A rally here by the Ku Klux Klan and its supporters to protest the Charlottesville City Council’s decision to remove a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee encountered a loud and angry counterprotest Saturday afternoon. 
 
 Members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which is based in Pelham, N.C., near the Virginia border, gathered at Justice Park, situated in a quiet, leafy residential neighborhood in downtown Charlottesville. They shouted “white power,” and some wore white robes. 
 
 About 30 Klansmen were escorted to and from the rally by police in riot gear who were out on a hot day to separate the rallygoers and approximately 1,000 counterprotesters who greeted them with jeers. Attempts by Klan leaders to address the crowd were repeatedly drowned out by boos and chants. Some of the Klan members arrived armed, carrying handguns in holsters at their belts. 
 
 [KKK marchers say they will be armed Saturday at Charlottesville rally] 
 
 The rally was held about a block away from Emancipation Park — the renamed Lee Park — where the statue of Lee astride a horse still stands. Charlottesville police reported that vandals had painted messages in green and red paint on the statue overnight. 
 
 A statue of Robert E. Lee collects snow in Lee Park as snow falls on Monday, March 3, 2014 in Charlottesville, Va. (Ryan M. Kelly/AP) 
 
 More than 100 officers from the Virginia State Police, Albemarle County police and University of Virginia police were prepared to assist Charlottesville police in maintaining order. 
 
 After the Klan rally ended, police led several people away in handcuffs after a large group of counterprotesters remained near the vicinity of the park. Police asked those still gathered nearby to disperse. Wearing riot gear and gas masks, the police declared the counterprotesters “an unlawful assembly” and used gas canisters to compel them to leave the area. 
 
 Police said Sunday that 22 people were arrested. Authorities said three people were hospitalized; two for heat related issues and one for an alcohol related issue. 
 
 “I was pleased with the professionalism and commitment of our law enforcement partners as our safety plan was well executed. Officers traveled from near and far to assist the CPD in maintaining law and order during this difficult endeavor,” Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said Sunday. 
 
 “Hundreds of local citizens rose up in a non-violent protest against the hate that was being spewed in Justice Park,” Thomas said in a statement. “When Klan members arrived, the atmosphere quickly became emotionally charged. Several outside groups made it clear they would become confrontational; however, we were prepared for the unrest that occurred near the conclusion of the event which unfortunately resulted in a number of arrests. Order was quickly restored and our community remains safe.” 
 
 Charlottesville, a city of close to 50,000 and home to the prestigious public flagship campus of the University of Virginia, had become increasingly tense as the rally approached. “A CITY ON EDGE” read the front-page headline in the local paper, the Daily Progress, on Saturday. 
 
 [White nationalist Richard Spencer leads torch-bearing protesters defending Lee statue] 
 
 1 of 18 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Photos from the scene of a Ku Klux Klan rally and counterprotest in Charlottesville, Va. View Photos Klansmen were escorted to and from a rally by police in riot gear to protect them from about 1,000 counterprotesters who greeted them with jeers of “shame.” The rally was held to protest the city’s decision this year to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a public park and rename that park. Caption Klansmen arriving and departing from the rally were escorted by police in riot gear to protect them from about 1,000 counterprotesters, who greeted them with jeers of “Shame!” The rally was held to protest the city’s decision this year to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a public park and rename that park. July 8, 2017 Members of the Ku Klux Klan arrive for a rally in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 City leaders organized diversionary events elsewhere in the city and encouraged residents and visitors not to confront the KKK members directly. While many took that advice, others wanted to make sure the rally participants heard their voices. 
 
 “It is important for me to be here because the Klan was ignored in the 1920s, and they metastasized,” said Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who has been among those leading the call for the Lee statue removal. “They need to know that their ideology is not acceptable.” 
 
 “I teach about slavery and African American history, and it’s important to face the Klan and to face the demons of our collective history and our original sin of slavery. We do it on behalf of our ancestors who were terrorized by them.” 
 
