Clashes at California's state Capitol between neo-Nazis and anti-fascist counterprotesters have left 10 people wounded, two of them critically. It wasn't immediately clear to which group the injured belonged.
Local US newspaper "The Sacramento Bee" reported on Sunday that violence broke out when some 25 neo-Nazis, who had permission to protest on the Capitol's west steps, clashed with more than 150 anarchists and "anti-fascist" counterprotesters.
Emergency services received a call to the scene just before midday local time (1900 UTC) on Sunday.
According to a tweet posted by the Sacramento Fire Department, one woman and nine men suffered "multiple stab and laceration wounds." At least two of them were in a critical condition.
All of the stab victims were aged between 19 and 58, although authorities weren't able to confirm to which group the wounded belonged.
The Capitol remained on lockdown on Sunday until protesters cleared the area by mid-afternoon.
Photos and video footage posted online showed the crowd grow violent, with some members swinging what appeared to be wooden clubs, while others hurled rocks.
In a video posted by the "Bee," crowd members were seen helping an injured and bloodied black man lying on the sidewalk, while separate footage, recorded by CNN, showed two white men, with blood dripping down their shaved heads, being escorted by police.
White supremacists
The event on Sunday was organized by the white-supremacist, anti-immigration group "Traditionalist Worker Party" (TWP). The group, formed in 2015 as the political wing of the "Traditionalist Youth Network," aims to "indoctrinate high school and college students into white nationalism," the Southern Poverty Law Center said.
A sister organization, the Golden State Skinheads, said online ahead of the rally that members would "stand our ground if forced to that point."
Following Sunday's violence, TWP leader Matthew Heimbach said in a statement that "the anti-fascists used knives, bottles, bricks and chunks of concrete they broke off a construction site."
"When they attacked, our men defended themselves to be able to drive the attackers off," Heimbach said.
The clashes on Sunday came just months after a similar confrontation in March between Ku Klux Klan members and counterprotesters in Anaheim, California. Three people were stabbed in the incident.
