Counterdemonstrators march on the Green.
DAVID SEPULVEDA PHOTOS
A “Proud Boy” shaking hands with a counterdemonstrator.
Police making an arrest.
A white nationalist group came to New Haven to deliver a message Saturday — and ended up retreating with the help of the police after counterprotesters sent a message of their own.
The confrontation took place around 1 p.m. on the Green, pitting out-of-town “alt right” activists against a larger group of both local and out-of-town antiracist demonstrators, four of whom were arrested.
Some donning “Make America Great Again” Trump ball caps, a small group of East Haven and Waterbury white men belonging to a nationalist group called the “Proud Boys” said they came to exercise their free speech.
Local antiracism protesters knew in advance about the planned demonstration, and organized 150 counterdemonstrators to show up. The stated intention was to drown out the Proud Boys but to remain nonviolent.
“Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of consequences from that speech,” said organizer Natalie Alexander of the group Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ).
Counterdemonstration organizers distributed guidelines passed out before the protest began directing participants to “stay at least 15 feet back from the fascist rally.” The guidelines suggested noise as a tool of resistance: “Use noise makers all together to interrupt speakers.”
DAVID SEPULVEDA PHOTO
Counterprotesters march to lower Green.
The counterdemonstrators, some covering their faces with masks or bandanas, marched from the corner of Elm and College Streets to the lower Green. “Run Nazi run!” they chanted. “Welcome to hell,” read a banner.
Protesters arrive at Flagpole.
Shortly after counterprotesters encircled the flagpole, some made contact with one of the Proud Boys. At least one protestor kicked him. Another snatched his Make America Great Again ball cap. It was not clear if those displaying aggressive actions were part of the organized counterprotest or acting alone.
Counterdemonstrators pelted other Proud Boys with paint balloons and sprayed them with silly string. They asked members of the small group of Proud Boys, who were from out of town, why they brought perceived messages of hate to New Haven.
“Get the fuck out of here!” counterdemonstrators declared while pursuing the Proud Boys to the edge of the Green. (See above video.)
The counterdemonstrators came under criticism from one African-American man who happened upon the clash. (See video at the top of the story.)
“You acting just as crazy as the KKK! … What are we really trying to prove?” he yelled at them amid the chaos.
“I know what they do. My cousin just got murdered by the police. Shot in the back of the back of the neck twice. What I don’t stand is for ignorance. … This is some of the most unproductive shit I’ve ever seen in my life.”
During conversations with counterprotesters, some Proud Boys disavowed any connection to white supremacy and hate groups like the KKK. “I’m married to a Puerto Rican woman,” offered one Proud Boy from Waterbury.
“Proud Boy” splattered with paint by a protester.
Part of a loosely defined network of “alt right” groups that have come to prominence since the presidential election, the Proud Boys takes a pro-Trump line on immigration; it has dispatched “knights” and “warriors” to confront, sometimes violently, left-wing demonstrators in other cities.
One of the arrests.
As the clashes grew, police stepped in and arrested on misdemeanor charges four of the counterdemonstrators they said refused orders to stay away from the Proud Boys. One arrestee, from the Hill, was treated at the hospital for “a respiratory ailment,” according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman. Hartman said it was unclear whether the man, who has asthma, had breathed in police pepper spray or smoke from a counterdemonstrator’s grenade.
Local activist Barbara Fair, the arrestee’s aunt, was herself arrested after she refused an order to back away, according to police. Fair denied that; she said she hadn’t disobeyed an order. (See above video.)
Two of the four arrestees were from out of state. One, from New York, threw “a paint-filled balloon” that landed at the feet of a police sergeant, according to Hartman; another, from New Jersey, “confronted an officer and after being ordered to back up, used an amplified megaphone set to a siren noise to the face of the officer. [He] was relieved of his back-pack incident to his arrest. It contained Illegal fireworks type explosives.” During that arrest, “a knife landed on the top of the boot of an NHPD Sergeant. No one saw whose knife it was or who dropped or threw it,” Hartman wrote.
Police escorted the Proud Boys from the Green (pictured), and the demonstration ended.
Poster lists some of the coalition’s causes.
During confrontations and afterward, some bystanders made known their displeasure with the way both sides engaged with each other. Organizer Natalie Alexander also expressed some disappointment in the breakdown of self control by some counterprotesters, she said the coalition as represented by Saturday’s protest is broad and is still learning how to coordinate.
“I believe white supremacists know they are unwelcome here in New Haven,” activist Fahd Syed observed at the scene. “But we have to make sure we keep this peaceful. I do not want to see ice thrown at these folks, spray paint. We have to make sure we keep the peace.”