 Though the council voted to remove the statue, a court order has stopped the city from acting on that decision until a hearing next month. Some observers predict a protracted legal battle that would further delay the removal. 
 
 In an editorial last month, city councilwoman Kristin Szakos said the council voted to remove the statue and join a “growing group of cities around the nation that have decided that they no longer want to give pride of place to tributes to the Confederate Lost Cause erected in the early part of the 20th century.” 
 
 [The Ku Klux Klan was dead. The first Hollywood blockbuster revived it.] 
 
 The Klan says the city’s decision to remove the Lee statue is part of a wider effort to get rid of white history. 
 
 “They’re trying to erase the white culture right out of the history books,” Klan member James Moore said Thursday. 
 
 Brandi Fisher, of Ridgeley, W.Va., drove hours to attend the rally. 
 
 “I don’t agree with everything the Klan believes, but I do believe our history should not be taken away,” said Fisher, 41. “Are we going to remove the Washington and Jefferson memorials because they were slave owners?” 
 
 Ezra Israel, 32, who is African American, says the statue should stay up as a reminder of slavery and the people who supported it. 
 
 “It’s hiding history to take it down,” he said as he made his way to the rally. “We need to leave it up so people can see it and see that we were oppressed and we’re still a product of that today.” 
 
 Toung Nguyen, an immigrant from Vietnam who moved to Charlottesville as a child in the early 1980s, said he believes the money that will be spent on removing the statue could be better used improving the local school system. But he says racism has gotten worse in the last couple of years and he understands why many believe the statue needs to go. 
 
 “It’s just disappointing that we still have to deal with this kind of nonsense,” Nguyen said. “Our country feels like it’s going full circle.” 
 
 Charlottesville is already planning for another protest next month. Several white nationalist groups have a permit for an Aug. 12 rally also calling for the council’s decision on the statue to be reversed. 
 
 T. Rees Shapiro contributed to this report. ||||| Chaos and violence turned to tragedy Saturday as hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members — planning to stage what they described as their largest rally in decades to “take America back” — clashed with counterprotesters in the streets and a car plowed into crowds, leaving one person dead and 19 others injured. 
 
 Hours later, two state police officers died when their helicopter crashed at the outskirts of town. Officials identified them as Berke M.M. Bates of Quinton, Va., who was the pilot, and H. Jay Cullen of Midlothian, Va., who was a passenger. State police said their Bell 407 helicopter was assisting with the unrest in Charlottesville. Bates died one day before his 41st birthday; Cullen was 48. 
 
 Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who had declared a state of emergency, said at an evening news conference that he had a message for “all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today: Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth.” 
 
 Maurice Jones, Charlottesville’s city manager, looked stricken as he spoke. “Hate came to our town today in a way that we had feared but we had never really let ourselves imagine would,” he said. 
 
 State and local officials declined to take reporters’ questions. 
 
 1 of 52 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Tensions rise as white nationalists hold a rally in Charlottesville, Va. View Photos White nationalists, met by counterprotesters, held a rally after torch-bearing protesters marched through the University of Virginia campus the night before. During the rally, a vehicle plowed into a crowd marching peacefully through downtown. Caption White nationalists, met by counterprotesters, held a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville after torch-bearing protesters marched through the University of Virginia campus the night before. During the rally, a vehicle plowed into a crowd marching peacefully through downtown Charlottesville. Aug. 12, 2017 A white nationalist and a counterprotester face off. Evelyn Hockstein/for The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 In an emergency meeting Saturday evening, the Charlottesville City Council voted unanimously to give police the power to enact a curfew or otherwise restrict assembly to protect public safety. 
 
 Video recorded at the scene of the car crash shows a 2010 gray Dodge Challenger accelerating into crowds on a pedestrian mall, sending bodies flying — and then reversing at high speed, hitting yet more people. Witnesses said the street was filled with people opposed to the white nationalists who had come to town bearing Confederate flags and anti-Semitic epithets. 
 
 A 32-year-old woman was killed, according to police, who said they were investigating the crash as a criminal homicide. 
 
