Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Disturbances in York, Pennsylvania. Nazis beaten

@lex | 13.01.2002 19:07

Have a look at the rag article below, Baltimore IMC link @left and photos at
 http://www.post-gazette.com/journal/photos_bydate.asp?ODate=1/13/02

York street fighting between neo-Nazis, anti-racists leads to 25 arrests

Sunday, January 13, 2002

By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer







YORK, Pa. -- Neo-Nazi skinheads and anti-racist anarchists fought in the streets yesterday in this central Pennsylvania city still feeling the aftermath of deadly race riots 32 years ago.

One anti-racist was run down when a skinhead, cornered in an alleyway, tried to barrel his way through a mob of counter-demonstrators. The white, Ford pickup truck carried the young man on its fender for almost 20 feet before he landed in an alley.





Police in York, Pa., break up a fight between neo-Nazi skinheads and anti-racist anarchists yesterday. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

More PG photos from York.









"I wasn't killed," said the young man, as police helped him into an ambulance. "I was lucky." He declined to give his name.

Police said he was taken to a hospital, where his condition was unavailable.

Police said 25 people were arrested, most for disorderly conduct, during a day of street attacks that began shortly after 9 a.m. as the city geared up for a speech by the leaders of several white supremacist groups.

"They're using York city as a fighting ground," said state police Maj. Henry Oleyniczak.

Police said 17 of those arrested were out-of-state residents and included the driver of the pickup truck. Guns were confiscated from two neo-Nazis.

The day began with random attacks on vehicles with decals or plates suggesting membership in far-right groups and escalated after a series of fistfights between skinheads and counter demonstrators.

"Obviously, the answer is to confront them," said Jerry Bellow, a leader with Columbus, Ohio-based Anti-Racist Action, one of several groups that turned out to battle the white supremacists. "We're gonna make it as hard as possible."

Bellow's group, accompanied by members of the Black Bloc, a coalition of anarchist organizations, including the Boston-based Barricada Collective, roamed the streets in the hours leading up to a speech by Matthew Hale, leader of the racist World Church of the Creator.

A member of Hale's group, Michael Cook, a 32-year-old York County man, had rented a room at the city's library for a noontime speech. Hale, in turn, invited several other extremist groups, including the Aryan Nations and National Alliance, to attend.

Yesterday's showdown followed a series of arrests last year growing out of the 1969 race riots that claimed the lives of a visiting South Carolina woman and a York police officer.

Among those arrested in connection with the shooting death of Lillie Belle Allen, who was killed during the riots, was York's mayor, Charles Robertson. Robertson stepped down from office last Monday after deciding not to seek re-election.

"I do feel welcome in York," Hale told a group of 80 inside the library. "I dispute the notion that we're somehow outsiders in any way."

Nazi skinhead groups from several cities, including members of the Eastern Hammerskins in Baltimore, turned out. As Hale spoke inside the library, the two sides clashed repeatedly.

"This is what I want to do the rest of my life. My ancestors fought for this flag," said Shane Seilhamer, a leader of the Baltimore chapter of the Eastern Hammerskins who was waving a Nazi flag and trading taunts with counter-demonstrators on the opposite side of the street.

Seilhamer is a former member of a Blair County skinhead group and was once active in Western Pennsylvania Klan groups. Seilhamer was one of dozens of skinheads who stood across the street from a line of angry anti-racist protesters. A phalanx of helmeted riot police and a squad of state troopers on horseback lined the middle of South Queen Street, around the corner from the library.

Earlier in the day, anarchists had attacked passing pickup trucks emblazoned with confederate flag plates and decals from the National Alliance.

Police had kept each side at bay most of the day until a group of skinheads and anarchists traded blows in an alleyway off Queen Street. The trouble escalated when other protesters ran up the street and a fight began in a parking lot, where skinheads had parked their vehicles. The windows and windshield on one pickup truck, decorated with far-right symbols, was smashed by a member of the Black Bloc, and sporadic fighting erupted.

From there, the anti-racist groups split into smaller units that peeled off from the parking lot and onto nearby Duke Street, where the confrontation climaxed with the demonstrator being struck by the pickup truck and injured. Several fights broke out following the incident, and police took away a number of the anti-racist demonstrators and eventually had to escort the skinheads nearly a mile on foot, under armed guard, so they could leave town.

By that point, Hale had long since been taken by police escort from the library, and the anti-racist groups never got near him.

The day was a test for John Brenner, who was sworn in Monday as York's new mayor. He praised police and, asked if he planned to send the bill for the day's overtime to Hale, said simply, "I'd like to."

@lex
- Homepage: http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20020113yorkriot0113p5.asp

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech