Police arrest ‘one of the primary aggressors’ in Nevada City Black Lives Matter protest
Police officials said they had arrested “one of the primary aggressors” who violently confronted peaceful demonstrators in a protest in Nevada City last weekend to support the Black Lives Matter movement.
The suspect, who has since been identified as James Steven Smith of Nevada County, was arrested by a contingent of investigators about 3 p.m. Friday when he was found in the 11000 block of Buckeye Road, according to a news release posted on the Nevada City Police Department Facebook page.
Smith, 40, was booked at the Nevada County Jail on charges of robbery and assault likely to cause great bodily injury, according to jail records. His bail was set at $125,000.
Videos of the clash posted online showed a group of counterprotesters waving flags and snatching away cardboard signs from the BLM protesters. At least two men threw punches, shouting at the BLM demonstrators to get out of “our town,” according to the video.
“The actions demonstrated by the counterprotesters cannot and will not be tolerated in any of our local communities,” Nevada City Police Chief Chad Ellis said in the news release. “There is no place for the hatred and violence which occurred in our town last Sunday, and we as a community need to stick together and flush it out.”
The demonstration was planned as a march “through the streets of residential Nevada City making noise for Black lives and defunding the police,” according to social media posts ahead of the event. A poster for the march asked participants not to widely promote the event in advance online “for our safety.”
Opponents of the Black Lives Matter demonstration in several instances shoved people and grabbed at protesters’ phones or cameras as well as their signs, videos show.
The police chief said many victims and witnesses gave investigators cell phone video clips that captured the confrontation during the Aug. 9 protest. Ellis also said authorities have identified several suspects involved in the confrontation, and they investigators “have put together some strong prosecutable cases” after compiling all of the statements and evidence.
The Police Department worked with investigators from the Grass Valley Police Department, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office and the county’s District Attorney’s Office in this investigation.
Ellis said this investigation continues, and additional charges and the “prosecution of suspects involved is still imminent.”