 The driver of the Challenger, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count of hit-and-run attended failure to stop with injury, police said. He is being held without bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail Superintendent Martin Kumer said. Three other men were arrested in connection with violence earlier in the day. 
 
 The FBI field office in Richmond and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Virginia said late Saturday they have opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car crash. 
 
 “The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.” 
 
 Records show Fields last lived in Maumee, Ohio, about 15 miles southwest of Toledo. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Fields’s father was killed by a drunk driver a few months before the boy’s birth, according to an uncle who spoke on the condition of anonymity. His father left him money that the uncle kept in a trust until Fields reached adulthood. 
 
 “When he turned 18, he demanded his money, and that was the last I had any contact with him,” the uncle said. 
 
 Fields, he said, grew up mostly in Northern Kentucky, where he’d been raised by a single mother who was a paraplegic. The uncle, who saw Fields mostly at family gatherings, described his nephew as “not really friendly, more subdued.” 
 
 Angela Taylor, a spokeswoman for the University of Virginia Medical Center, said 19 others were brought to the hospital in the early afternoon after the car barreled through the pedestrian mall. Five were in critical condition as of Saturday evening. Another 14 people were hurt in street brawls, city officials said. 
 
 Earlier, police evacuated a downtown park as rallygoers and counterprotesters traded blows and hurled bottles and chemical irritants at one another, putting an end to the noon rally before it officially began. 
 
 Despite the decision to quash the rally, clashes continued on side streets and throughout downtown, including the pedestrian mall at Water and Fourth streets where the Challenger slammed into counterprotesters and two other cars in the early afternoon, sending bystanders running and screaming. 
 
 “I am heartbroken that a life has been lost here,” Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer (D) said in a tweet. “I urge all people of good will — go home.” 
 
 Elected leaders in Virginia and elsewhere urged peace, blasting the white supremacist views on display in Charlottesville as ugly. 
 
 But President Trump, known for his rapid-fire tweets, remained silent throughout the morning. It was after 1 p.m. when he weighed in, writing on Twitter: “We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!” 
 
 In brief remarks at a late-afternoon news conference in New Jersey to discuss veterans’ health care, Trump said he was following the events in Charlottesville closely. “The hate and the division must stop and must stop right now,” Trump said, without specifically mentioning white nationalists or their views. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.” 
 
 Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, a Trump supporter who was in Charlottesville on Saturday, quickly replied. “I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists,” he wrote. 
 
 Asked by a reporter in New Jersey whether he wanted the support of white nationalists, dozens of whom wore red Make America Great Again hats during the Charlottesville riots, Trump did not respond. 
 
 Even as crowds began to thin Saturday afternoon, the town remained unsettled and on edge. Onlookers were deeply shaken at the pedestrian mall, where ambulances had arrived to treat those injured by the car. 
 
 Chan Williams, 22, was among the counterprotesters in the street, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” The marchers blocked traffic, but Williams said drivers weren’t annoyed. Instead, she said, they waved or honked in support. 
 
 So when she heard a car engine rev up and saw the people in front of her dodging a moving car, she didn’t know what to think. 
 
 “I saw the car hit bodies, legs in the air,” she said. “You try to grab the people closest to you and take shelter.” 
 
 Williams and friend George Halliday ducked into a shop with an open door and called their mothers. An hour later, the two were still visibly upset. 
 
 “I just saw shoes on the road,” Halliday, 20, said. “It all happened in two seconds.” 
 
 Saturday’s Unite the Right rally was meant to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The city of Charlottesville voted to remove the statue earlier this year, but it remains in Emancipation Park, formerly known as Lee Park, pending a judge’s ruling expected later this month. 
 
 They were met by counterprotesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, who founded the university. One counterprotester apparently deployed a chemical spray, which sent about a dozen rallygoers seeking medical assistance. 
 
 On Saturday morning, people in combat gear — some wearing bicycle and motorcycle helmets and carrying clubs, sticks and makeshift shields — fought one another on downtown streets, with little apparent police interference. Both sides sprayed chemical irritants and hurled plastic bottles through the air. 
 
