Chief Says Neo-Nazis Wanted Another Charlottesville

Detroit's police chief says officers prevented violence by a neo-Nazi group that wanted to spark "Charlottesville No. 2" during a gay pride festival over the weekend, the AP reports. Chief James Craig said Monday that five people among about 15 white supremacists were legally carrying firearms while they traded barbs with 15-20 counterprotesters during the Motor City Pride festival in downtown Detroit.

Craig says the department's intelligence sources indicated the group wanted to spark violence similar to the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Craig says that officers kept the groups separate, and that no injuries occurred. He says members of both groups shouted racial epithets at each other and toward police officers in an attempt to bait them into a violent response. No shots were fired during the confrontation. (Trump defends his Charlottesville comments.)