Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency Monday ahead of a scheduled speech at the University of Florida by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer. The state of emergency for Florida’s Alachua County comes three days before controversial white supremacist Spencer is scheduled to speak at the school in Gainesville on Thursday, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The Republican governor warned in an executive order “that the threat of potential emergency is imminent,” and that recent
events involving Spencer often led to “civil unrest.” Spencer, often referred to as one of the founders of the “alt-right” movement, was in attendance at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August in which 32-year-old Heather Heyer, and two Virginia state troopers were killed. And a string of riots broke out at the University of California, Berkeley earlier this year, the first one in February as Milo Yiannopoulos, then a Breitbart editor, was set to speak. Left-wing protesters hurled smoke bombs and sparked a large fire on campus. READ MORE
