White nationalist, opponent charged in Sacramento melee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California authorities announced charges Tuesday against a white nationalist and a counter-protester after a violent melee outside the California state capitol building last year, a number that falls far short of the 101 people the California Highway Patrol recommended charging.
The charges stem from June 2016, when 14 people came away with stab wounds, cuts and bruises after more than 300 counter-protesters, many of them wearing masks, confronted about 30 members of the white-nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party. Two of the injured people survived critical stabbings.
The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said other arrests are expected, but prosecutors rejected numerous other charges the highway patrol sought after its eight-month investigation.
Investigators could not learn the identities of those committing the most violent offences, Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Grippi said in a statement, and the district attorney’s office is not pursuing many of the more minor recommended charges.