How anti-paramilitary laws may have kept Tennessee rallies from turning violent

Two weeks before a group of white nationalist protesters prepared to descend on Murfreesboro in October, city officials had yet to grant event organizers a permit to rally.

Just two months earlier, the same groups had fought with counterprotesters in the streets of Charlottesville, Va., some beating their ideological foes with crude weapons like clubs and sticks, while others, dressed in fatigues, carried semi-automatic rifles.

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Dozens involved in the violent confrontations were injured before the rally could officially begin in the city's Emancipation Park, where the Unite the Right demonstrators had received a permit to gather to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

A 32-year-old woman was killed when, police say, a man who had rallied that day with the far-right groups rammed his car into counterdemonstrators.

“There was some kind of feeling of resignation that there wasn’t much that could be done,” said Mary McCord, senior litigator at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

McCord is referring to what she saw as a widespread notion after Unite the Right that, because of the First Amendment there was little local governments could do to stop similar rallies.

With rallies pending, legal experts offered advice to Tennessee cities

Officials in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County knew there was a possibility that a similar scene could unfold in the streets around their own Courthouse Loop, county property in the city's downtown where southern secessionist group League of the South applied to hold one of two "White Lives Matter" rallies that day after an initial demonstration would be held in nearby Shelbyville.

That's where the Georgetown lawyers entered. The law center had just filed a lawsuit Oct. 12 on behalf of Charlottesville against some of the same organizations planning to rally in Tennessee, including League of the South.

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The legal institute had found that those groups likely violated Virginia laws against public activities by paramilitary groups and private militias, and upon hearing about the White Lives Matter rallies planned in Tennessee, realized similar laws were in place in the Volunteer State.

They reached out to officials in Murfreesboro and Shelbyville to pass along the relevant laws in Tennessee — advising both cities as they crafted rules for attendees of the rallies — and then set out to study where else these laws could prevent paramilitary-type demonstrations from being permitted on public streets.

“What we found is that every state has laws on the books that could be used to help ensure that the violence that occurred during the Unite the Right rally never happens again in America,” McCord said.

A report released by Georgetown Law Center last month — and one they sent to attorneys general in all 50 states — outlines those laws for each state and can serve as a resource for government officials seeking legal backing for imposing restrictions against groups like those who gathered for Unite the Right.

"We think that the anti-paramilitary activity statutes and constitutional provisions do provide authority to Tennessee, Virginia and other states … that might want to proactively impose certain conditions and restrictions on public rallies," McCord said.

In some states, the anti-private militia statutes date back to Reconstruction, while some anti-paramilitary statutes largely came on the scene around the early 1980s, McCord said, when some extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan began establishing training camps.

Murfreesboro, Shelbyville set strict rules ahead of rallies

Concerned about the possibility for violence, city officials in Murfreesboro and Shelbyville welcomed Georgetown's offer of guidance in developing prohibitions for the rallies.

Though Shelbyville didn't require the event organizers to obtain a permit, both cities banned weapons, shields, helmets, bags, masks, ballistic vests and dozens of other objects, setting up security checkpoints for both the white nationalist demonstrators and counterprotesters before being able to enter the protest area.

Roughly 200 white nationalists showed up in Shelbyville, the start of their rally delayed due to the security checks.

Across the street, more than twice that number of counterprotesters had gathered.

No violence was reported in Shelbyville, and only one arrest was made, but the white nationalist group didn't show up in Murfreesboro for a second rally as they had planned.

"Had some intel Murfreesboro was a lawsuit trap," tweeted Brad Griffin, a spokesman for League of the South, after announcing the second rally of the day was canceled. "Not worth the risk."

Griffin also noted the long security lines in Shelbyville had stifled their plans.

Murfreesboro had written into its permit conditions and restrictions language that prohibited a variety of activities — even outside the protest area in parking lots or on other public right of way — resembling a paramilitary or militia group.

That included bans on deploying armed individuals under a unified command to patrol or protect other people, such as what militia groups did in Charlottesville, as well as general activity customarily reserved for police or the military.

Adam Tucker, assistant city attorney for Murfreesboro, said the city didn't have a lawsuit drafted and none of its representatives had ever conveyed to League of the South that it intended to sue if the group violated restrictions in the permit.

But if that had occurred, Tucker said, Murfreesboro would have considered filing a lawsuit similar to the one filed by Georgetown law center on behalf of Charlottesville, which sought an injunction against the groups who participated in the rally who violated the prohibitions.

"I believe the ban on paramilitary activity was at the heart of the League's decision to cancel the Murfreesboro event," Tuckier said, adding that League of the South may have feared it would be unable to control the behavior of all its associates at the rally.

Tucker also credits extensive planning by law enforcement, including having more than 450 officers from multiple agencies on hand in the city that day, as well as clear communication ahead of time with event organizers and counterdemonstrators regarding rules for the rally.

It was preparation that came with a hefty price tag: In Murfreesboro, the city spent more than $250,000 for the day and Rutherford County more than $150,000, expenses that have generated some interest among council members to look at possible fee models for city event security moving forward, Tucker said.

Shelbyville, a city with a population of 20,000, spent $83,000 on the rally.

Despite the expenses for a rally that never actually materialized in Murfreesboro, city spokesperson Mike Browning was quick to say officials were "pleased with the outcome that they decided not to come."

"If they had come, and if they had come in the numbers that they were present in Shelbyville, there's no way to predict whether the outcome would have been the same," Tucker said. "Even with the huge law enforcement presence."

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.