Protesters in KKK brawl released from jail pending charges
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Authorities say Ku Klux Klan members and counter-protesters involved in a bloody melee at a Southern California park have been released from jail without criminal charges.
But police Sgt. Daron Wyatt said Thursday that it's possible they could be arrested again after investigators review video footage and other evidence from the weekend clash in which three people were stabbed.
Wyatt says 12 people were arrested and one turned himself in following Saturday's brawl involving several dozen people and spanning an Anaheim city block about three miles from Disneyland.
An initial investigation determined that Klan members acted in self-defense after the counter-protesters attacked.
Wyatt says a 19-year-old man arrested after the melee remains jailed on a matter unrelated to the brawl.
The KKK has a long history in Southern California, with Klansmen holding elected office in Anaheim in the 1920s. Nationwide, the number of active KKK groups increased to 190 in 2015 after falling in 2013 and 2014, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In January 2015, packets containing fliers condemning Martin Luther King, Jr. and supporting the Ku Klux Klan were left in the driveways of about 40 homes in Santa Ana, about eight miles south of Anaheim. The baggies contained a KKK business card, rock and candy.
The fliers opened with the heading, "On Martin Luther King Day, you are celebrating a communist pervert." The bottom of the fliers state they came from the "Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan."