California lawmakers quickly criticized the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, VA, on Saturday that left three people dead and five seriously injured.
“Violent acts of hate and bigotry have no place in America. The attacks we are witnessing in Charlottesville are completely unacceptable and must not be allowed to continue,” said Sen. Diane Feinstein. “Violence like this will solve nothing and will only beget more violence and sow more division.”
Rep. Scott Peters, who represents La Jolla and much of central San Diego, tweeted that “these expressions of racism & hatred are neither American nor Christian, and all the patriotic and devout should say so.”
Sen. Kamala Harris said “this hate is against everything America stands for. We must all stand united against it.”
Saturday’s “Unite the Right” rally featured thousands of demonstrators from different organizations, including neo-Nazis and KKK groups, and was prompted in part by the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville, a typically quite university town.
Violence broke out between the white nationalists and a smaller number of counterprotesters, some holding “Black Lives Matter” signs. TV news footage showed many of the white nationalists were armed with guns, shields and even pepper spray.
A short time after police cleared the protest area, a car plowed into a crowd of people, killing one person and injuring 19, five critically, officials said. That was also captured on video, which appeared to show that the driver acted intentionally. Police later took the suspected driver into custody.
In a related incident, two state troopers were killed when their helicopter that was monitoring the protest went down in a wooded area outside the city.