(CNN) – Five Ku Klux Klan members were released from jail Sunday, a day after they were arrested during a brawl in Anaheim, California, Anaheim police spokesman Sgt. Daron Wyatt said Monday.
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The Klan members were participating in an anti-immigration rally in Anaheim, a city with historical links to the Klan.
The brawl began moments after the Klan members pulled up in a black SUV and pulled out signs saying “White Lives Matter”.
“I’ve lived in Anaheim my whole life and I have never heard of anything like this”, local resident Joe Castaneda told The Orange County Register after watching the fight break out.
Levin, who went to Pearson Park expecting to record the rally for research, found himself protecting the Klansmen until police could intervene.
After pushing a Klansman away from the crowd, Levin said he asked him: “How does it feel that your life was just saved by a Jewish man?” “I’m a black man”, one activist yelled before finally pouncing.
In the near century since then, Anaheim has gone from 95 percent white to become 53 percent Hispanic and 27 percent white, according to data with the U.S. Census Bureau.
The melee spanned a block-long area, he said.
Two of the stomped Klansmen were taken from the scene for hospital treatment, Wyatt said.
Wyatt said officers were at the rally but declined to say how many.
Thomas Kielty, who is representing the three protesters arrested near Pearson Park on Saturday, said Hugo Contreras suffered a broken arm as police took him into custody.
All of those arrested are thought to be adults and are suspected of assault with a deadly weapon.
“Though the Klan members were released, prosecutors will review the case and decide whether to file criminal charges”, the Times reports.
According to the police, the Klan members were repeatedly attacked by the protesters and fought back using knives and the end of flagpoles, resulting in the three stabbings.
KKK “imperial wizard” Chris Barker told the Associated Press that the KKK demonstration was meant to be peaceful. Last year, the group drew headlines when it protested the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol.
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The Klan, which was formed in 1865, had up to four million members in the 1920s, but its membership has dwindled to between 5,000 and 8,000 individuals today, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In this February 27, 2016 photo provided by the B. Levin Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism, a man dressed in Ku Klux Klan garb, center, and a counter-protester, left, confront each o…
