Toledo, Ohio: Nitwits March, Scumbags Riot

It looks as if Saturday’s march by the National Socialist Movement (NSM) in Toledo, Ohio turned into a complete disaster for everybody involved. The NSM members were there to hold a protest against the local gangbangers who had supposedly been harassing whites. Given that the march was set to go through a black neighborhood, violence was an almost certainty. When the two dozen or so neo-Nazis began walking, a crowd of local African-Americans as well as members of Anti-Racist Action and One People’s Project (OPP) immediately met them. There were reports that the anti-racists handed out eggs to throw at the white supremacists, though OPP denies this. Given the larger than expected number of protesters, the cops cancelled the march and hustled the NSM members off to safety. The gangbangers decided to take advantage of their numbers and commenced to riot, burring and looting several businesses as well as overturning cars and randomly attacking both police officers and reporters. At least a dozen people (mostly cops) were injured, and over a hundred persons were arrested before order was restored. As I write this, the neighborhood in question is still under curfew and has a heavy police presence.

The white power community’s response has been mixed, with some disparaging the NSM for their lack of common sense, while others note that the footage of blacks looting their own neighborhood might be useful for propaganda purposes. The anarchists are predictably lauding the rioters for their “revolutionary” actions, and excusing the property destruction as being a blow against “the rich” (which apparently means anyone who owns a car or a business). The NSM is complaining that the cops set them up by deliberately routing their march past the counter-demonstration. The mayor of Toledo has stated that if the NSM tries to march again in his town, he will seek a court order to stop them. Given the text of the first amendment, he may find that difficult. Which in turn means that if the NSM wants to get a bit more free publicity, they need only start making plans now for a second protest.

On a final note, for a completely hilarious Onion-like parody of the whole chain of events leading up to the march, check out the Toledo Tales blog.