White extremists involved in rally bloodshed ‘will attend Republican convention to defend Trump supporters’

A group of white nationalists and skinheads who held a rally in Sacramento, California, over the weekend where at least five people were stabbed plans to show up at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next month to “make sure that the Donald Trump supporters are defended.”

The violent clash at the California state Capitol accentuates concerns about the RNC, with political tensions high and thousands of pro- and anti-Trump protesters expected to descend on Cleveland.

“I think everybody is concerned about the potential for violence at the convention,” said Ryan Lenz, senior writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremists and hate groups.

Sunday’s mayhem in Sacramento began as the white nationalist group Traditionalist Worker Party, along with the Golden State Skinheads, were setting up for a state Capitol rally. The e groups characterised the rally as a response to aggression against supporters of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Trump.

Brawls quickly erupted between the group of fewer than 30 skinheads and the estimated hundreds of anti-fascist protesters that left at least 10 people injured. Police have made no arrests.

Traditionalist Worker Party spokesman Matt Parrott, who blamed the anti-fascists for the riot, said about 30 members of his group would come to Cleveland.