Last Tuesday more than one hundred people reportedly gathered at the intersection 4th and Wolf in South Philadelphia to protest what they perceived as a series of racially motivated attacks in South Philly by four black women. This comes according to NBC10’s Denise Nakanao.

What’s the Riverward connection?

In attendance at this all-white rally was Philadelphia’s 1st District City Councilman Mark Squilla. The Councilman, who’s oddly-shaped district represents parts of Fishtown, Northern Liberties, Kensington and Port Richmond in addition to parts of Center City and South Philadelphia, was present at the event to give a speech and show his support.

The “white lives matter” gathering also featured potentially racially-motivated signs that read: “Eliminate the thugs,” “We know who you are,” and “We will not allow you to terrorize our neighborhood.”

A source from Gawker provided screenshots of what appears to be racist posts made by the brother of the woman who was allegedly attacked by the four black women. The Facebook account has since been deleted, but screenshots have been saved and appear untampered.

Via Gawker:

 

 

The rally was being held to protest what the neighborhood has perceived as a lack of police response to the alleged attacks and the fact that PPD did not initially file a report following an incident— an incident with details that are already murky. According to 6ABC, a police report was finally taken after Councilman Squilla got involved. There is currently an internal investigation underway.

How are the details murky?

According to NBC10, who has published an interview with the alleged victims while concealing their identity

“Over the past two weeks the same group of four females have attacked a young woman (no arrest made), stolen a cell phone from a 10 year old (no arrest made), threatened a mother and her newborn child (no arrest made) and invaded a home and beat a woman (no arrest made),” a protest organizer wrote. “This neighborhood has been terrorized by these women and the Philadelphia Police Department District 3 has taken no action.”

An alternate description about what took place  was also provided to Gawker:

Supposedly there was an argument between some women wherein a white woman was struck by a black woman. The police were called and determined it was a mutual fight with no real injuries and left the scene without arresting anyone.

A small group of white people related to the white woman then organized a “protest” or rally. The rally was purportedly to speak out against violence in their neighborhood – specifically, they say, 4 black women they claim are “terrorizing” their neighborhood…

The general gist though is that it was a seemingly small incident (no blood drawn) but the locals wanted an arrest. When the arrest wasn’t forthcoming, it quickly became exaggerated into the neighborhood being “terrorized.” It’s just an unfortunate distortion of what happens in the neighborhood where a very small minority of white people feel inexplicably threatened by their diminishing role of “running” the neighborhood

Based off these conflicting stories, murky may be an understatement.

Officers were present at the South Philly protest, but in far less numbers than the series of “black lives matter” protest that have been held over the past year. Philadelphia Police Captain Frank Miller told NBC10 that

“I made it known to [the protesters] that we’re here to support them.”

It is important to note that Philadelphia’s “black lives matter” protests were peaceful in comparison to similar rallies that have been staged across the country. The Philadelphia-based protests even drew the praise of SEPTA Transit Police Chief Thomas Nestel.

Marchers are dispersing. This was a fantastic success story. Huge credit to marchers and mad respect for @PhillyPolice. PHILLY ROCKS!

— Thomas J. Nestel III (@TNestel3) May 1, 2015

Despite the peace and lack of property destruction, there were three arrests made in the last “Philly is Baltimore” protest, according to 6ABC.

One South Philly resident, who moved to the area near 4th and Wolf with his family in the past two years and preferred not to have his identity revealed, described the neighborhood to The Spirit as “homogeneous.” He also said that “it seems like it’s okay if blacks pass through here, but the neighborhood doesn’t seem to let blacks live here. They do allow a few Asians though.”

We’ve reached out to Councilman Squilla to explain why he attended the protest. We will update this story as it develops.

Editor’s note: While this story did not happen in the Riverwards, Councilman Squilla represents a large part of our coverage area. As a publication, we feel that part of providing well-balanced information to neighborhood voters includes comprehensive coverage of all politicians with local relevance and ties to our neighborhoods.