Riot Worse Than Police Expected

(CBS/AP)  Police began receiving word midweek that gangs were going to descend on a neighborhood where a riot erupted over a planned march by a white supremacist group, but the resulting disturbance was worse than expected, the police chief said Sunday.

The riot broke out Saturday when protesters confronted members of the National Socialist Movement who had gathered at a city park. Rioters threw baseball-sized rocks at police, vandalized vehicles and stores, and set fire to a neighborhood bar, authorities said. More than 100 people were arrested and one officer was seriously injured.

CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that police blame the violence on gang members who did not want the neo-Nazi's on their turf, while others point to racial divisions. But Toledo resident Brian Emerson does not think race relations were a factor.

"There are no hate crimes in this neighborhood," Emerson told Pinkston. "Blacks and whites get a long in this neighborhood. There are gangs, but it's not racially motivated."

Officers who work in the area reported that gang members were planning to turn out in force, and authorities made plans to handle any disturbances, Police Chief Mike Navarre said at a news conference Sunday morning.

"We knew during the preparation that it was going to be a tremendous challenge," Navarre said. "Anyone who would accuse us of being underprepared, I would take exception with that."

However, he added the protest lasted longer and was more intense than expected.

About two dozen members of the supremacist group, which calls itself "America's Nazi Party," had gathered at a city park just before noon Saturday to march under police protection. The march was called off after rioting started.

Authorities want to determine why protesters turned their anger toward police after the Nazi group left, Lucas County Sheriff James Telb said.
CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports that police fired tear gas canisters at the band of rioters — both white and black — as they vandalized vehicles and stores, even attacking a passing ambulance. After a short lull in the pitched fight, the mob torched a neighborhood liquor store.

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