FALL RIVER — A group of organized neo-Nazis disrupted a children’s event featuring a drag artist in Fall River this past weekend, with organizers vowing to not be discouraged from putting on future events.
“It was the most unsettling thing I’ve seen with my own eyes in a really long time,” said Sean Connell, President of the Fall River Pride Committee. “I think it’s so imperative to stay out here in the face of hate like this.”
On Saturday, Dec. 10, the Fall River Pride Committee hosted a drag story time at the Fall River Public Library, which featured a performer in drag reading children’s books. Connell said they’ve hosted 14 of the events so far, one every month for more than a year.
Most of the drag story times have gone on smoothly. But in November, four neo-Nazis protested outside the library during that month’s drag story time, Connell said. And on Saturday, about two dozen people who appeared to be members of several different neo-Nazi groups congregated outside the library, holding signs condemning the event as pedophilic and shouting anti-LGBT slurs and accusations of pedophilia at people going into and out of the library.
Video and photos from the event show a group of around 20 people on the sidewalk outside the library on North Main Street, dressed in black and with masks and bandanas covering their faces and a large banner that read “drag queens are pedophiles!” At times, they performed the Nazi salute and chanted things like “faggot scum off our streets” and “131,” ostensibly a reference to NSC-131, a New England-based neo-Nazi group.
NSC-131 posted footage of the event on social media and claimed responsibility for the protest. A blurred-out portion of a video they posted shows members of the group rushing toward the steps of the library and appearing to kick at people who were there in support of the drag event.
Angel DaCosta, the drag performer who led the story time, said they could hear the protestors chanting on the sidewalk from inside the library.
Story time centered on inclusion
About 25 people including children and their parents attended the story time, where he read books to them that centered on themes of inclusion and led the children in making DIY Christmas tree ornaments.
“It was really nice inside, despite everything that was happening outside,” they said. “It was a really positive energy.”
But outside, the protesters became violent and injured several people involved with the event, DaCosta said.
Connell said the protestors shouted in his face and tried to physically block them from getting to the library.
“I had to literally squeeze my body between my car and them just to get out of my car,” he said.
Connell and DaCosta both said members of the Fall River Police Department who arrived on the scene did little to prevent the neo-Nazis from being physically violent with people involved in the drag story time or from shouting violent threats at them.
FRPD combing through footage
Of the officers who were there, “none of them reported seeing anyone pushed or anyone assaulted,” Police Chief Paul Gauvin said on Wednesday, although he said officers are still combing through footage of the event.
The department’s hate crime division is investigating and has also reached out to U.S. Attorney Rachel Rollin’s office, Gauvin said.
He believes the neo-Nazis traveled to Fall River from elsewhere in the state and are not city residents. In recent months, organized neo-Nazis have disrupted LGBT-themed events in other places in New England including Boston, Providence and Danvers.
Gauvin said officers who were there on Saturday had to walk a fine line between allowing the protestors to exercise their constitutional rights to protest and free speech and ensuring that people could attend a community event safely.
“Despite how despicable I think the content of that speech is… some of this speech is constitutionally protected,” he said.
Connell and DaCosta disagreed with Gauvin’s assessment, saying the protestors’ actions were at times violent and that their words also crossed the line to imminent threats that should not be covered by claims of free speech.
“We understand free speech and people being able to protest, but that’s not what this was,” Connell said.
Mayor condemns neo-Nazi protestors
Mayor Paul Coogan condemned the neo-Nazi protestors in a statement published on his Facebook page on Monday.
“While we do have to respect everyone’s right to protest and use free speech, I feel sick knowing that these individuals — who are not members of our community — came here only to cause chaos and disruption,” he wrote. “Going forward, we will work with the organizers, the library and our public safety officials to keep everyone safe if protestors return.”
Despite Saturday’s disruptions, the pride committee plans to host more drag story times in the future, with one already planned for Jan. 14.
“We’re definitely going forward. They want to scare us away and that’s not gonna to happen,” DaCosta said.
Connell said the Fall River Pride Committee hosts events like the one on Saturday to teach children about inclusion and to help LGBT+ children see that there are adults just like them, a mission they don’t plan to step back from.
“Queer adults were queer kids. And we’re really trying hard to be the adults that we needed when we were kids,” she said. “I am not going to allow this kind of hate and fear to cancel who we are or put us back into the closet.”
