Twelve people were arrested during a rally in White Lives Matter, California – where anti-racist anti-racists outnumbered white supremacists.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in a square near Huntington Beach Pier on Sunday to voice their opposition ahead of the White Lives Matter rally, which would begin at 1 p.m., the Los Angeles Times reported.
The crowd grew to nearly 500 a few hours later, prompting Huntington Beach to declare an illegal assembly as tensions between the plowed masses heated up.
Huntington Beach police officers try to separate supporters during a rally of Black Lives Matter and White Lives Matter in Huntington Beach. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Footage of the protest showed one man raising both middle fingers in front of a crowd while repeatedly saying ‘White lives matter’, while others shouted at him and had to cry for him.
The video also showed people scrambling on the ground as police tried to keep the peace and reporters scrambled to take photos of the angry crowds.
“Greet Jesus, greet Christ!” shouted another man as he walked through the counter-protesters. “This is our country! This is our country! This is America!”
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Other people in the crowd told the man, who was wearing sunglasses and a beige ski mask, to ‘keep walking’ according to the clip.
Dozens of activists, including some with Black Lives Matter, showed up long before the start of the event to show solidarity, reports KABC.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing 12 protesters by truck. One person also obstructed officers and had a metal stick, two cans of pepper spray and a knife in his backpack, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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No serious injuries were reported, but according to KABC, an argument broke out involving a man wearing a Trump 2020 sign.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the protest, one of several planned across the country on Sunday, was organized through the Telegraph messaging app.
The demonstrations were promoted as a way to revive a white racial consciousness, and were designed to spread hate ideologies, but were flawed by poor attendance, NBC News reported.
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Similar rallies in Raleigh, North Carolina, Philadelphia and New York were reportedly easily undercut by counter-protesters there.
Allegedly, the marches were doomed from the start because organizers were “random and ill-informed,” said Megan Squire, a professor of computer science at Elon University in North Carolina who monitors online extremism.
“They are not sending their best,” Squire told NBC News.
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One counter-protester in Huntington Beach, meanwhile, said he attended Sunday’s demonstration to “defend” his beloved city while wearing a “Old White Guys Against Racism” sign and an American flag.
“It’s an amazing city full of amazing people,” Roger Bloom, 65, told the Los Angeles Times. “Just because a handful of pathetic losers come out here and there to a public square and stink … they give the city a bad name. I wish they would go back to their cellars and stay there.”