KKK leader: Request for police security denied before rally

“Those additional marked APD units were on scene within 1 minute and 36 seconds of the first report of violence, which occurred when counter protesters suddenly confronted members of the KKK as they arrived at the park”.

Three people were stabbed Saturday, one critically, after a small group of Ku Klux Klan members staging an anti-immigrant rally clashed with a larger gathering of counter-protesters, police said.

The brawl between KKK members and counterprotesters resulted in the arrests of 12 people, police said.

A “walking protest” at Pearson Park in Anaheim turned into a brawl when the Klan members were met by about 30 counter-protesters.

The Klansmen reportedly “pulled up in a black SUV and took out signs reading ‘White Lives Matter, ‘” while “dressed in black shirts decorated with the Klan cross and Confederate flag patches”.

The counterprotesters “were so angry, they would have torn these folks limb from limb”, Brian Levin, who directs the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, told the Associated Press. The counter-protesters appear to have been members of various groups.

Police said the Klansmen stabbed three counter-protesters with knives and the decorative end of a flag pole. All were released, the AP reports, when police determined that their actions had been in self-defense. The arrested Klan member said he stabbed the protester in self defense. According to the Los Angeles Times, Klansmen were “once the dominant political force in Anaheim, owning four of five City Council seats before a recall effort led to their ouster in 1924”.

“The only reason we remember Anaheim for the Klan is because they fought the Klan so hard”, said Phil Brigandi, an Orange County historian and author.

Anaheim Police said fights broke out along a full city block after the crowd surrounded five or six Klan members. Two of the stab victims remain hospitalized. According to police, officers were at the park when the violence broke out and immediately called for backup when the melee began.

He then remarked that despite the intended peace, “If we’re attacked, we will attack back”.

“I understand the frustration is heavy”, La Pointe continued, “I think what [young people] see is that peaceful measures are not working, civil disobedience is not working and when the KKK came to town they say this is something they could do about it”.

Sgt Wyatt said that although they were released, prosecutors will review the case and decide whether to file criminal charges.