 A large contingent of Charlottesville police officers and Virginia State Police troopers in riot gear were stationed on side streets and at nearby barricades but did nothing to break up the melee until about 11:40 a.m. Using megaphones, police then declared an unlawful assembly and gave a five-minute warning to leave Emancipation Park. 
 
 “The worst part is that people got hurt and the police stood by and didn’t do a g------ thing,” said David Copper, 70, of Staunton, Va. 
 
 State Del. David Toscano (D-Charlottesville), minority leader of Virginia’s House, praised the response by Charlottesville and state police. 
 
 Asked why police did not act sooner to intervene as violence unfolded, Toscano said he could not comment. “But they trained very hard for this, and it might have been that they were waiting for a more effective time to get people out” of Emancipation Park, he said. 
 
 By early afternoon, hundreds of rallygoers had made their way to a larger park two miles to the north. Duke, speaking to the crowd, said that European Americans are “being ethnically cleansed within our own nation” and called Saturday’s events “the first step toward taking America back.” 
 
 White nationalist leader Richard Spencer also addressed the group, urging people to disperse. But he promised they would return for a future demonstration, blaming Saturday’s violence on counterprotesters. 
 
 In an interview, Spencer said he was “beyond outraged” that police had declared the planned rally an “unlawful assembly.” 
 
 “I never before thought that I would have my country cracking down on me and on free speech,” he said. “We were lawfully and peacefully assembled. We came in peace, and the state cracked down.” 
 
 He said that counterprotesters attacked rallygoers but also acknowledged that “maybe someone threw a first punch on our side. Maybe that happened. I obviously didn’t see everything.” 
 
 By 11 a.m., several fully armed militias and hundreds of right-wing rallygoers had poured into the small downtown park that was to be the site of the rally. 
 
 Counterprotesters held “Black Lives Matter” signs and placards expressing support for equality and love as they faced rallygoers who waved Confederate flags and posters that said “the Goyim know,” referring to non-Jewish people, and “the Jewish media is going down.” 
 
 “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!” the counterprotesters chanted. 
 
 “Too late, f-----s!” a man yelled back at them. 
 
 Michael Von Kotch, a Pennsylvania resident who called himself a Nazi, said the rally made him “proud to be white.” 
 
 He said that he’s long held white supremacist views and that Trump’s election has “emboldened” him and the members of his own Nazi group. 
 
 “We are assembled to defend our history, our heritage and to protect our race to the last man,” Von Kotch said, wearing a protective helmet and sporting a wooden shield and a broken pool cue. “We came here to stand up for the white race.” 
 
 Naundi Cook, 23, who is black, said that she came to Saturday’s counterprotests to “support my people” but that she’s never seen something like this before. 
 
 When violence broke out, she started shaking and got goose bumps. 
 
 “I’ve seen people walking around with tear gas all over their face, all over their clothes. People getting Maced, fighting,” she said. “I didn’t want to be next.” 
 
 Cook said she couldn’t sit back and watch white nationalists descend on her town. She has a 3-year-old daughter to stand up for, she said. 
 
 “Right now, I’m not sad,” she said once the protests dispersed. “I’m a little more empowered. All these people and support, I feel like we’re on top right now because of all the support that we have.” 
 
 Brown reported from Washington. Jack Gillum and Sarah Larimer in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| Charlottesville, Virginia (CNN) One person was killed and 19 were hurt when a speeding car slammed into a throng of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, where a "Unite the Right" rally of white nationalist and other right-wing groups had been scheduled to take place, the city tweeted on its verified account. 
 
 A 32-year-old woman was killed while walking across the street, Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said. Police were still in the process of notifying her family. 
 
 Two Virginia State Patrol troopers were killed in a helicopter crash while "assisting public safety resources with the ongoing situation in Charlottesville," the agency said in a news release. The pilot, Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, and Trooper Berke M.M. Bates, who would have turned 41 on Sunday, died in the crash. 
 
 Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe had a pointed message for the right-wing groups that flocked to Charlottesville on Saturday: "Go home. ... You are not wanted in this great commonwealth. Shame on you." 
 
