About 3,000 counterdemonstrators succeeded in forcing the Ku Klux Klan to call off its planned march through the capital, but Klansmen are vowing to return next Labor Day.
But robed and hooded members of the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in Mount Holly, N.C., nevertheless held a brief rally on the U.S. Capitol steps Sunday as a mob, held several blocks away by police, shouted protests.Police escorted about 46 members of the white supremacist group to the Capitol while a crowd estimated by police at 3,000 attempted to move into the area.
Officials said the Klansmen called off their planned march after learning that counterdemonstrators were blocking the route.
"Officials conferred with the Klan and they were advised . . . anti-Klan protesters were blocking the roadway and it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Klan to march through there," District of Columbia police spokeswoman Shannon Crockett said.
A Klan leader promised his group would return.
"We are coming back," Christian Knights Grand Dragon Horace King said.
An unidentified Klansman said, "We'll be back next year with more. We'll be coming every Labor Day."
Police officers wearing helmets and carrying nightsticks, riot shields and gas masks held the anti-Klan protesters about three blocks from the Capitol grounds. Tin cans and rocks were thrown from the surging throng.
Police said three people were charged with disorderly conduct and a juvenile was charged with inciting to riot after an incident that sent one anti-Klan protester to the hospital with head injuries even before the march was to kick off.
Crockett said four police officers and four other persons were treated for injuries, five of them at local hospitals.
Law enforcement officials said about 3,000 anti-Klan demonstrators were in the area, but the All People's Congress, one of the counterdemonstration organizers, said it counted nearly 10,000 people.