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TRENTON — A small group of neo-Nazis, members of the National Socialist Movement, rallied on the steps of the Statehouse briefly Saturday, while hundreds of counter-protesters demonstrated behind a barricade a short distance down the street.

Easily outnumbering both groups, however, were police officers gathered en masse along the length of West State Street, where the Statehouse is located.

Speakers with the NSM contingent, which numbered 50 to 100 people, railed against illegal immigration, high taxes, and crime, portraying themselves as a patriot organization seeking to protect American prosperity.

“We have illegal aliens … streaming over our borders taking American jobs,” said NSM national director Jeff Schoep, speaking into a microphone over the chants and catcalls of counter-protesters. “You can’t tell me that … illegals are coming here to take the jobs that we don’t want. They’re coming here to steal our jobs and live free off your welfare and tax dollars.”

Speakers with NSM, which is based in Detroit, said they had come from places as far away as Arizona and California.

“People wonder why we come to Trenton. Our American founding father won his first battle here in the Revolutionary War,” Schoep said. “The National Socialist Movement is freedom fighters.

We honor our founding fathers. We honor George Washington and we fight here today just as our forefathers did many years ago.”

The rally took place within a heavily fortified perimeter. The public was not allowed into the counter-protesters’ staging area without passing through a metal detector.

Counter-protesters met NSM’s chants of “Sieg Heil,” with their own mantras: “Hey-hey, ho-ho, this Nazi scum has got to go.”

Several groups were represented among the opposition, including the Anti-Racist Action Network (ARA) and the city’s New Black Panther Party.

Divine Allah, a youth minister with the Panthers and a former city council candidate, said the groups had sent a clear message that Trenton was united against racism.

“We can unify around a common goal: to face and deal with the issue that’s affecting us all and that is racism,” he said. “We just had to show that the Trenton community can stand up, but we need to stand up and deal with some of the things that are going on in this community on a daily basis. (NSM) left,” he said, “but we’ve still got work to do.”

While the rally was relatively peaceful, state police reported that members of ARA and NSM clashed Friday evening in Pemberton Borough. According to authorities, NSM members were meeting at a church on Pemberton Street when about 25 individuals affiliated with ARA approached the building and began throwing rocks and other objects.

NSM members came outside, and a fight involving as many as 50 people ensued. Four people, identified by state police as NSM members, were taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries while two ARA members were arrested and charged with inciting to riot and disorderly conduct. They were being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

“Historically, there’s a lot of antagonism here,” said Sgt. Stephen Jones, a state police spokesman. “There’s been some incidents in other cities where things got pretty nasty, so we brought all the resources out here to make sure this doesn’t happen and everything stays peaceful.”

While the state police spearheaded the security effort at the Statehouse, representatives of the Trenton Police Department, the Mercer County sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices, and the U.S. Department of Justice were also on hand.

Hundreds of uniformed officers patrolled the area while police helicopters clattered overhead.
Jones said that while NSM paid a small fee to demonstrate, it was likely insufficient compensation to cover the cost of the security.

“There is a permit fee,” he said. “The permit fee is relatively low compared to, obviously, the amount of time and effort put into this.”

In one minor incident, reported after the rally ended, two counter-protesters were arrested after smashing a window of the Bank of America branch at the corner of South Broad and East State streets as buses carrying NSM members passed by.

According to Jones, NSM members were ordered to park several miles from downtown Trenton and were transported to the rally site by state Department of Corrections buses.

Residents on West State Street said they were disturbed to see such virulent racism on display right outside their front doors.

“I cannot believe racism is still going on, I just can’t believe it,” said Cheree Munn, 26, who watched the rally with her neighbor, Carla Thomas, from their front stoop. “I thought this was done and over with. You still have people in the world like that? We need to come together.”

Munn and Thomas, who are black, said NSM members waved their middle fingers at the pair as they passed by their front door. They suggested that, without the police presence, the rally might have gone differently, if it had been held in some of the city’s rougher neighborhoods.

“I think they should’ve taken it on Walnut Avenue, or Passaic Street, or one of the hard streets,” Thomas said.

“It wouldn’t have lasted long,” Munn added.

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