 In addition to the one death and 19 injuries in the car-ramming incident, the city said there were at least 15 other injuries associated with the scheduled rally. 
 
 Federal authorities said a civil rights investigation into the deadly crash was opened hours after it happened. 
 
 Attorney General Jeff Sessions said U.S. Attorney Rick Mountcastle is leading the investigation and has the full support of the Deparment of Justice. 
 
 "The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice. When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated," Sessions said in a statement. "Justice will prevail." 
 
 "The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and as this is an ongoing investigation we are not able to comment further at this time," said a statement from the Richmond, Virginia FBI field office. 
 
 "I am heartbroken that a life has been lost here. I urge all people of good will -- go home," Mayor Mike Signer wrote on Twitter. 
 
 Virginia's governor had earlier declared an emergency, and police worked to disperse hundreds of protesters in the college town after clashes broke out ahead of the rally's scheduled noon ET start. 
 
 Fistfights and screaming matches erupted Saturday, barely 12 hours after a scuffle Friday night at the nearby University of Virginia between torch-bearing demonstrators and counterprotesters. 
 
 Saturday's rally was the latest event drawing white nationalists and right-wing activists from across the country to this Democratic-voting town -- a development precipitated by the city's decision to remove symbols of its Confederate past. 
 
 Demonstrators clash late Saturday morning in Charlottesville, Virginia. 
 
 Here are the latest developments: 
 
 • The suspect being held in a Virginia jail in connection with a deadly crash near a scheduled rally of white nationalists has been identified as James Alex Fields Jr. , 20, of Maumee, Ohio, according to Superintendent Martin Kumer with the Albermarle-Charlottesville County Regional Jail. Fields is being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death. 
 
 • Fields' mother, Samantha Bloom, told the Toledo Blade , a CNN affiliate, that he told her last week he was going to an "alt-right" rally, but she didn't get involved in his political views. "I told him to be careful ... if they are going to rally, to make sure he is doing it peacefully," she told the newspaper. CNN's attempt to reach Bloom were unsuccessful. 
 
 • Angela Taylor, a spokeswoman for the University of Virginia Medical Center, said there were five patients from the crash in critical condition, four in serious condition, six in fair condition and four in good condition. 
 
 CPD & VSP respond to 3-vehicle crash at Water & 4th streets. Several pedestrians struck. Multiple injuries. 1/2 #cvilleaug12 pic.twitter.com/DdHYdL0Uvu — VA State Police (@VSPPIO) August 12, 2017 
 
 • Video of the incident shows a gray Dodge Challenger driving quickly down a narrow side street lined with walking protesters. The sports car rams into the back of a silver convertible, which hits the van in front of it. Soon the Dodge driver slams the car in reverse, going back up the street at a high rate of speed, dragging its front bumper. Several people chase the car. As the sports car retreats, a red and white athletic shoe falls off the bumper. 
 
 Another video shows at least one person being thrown over the rear of the car onto the roof of the silver convertible then sliding down onto the hood. 
 
 • Witness Chris Mahony said he and a friend, who shot one of the videos, were walking down the street when he saw the gray car on the other side of the street. 
 
 "It just sat there, looking down the road," he said. "I thought that's a bit strange. There didn't seem to be any other cars stopping him from going. And then a couple moments we heard a car going incredibly fast down the road and then it plowed into the crowd." 
 
 • Three other people were arrested Saturday, Virginia State Police said. Two of the men were from out of state. One of the out-of-state men faces a charge of carrying a concealed handgun and the other is charged disorderly conduct. A Virginia man was arrested on suspicion of assault and battery. 
 
 • President Donald Trump told reporters: "We are closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It has been going on for a long time in our country -- not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America." 
 
 • Former President Barack Obama, quoting Nelson Mandela, wrote on Twitter: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." 
 
