Of the dozens of organizations that turned out for Sunday’s mass protest against racism here, one group was impossible to miss.
Its members dressed head to toe in black, with masked faces and some bearing pastel-painted riot shields that read “no hate.” These 100 or so militants billed themselves as a security force for progressive counter-protesters, vowing to protect them from far-right agitators.
But as
the protest got underway, some of those in masks would resort to mob violence, attacking a small showing of supporters of
President Trump and others they accused, sometimes inaccurately, of being white supremacists or Nazis.
...
After the crowd began to disperse, Berkeley Police Chief Andrew Greenwood held a tense discussion with a church organizer concerned that peaceful protesters would be lumped in with the militants. Greenwood said his officers had seen antifa and black bloc forces preparing alongside the rest of the demonstrators, at a staging point some four blocks away.
“They were practicing with weapons,” Greenwood said.