District Attorney Larry Krasner pointed to the way Philadelphia successfully avoided violence as tensions ran high during the vote count in November as the model.
“We ain’t having Nazis in Philly,” said Krasner. “That’s not happening. I don’t care what flavor of Nazi you think you are, we are not having it.”
Two men, Joshua Macias and Antonio LaMotta, have been charged with attempting to interfere with the election, after they drove up to the Pennsylvania Convention Center from Virginia in November, heavily armed. They were arrested without incident and are being held on $1 million bail.
Michael J. Driscoll, special agent in charge with the FBI’s Philadelphia field office, asked for anyone with information about upcoming threats or about people who participated in sacking the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 to reach out via https://tips.fbi.gov/
While law enforcement will support the public’s right to protest under the First Amendment, a line is drawn at instigating violence.
“If you hear or see something that makes you uncomfortable because it is asking people to engage in violence, it is talking about the creation and use of weapons, those are the things we want to hear about,” Driscoll said.