As tensions mount in Sanford, Florida, the town where neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, 28, gunned down 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on February 26 in a vigilante-style execution that has polarized the nation, armed Neo-Nazis are now patrolling the streets to protect White citizens from any racial, violent retaliation, reports the NY Daily News.
Jeff Schoep, representative for the Detroit-based National Socialist movement told the Miami New Times that approximately 10 to 20 volunteers are ready, able and willing to protect the “White citizens in the area” if race riots ensue:
Whenever there is one of these racially charged events, Al Sharpton goes wherever Blacks need him,” he said belligerently, “We do similar things. We are a White civil rights organization…We are not the type of White people who are going to be walked all over.”
According to the Daily News, Sanford authorities have been collaborating with emergency management teams and the federal Department of Justice in preparation of escalating racial strife leading to violence.
According to a new Gallup/USA Today poll, 51 percent of Black people said Zimmerman is “definitely guilty,” while only 10 percent of White people believe he’s guilty. Approximately 20 percent of both Whites and Blacks believe that Zimmerman is “probably guilty.”
The strict racial lines in the sand are apparent in other areas of the poll as well.
73 percent of Black people believe that Zimmerman would have been arrested if Trayvon had been White. Interestingly enough, only 33 percent of non-Hispanic White people believe that race plays a part in how the gunman is being treated.
Not only does White America predominantly believe in Zimmerman’s innocence, 43 percent of them say believe that there is too much media coverage surrounding the case — compared to only 16 percent of Black people who feel the same, according to an earlier Pew Research Center poll.
Though Schoep insists that Zimmerman doesn’t “look White” to him, “he looks half-Hispanic or Cuban or something” he feels that organizations such as the New Black Panther Party are a danger to White citizens and they need protection.
As previously reported by Newsone, The New Black Panther Party is offering a $10,000 reward for the capture of George Zimmerman.
It is a very trouble time in the United States of America,” a member of the NBPP said in a televised statement. “We are in the era of so-called post-racial harmony with all people. But we black people are being murdered all over America and we get the same treatment time and time again.”
It remains to be seen what, if any, response will come from the New Black Panther Party, but armed Neo-Nazis walking freely through the streets of Sanford can do nothing but throw fire on an already volatile situation.
