Members of Patriot Front, a known white nationalist group based in Texas, marched their way through Philadelphia on Saturday. But as 6 ABC News reports, it doesn’t sound like they stuck around for as long as they anticipated.
From 6 ABC:
Action News was the only crew on the scene as the group traveled down the Ben Franklin Parkway, across Market, Chestnut and Walnut Streets before marching to Penn’s Landing.
Hundreds of masked protesters from Patriot Front chanted, while carrying American flags and shields.
At Penn’s Landing, several onlookers began yelling at the protesters and banging on trucks as the group loaded into the vehicles and drove off.
That’s right: The City of Brotherly Love let these dudes–who, according to NBC 10, wore white face coverings, blue shirts and khaki pants–that their hate isn’t welcome within the city limits.
This shouldn’t really be a surprise that Philly wasn’t going to appreciate these herbs marching around their streets. If they’re willing to throw batteries at people and boo a man dressed as Santa Claus, you really think they won’t step up to a racist in a bootleg Best Buy uniform?
More from 6 ABC:
Police say some of the angry onlookers scared off the white supremacists.
“They started engaging with citizens of Philadelphia, who were none too happy about what they were saying. These males felt threatened, and at one point somebody threw a smoke bomb to cover their retreat, and they literally ran away from the people of Philadelphia,” said Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Crum.
NBC 10 reports that randomly showing up in cities to put on “localized flash mobs” is a common tactic for Patriot Front–which formed in 2017 in the aftermath of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. These are the same people that appear to have been behind the defacement of various murals and monuments to victims of police violence around the country.
As of Sunday, it was unclear if there were any arrests made after the group rolled into Philadelphia, according to NBC 10.