happened is that little groups of our supporters started to gather at the police barricades, as they tried to figure out how to get in. The communists spotted one of those groups, and started running at them. That was the spark that lit the riot.
The communists started passing out eggs and rocks to the black juveniles. The black kids started throwing them at the police. The police became overwhelmed and started retreating. The blacks smelled blood, and started running down the streets attacking anyone they could -- one member of the press had his jeep destroyed and I was told was beaten quite badly very early in the rally.
At the time the rioting started, we were holding a press conference. We had 33 people who got inside the police lines, but the police decided that 12 of them could not march -- they would have to stay behind in the parking lot. Why, I'm not sure -- the police basically felt that anyone who was not wearing a uniform could not participate in our rally.
As we were finishing the press conference and beginning to march the police suddenly threw up a line of officers and started pushing against us, trying to push us back. Our members started pushing back -- these were our security guys and they had been ordered not to be physically moved by anyone. The police announced "you're not marching", but stopped the pushing. There was a brief negotiation, we were told the police had lost control of the situation, and we were told if we did not leave immediately we would all be arrested. We argued, and they started saying "if you don't leave, we're going to be overrun at this position." I said "we're not afraid to stand and fight." Without going blow by blow, the police ordered us again to leave, and since I was under orders to obey the police, I told our men to leave.
We regrouped outside the riot zone, held some press conferences, and then I got called away to Columbus to do some interviews from the nearest Satellite uplink. Fox has already said they would rather cover the avian bird flu than the race riots -- i.e., the cancelled. I don't know if I'll be on any other stations.
This riot can be blamed on three sets of people:
1. The communists, who came to the area with weapons, handed them out to the blacks, and incited the blacks to riot;
2. The blacks, who engaged in the exact type of racial violence we had gathered to protest; and,
3. The police and the City of Toledo, who double crossed us with the intent of driving down our numbers, who ignored our intelligence, which was much better than theirs, who coordinated, rehearsed and planned the security with us, then changed plans without notice, and who, most importantly, ordered our member to park on the street where the communists and blacks were protesting, refused to open the parking lot up to our members, and started a riot by trapping our members, denying them access to the security we had put in place to protect our members, and forcing them into a situation where it was obvious there would be violent conflict.
My understanding is that the rioting in Toledo is continuing. There have been some buildings burned, but they are all commercial buildings. The cowardly and incompetent Toledo police are refusing to enter the riot zone -- because of budget cuts, they don't have enough officers, and the Mayor has ordered them not to suppress the blacks because the election is a few days away and he doesn't want to lose votes.
The only people who entered and exited the riot zone safely were the NSM, and neither us nor any member of the public who sided with us has been hurt or arrested in conjunction with the rioting.
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Yeah, it always makes sense to riot against a lawful march
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