 • Sen. Ted Cruz called on the US Justice Department "to immediately investigate and prosecute today's grotesque act of domestic terrorism." In a posting on Facebook , Cruz said it was "tragic and heartbreaking to see hatred and racism once again mar our great nation with bloodshed." Cruz called the white supremacists "repulsive and evil." 
 
 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia People fly into the air as a vehicle drives into a group of people demonstrating against a white nationalist rally after police cleared Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, August 12. Hide Caption 1 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia The vehicle moments before it struck the crowd. Hide Caption 2 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia A woman receives first aid after a speeding car slammed into this silver convertible as it navigated through a crowd of counterprotesters. Hide Caption 3 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia A man embraces an injured woman after a car rammed into the crowd. Hide Caption 4 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia Right-wing rally members clash with counterprotesters in Emancipation Park, where white nationalist groups gathered for a rally. Hide Caption 5 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia A counterprotester strikes a white nationalist with a baton during clashes at Emancipation Park, where white nationalists are protesting the removal of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee monument. Hide Caption 6 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia A counterprotester throws a newspaper box at a right-wing rally member at the entrance to Emancipation Park. Hide Caption 7 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia A counterprotester uses a lighted spray can against a white nationalist at the entrance to Emancipation Park. Hide Caption 8 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia Counterprotesters try to burn a Confederate battle flag taken from white nationalist protesters. Hide Caption 9 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" clash with counterprotesters. Hide Caption 10 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia A white nationalist is seen with a cut below his eye suffered during clashes with counterprotesters at Emancipation Park . Hide Caption 11 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the alt-right movement exchange volleys of pepper spray with counterprotesters as they enter Emancipation Park. Hide Caption 12 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia A woman is treated for exposure to pepper spray during clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters at Emancipation Park. Hide Caption 13 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia White nationalists use shields as they guard the entrance to Emancipation Park. Hide Caption 14 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia Counterprotesters line the route taken by white nationalists and neo-Nazis during the "Unite the Right" rally. After clashes with anti-fascist protesters and police, the rally was declared an unlawful gathering and people were forced out of Emancipation Park, formerly called Lee Park and home to a controversial statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Hide Caption 15 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia White nationalist Richard Spencer and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police in Emancipation Park. Hide Caption 16 of 17 Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia Riot police form a line of defense in front of the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park, recently renamed from Lee Park. Hide Caption 17 of 17 
 
 • Police began to break up crowds shortly before noon, after city officials declared the gathering an "unlawful assembly." 
 
 • Some protesters fired pepper spray at other demonstrators, state police said. 
 
 • Gov. McAuliffe declared a state of emergency "to aid state response to violence," according to a post on his Twitter account 
 
 ALERT: Unlawful assembly declared for rally at Emancipation Park #cvilleaug12 pic.twitter.com/2OcchnDNFS — Charlottesville City (@CvilleCityHall) August 12, 2017 
 
 Police in riot gear stood shoulder to shoulder behind shields early Saturday afternoon, at times advancing toward crowds, CNN video shows. 
 
 By 1 p.m. ET, police had cleared the park where the rally was to be held. 
 
 It wasn't immediately clear what led to the fights, though tensions and rhetoric were running hot. At one point, a few dozen white men wearing helmets and holding makeshift shields chanted, "Blood and soil!" Later, another group chanted slogans such as, "Nazi scum off our streets!" 
 
 Demonstrators gather Saturday ahead of a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 
 
 People punched and kicked each other during various scuffles, which often were broken up from within crowds, without police intervention, CNN video shows. 
 
 Police presence was heavy, with more than 1,000 officers expected to be deployed, city officials said. Police anticipated the rally would attract as many as 2,000 to 6,000 people, and the Southern Poverty Law Center said it could be the "largest hate-gathering of its kind in decades in the United States." 
 
 Counterprotesters gather Saturday morning in Charlottesville, Virginia, ahead of a "Unite the Right" rally. 
 
 White nationalists wield torches 
 
 White nationalists carrying torches surround protesters Friday night at the foot of a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the University of Virginia's campus. 
 
