Despite President Donald Trump’s claim Monday that white supremacist groups weren’t responsible for any of the looting and violence that erupted over the weekend, a white man possibly linked to white supremacists was arrested on the charges that he set a historic courthouse in Nashville ablaze Saturday night. “Wesley Somers was arrested at a home on Manzano Road in Madison,” Nashville police tweeted Sunday. “Assistance from the community helped lead to his identification. He will be booked into the Metro Jail shortly.” Nashville police tweeted Sunday night that “Somers, 25, faces charges of felony arson, vandalism, & disorderly conduct for setting fire to Nashville's Historic Courthouse Saturday night.”
Although police have not confirmed that Somers is a white supremacist, a photo circulating on social media shows him with a masked person raising a closed fist in the air, and the same person is pictured elsewhere making a white supremacist hand signal.
It’s not the first white supremacy link to violence following nationwide protests of the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in police custody after a white cop kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said white supremacists were responsible for some of the violence in his state, according to The New York Times.
“We have reason to believe that bad actors continue to infiltrate the rightful protests of George Floyd’s murder, which is why we are extending the curfew by one day,” the governor tweeted Sunday.
Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson also told the Tennessean most of the more than 1,000 protesters at a Nashville demonstration Saturday were peaceful. But police were working Sunday to identify 20-30 people who used the protest “as a cover for the destruction they wanted to employ,” the newspaper reported.
Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron told the Tennessean white supremacist groups could have been involved in protest violence but so could members of “antifa,” an anti-fascist movement Trump recently accused of being a “terrorist organization.” Aaron also told Daily Kos through another police spokesperson that it’s “possible” Somers is linked to white supremacists but police are still investigating that possibility.
Trump, apparently considering himself more knowledgable than authorities on the ground, proclaimed as “TRUE!” this statement from Fox News Radio personality Brian Kilmeade: “I don’t see any indication that there were any white supremest groups mixing in. This is an ANTIFA Organization. It seems that the first time we saw it in a major way was Occupy Wall Street. It’s the same mindset.”
Yamiche Alcindor, the White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour, tweeted first-hand accounts with George Floyd protestors that seem to contradict the president’s view of demonstrators.
“President Trump says these protests are professionally organized and the result of domestic terrorists and anarchists,” she tweeted Sunday. “Based on my reporting on the ground today, the vast majority of people gathering outside of the White House are everyday Americans demanding change.”
Sulaiman Drammeh, 19, told Alcindor he came to the White House protest to physically show authorities that Black people need to be treated equally. Rev. Juliamme Robertson, 60, said as a mother of four Black children she wants to live in a world they will be safe in. AJ Springer, 36, told Alcindor: “George Floyd could have been me or anyone in my family.”
RELATED: Trump takes to Twitter to claim he will designate 'Antifa' as a 'terrorist organization'