This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
A group of masked people carrying swastika flags marched in front of the State House and tussled with passersby in Concord Saturday, according to several eyewitnesses.
Lieutenant Mark Schneible said Concord police are investigating possible criminal activity related to the marchers, but provided no other detail.
One eyewitness, Karen Mayo, said she was downtown midday when she saw about 20 people wearing black pants and red shirts, with their faces and hands covered, marching side by side in pairs onto the State House plaza. Mayo said one person had a camera and appeared to be filming the group, and another was speaking through a megaphone.
Mayo said they appeared to be chanting: “America, the land of the free.”
A photograph shared with NHPR shows the group carrying several flags bearing swastikas and a sign that read “Trump loves Epstein."
The affiliation of the marchers was not immediately clear Saturday afternoon. Hate groups have staged a handful of activities in Concord in recent years. In 2023, he neo-Nazi group NSC-131 gathered outside a downtown cafe that was hosting a drag event, chanting and doing Nazi-style salutes.
At one point, Mayo said she saw a man who appeared to be with his family who went to talk to the group, which began a confrontation. Mayo said a child with the family was visibly upset.
“The mom and the grandma were sort of talking to him about it, and he was saying ‘You have to be brave, you have to be brave,’ and I was comforting the kids saying, ‘You know, your dad is safe, it's good to be safe,’ “ Mayo said.
Video online Saturday shows a physical confrontation between the group and several passersby on South Main Street, near the Bank of New Hampshire Stage several blocks from the State House. According to the Concord Monitor, onlookers also saw the marchers punch and spray a man with mace further up Main Street.
One eyewitness said members of the group took off from the area in a U-Haul truck.
Mayo said that she was ready to confront the group when she saw them at the State House, though she thought about being safe for her son and husband who wouldn’t want her to get hurt.
“I'm not a peacekeeper,” Mayo said. “I knew that I would be confrontational and that wouldn't be good for anybody. So when they decided to leave the State House, they got in their marching orders, I was standing in the middle of the pathway in front of the arch and I made them go around me. And I called every single one of them a coward. And then I decided that I wasn't behaving myself, so I needed to leave the area.”
While she said the marchers made her nervous, she would still keep going to protests.
“It makes me so mad that they feel like they can be here and have those beliefs and yet feel like they're, they're safe because they're all covered and no one knows who they are,” Mayo said.