 Charlottesville, once home to Thomas Jefferson, is known as a progressive city of about 47,000 people. During last year's presidential election, 80% of its voters chose Hillary Clinton. 
 
 But far-right activists and Ku Klux Klan members have come here in recent months, outraged by the city's intention to remove traces of its links to the Confederacy -- including plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. 
 
 The effort developed amid a push by communities across the South to remove Confederate iconography from public property since the 2015 rampage killings of nine black churchgoers in Charleston , South Carolina, by a self-described white supremacist. 
 
 Ahead of Saturday's planned rally, tensions roiled Friday night as white nationalists -- some holding what appeared to be backyard tiki-style torches -- marched onto the University of Virginia's campus. 
 
 White nationalists and others march Friday night through the University of Virginia campus. 
 
 Chanting, "Blood and soil" and "You will not replace us," the group rallied around a statue of Thomas Jefferson before they clashed with counterprotesters, CNN affiliate WWBT reported . The group left the university's grounds when police arrived and declared the gathering an unlawful assembly. 
 
 #Charlottesville 9:53pm 🔘 The torches are lit. Hundreds w/ an alt-right march thru UVA pic.twitter.com/H7D2KDbSq6 — Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) August 12, 2017 
 
 City and UVA officials condemned Friday's march. 
 
 "In my 47 years of association with @UVA, this was the most nauseating thing I've ever seen. We need an exorcism on the Lawn," Larry Sabato, director of the university's Center for Politics, tweeted. 
 
 In my 47 years of association with @UVA, this was the most nauseating thing I've ever seen. We need an exorcism on the Lawn. — Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) August 12, 2017 
 
 Signer, the Charlottesville mayor, released a statement referring to Friday's rally as a "cowardly parade of hatred, bigotry, racism, and intolerance march down the lawns of the architect of our Bill of Rights." 
 
 "Everyone has a right under the First Amendment to express their opinion peaceably, so here's mine: not only as the Mayor of Charlottesville, but as a UVA faculty member and alumnus, I am beyond disgusted by this unsanctioned and despicable display of visual intimidation on a college campus," he added. 
 
 Now gathering around statue of Thomas Jefferson. Chanting 'white lives matter!' pic.twitter.com/16cruXn5d8 — Joe Heim (@JoeHeim) August 12, 2017 
 
 Friday's march took place shortly after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction allowing right-wing activists to hold Saturday's rally. 
 
 City officials had tried to "modify" the rally's permit to move the demonstration from the park with the Lee statue more than a mile away to McIntire Park, citing safety concerns. 
 
 'We're going to start standing up for our history' 
 
 In February, the city council voted to remove the Lee statue, but that is on hold pending litigation. The council also voted to rename two city parks that had been named for Confederate generals; one of those, Emancipation Park, was due to be the site of Saturday's rally. 
 
 Jason Kessler, who organized Saturday's "Unite the Right" rally, said he doesn't consider himself to be a white nationalist. But, he said, "we're going to start standing up for our history." 
 
 "The statue itself is symbolic of a lot of larger issues. The primary three issues are preserving history against this censorship and revisionism -- this political correctness," he told CNN Friday. 
 
 "The second issue is being allowed to advocate for your interests as a white person, just like other groups are allowed to advocate for their interests politically. And finally, this is about free speech. We are simply trying to express ourselves and do a demonstration, and the local government has tried to shut us down."
– Between 30 and 50 members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan rallied in support of controversial Confederate statues on Saturday in Charlottesville, Va., but the Washington Post reports that their shouts of "white power" were drowned out by more than 1,000 counterprotesters. More than 100 cops in riot gear escorted Klansmen to and from the 45-minute rally, held in protest of the city's plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee. Police later declared an "unlawful assembly" when counterprotesters refused to leave, reports the Daily Progress, and used tear gas to make their point; 23 were arrested. "It is important for me to be here because the Klan was ignored in the 1920s, and they metastasized," says a protester. "They need to know that their ideology is not acceptable." (Here's why Charlottesville is the latest flashpoint in alt-right wars.)