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As thousands in Philadelphia marched to end police brutality against black Americans on Monday, a group of white men carrying bats, golf clubs, and other improvised weapons gathered in the citys Fishtown neighborhood.

Drawing comparisons to brownshirts, the group of about 50 to 70 men were filmed heckling and threatening a small group of protesters in the neighborhood.

One of the men was recorded ripping up a protesters Black Lives Matter sign while yelling homophobic slurs. A producer for WHYY, the local public radio station, tweeted that he was beaten up after trying to film the group. A few men were spotted with rifles.

Clara, 30, a Fishtown resident who encountered the group as she set out of her house on Monday evening with two of her roommates carrying Black Lives Matter signs, told the Guardian that one of the men shoved her roommate and spat on her.

He said he had Covid, said Clara, who asked the Guardian to identify her by her nickname for fear of reprisal. If they felt so bold as to spit on us and shove us in broad daylight, in front of a police station, what would they do to a more vulnerable person?

And whereas the Philadelphia police kettled in hundreds of peaceful protesters marching along the expressway just southwest of Fishtown, and doused them in teargas even before the citys 6pm curfew hit on Monday, they did little to rein in the group of white self-described vigilantes, witnesses said.

They were carrying baseball bats and golf clubs the most white bully weapons, said Josh Goldbloom, 39, a Fishtown resident who encountered the armed, self-described vigilantes on Monday as he made his way back from the protest in other parts of the city. And they were acting like a bunch of street police.

Goldbloom said he was teargassed while protesting earlier that day, but that the 12 to 15 police officers patrolling a main thoroughfare in Fishtown did little to rein in the armed men. These guys who were obviously looking for some trouble werent being policed at all, he said, even as they converged in front of the local police precinct.

They were screaming things like You pussy ass cunt, said Jill St Clair, 30, who encountered the men while walking her dog with her boyfriend. St Clair said she was dismissed by a 911 dispatcher. She said an officer at the local precinct told her to be grateful for those men and they were indeed keeping me safe.

St Clairs boyfriend John Entwistle, 33, said one of the on-duty officers he spoke with said he was friends with some of the armed locals who had gathered in Fishtown. He said they knew each other through local athletic leagues or whatever, Entwistle said. And when you saw them, there were smiles. It was friendly.

A spokesperson for the Philadelphia police department told the Guardian that the incident is being investigated. In a news conference on Tuesday, police commissioner Danielle Outlaw said her department does not support the group, which had congregated just outside the 26th police district on Monday night.

Goldbloom said it was disheartening, though not entirely surprising, to witness the scene in Fishtown, a long-standing white-majority neighborhood in the northeast of the city. Its weird because Im fighting with my own neighborhood, he said. The historically working-class Irish-Catholic neighborhood has recently seen an influx of new, younger residents move in.

I am absolutely not surprised this happened, said Noel Cazenave, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut and author of Killing African Americans: Police and Vigilante Violence as a Racial Control Mechanism.

Race relations have been very intense in Philadelphia, said Cazenave, who lived in the city for 13 years. When my family and I drove down to try to find housing in Philadelphia, lets just say we had some interesting encounters in the north-east.

Amid nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism against black Americans, a gathering of white vigilantes sends a chilling message. We need to recognize that whats happening with the police and vigilantes is closely related, he said. Slave patrols and vigilante committees made the earliest roots of the American policing system.

Vigilantes and neighborhood watchers dont have to hurt or kill black people as they did in the cases of Ahmaud Arbery and Philando Castile in order to spark fear, Cazenave explained.

Chasing someone with golf clubs or what have you Id say that is a form of non-lethal lynching that maintains white racial control, he said. It sends a message that states: Youre not supposed to be in this area. Its justified by the notion that black people, no matter what theyre doing, are criminals.

On Tuesday, protesters convened outside Philadelphias 26th police precinct, where the armed men had gathered the night before. Some residents stood across from the demonstrators, behind a line of police, saying All lives matter, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

See the article here:
The armed white men who terrorized Philadelphias Black Lives Matter supporters - The Guardian