DAYTON — Business owners in the Oregon District are calling attention to the fear they said white supremacists brought to the neighborhood Saturday.
“Shame on those two white men who came down here with guns,” Bethany Ramsey, owner of Puff Apothecary, said Thursday afternoon.
She was referring to two men carrying large guns in the neighborhood who were caught on video. The video shows the men, one of whom self-identified as a white supremacist, arguing with and becoming violent with female protesters near Lily’s Bistro.
“This is troubling for many reasons, not least of which is that we’re a community trying our best to recover from the trauma of the mass shooting last August 4th, or that the Oregon District seeks to provide a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space, said Emily Mendenhall, owner of Lily’s Bistro.
The video shows one of the women punch one of the men. He then began hitting her with his gun.
The two sides continued to trade shoves and insults until one of the men flashed a Nazi salute and yelled “white power!”
“We have a social and moral obligation to tell these men and women who seek to destroy black people that not only are they not welcome here in the district, or in the City of Dayton, they are not welcome in our society,” Ramsey said.
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