“I feel like it’s more secure now,” one woman said. “I know my son can walk home and be OK.”

Summary

Following a February 7th neo-Nazi rally, residents of Lincoln Heights, a majority-Black Ohio town, formed an armed Safety and Watch Program to protect against hate groups.

The rally, where participants waved swastikas and shouted slurs, received little police intervention, sparking fears of future threats when no arrests or identifications were made during the incident.

Volunteers now patrol bus stops and neighborhoods. “I’ve never felt safer as a Black man in my community,” said spokesperson Daronce Daniels.

The historically underserved and self-governing community shows strong support for the initiative with yard signs and sees this as a continuation of its legacy of self-reliance and community defense.

  • stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net
    131·
    5 hours ago

    I don’t think so. As the article discusses, law enforcement at the scene chose “de-escalation” - that is, they chose to let the Nazis protest, and chose to provide a police escort to prevent violence, instead of threatening to arrest the Nazis and provoke a confrontation with a group larger and better armed than law enforcement.

    I’m not going to say that was necessarily the wrong choice, as bad as it looks to the community.

    Generally we don’t want cops shooting people at rallies, even if the people rallying are Nazis.

    But Nazis stopping traffic and calling black men the n-word isn’t legal. The sheriff claimed the Nazis weren’t breaking any laws. But that’s an obvious excuse. Threatening people is not legal. The sheriff didn’t act because she didn’t want to start a gunfight her people couldn’t win - and/or because her sympathies were with the Nazis.

    This proposed law wouldn’t have changed the situation there.

    What it will do is make the community watch illegal.