Mayor, federal prosecutor vow to bring charges against Nazis for attack on man in Copley Square - once they can ID them

Mayor Wu and US Attorney Rachael Rollins vowed today to prosecute white supremacists they say attacked a gay, Black man who had the misfortune of walking onto Dartmouth Street just as they were marching to the Back Bay Orange Line stop for a ride out of town on Saturday.

Those responsible will be prosecuted to "the fullest extent of the law," Wu said at a press conference at Boston Police headquarters after a meeting with law-enforcement officials and members of the local Black and LGBTQ communities about Saturday's walking drum circle along the Freedom Trail and Copley Square by Patriot Front.

"We are working hard to make sure that if there are any federal charges we can bring or if there are any state charges that can be brought -- we will be looking at this," Rollins said. "We don't want to wait until there's violence. If there are threats we will charge those as well."

First, though, officials will have to identify the Patriot Front members who attacked Charles Murrell, since most wore balaclavas and sunglasses.

Acting Police Chief Gregory Long said that "a lot of video has been recorded" and that several BPD detectives and FBI agents are now reviewing that and other evidence. Rollins added that Transit and State Police are also working on the investigation. He said that no BPD officers witnessed the specific interaction between the khaki-clad Nazis and Murrell.

Activists have identified at least two Patriot Front members who were in Boston that day - its leader and another guy, both of whom were arrested in Idaho a couple weeks earlier.

Rollins said Boston has had three "separate and disturbing" instances of white supremacists trying to throw some weight around Boston this year - on Jan. 22, when they chanted outside Brigham and Women's about the hospital allegedly killing white babies, on March 20, when a local Nazi group showed up at the St. Patrick's parade in South Boston and Saturday's SA Lite march.

Wu and other officials said what made the Boston march different from what happened in Idaho was that law enforcement had no advance knowledge that the preening Nazis would be trying to cause any trouble. In Idaho, law enforcement was aware that the 31 Nazis with riot shields who popped out of a U-Haul truck were planning to disrupt Pride activities. In Boston, however, while the Nazis marched with similar shields - which they loaded into a U-Haul truck before entering the Back Bay T stop for the ride to their cars outside Oak Grove - law enforcement didn't have any such advance notice of potential trouble.

And that means that even if law enforcement knew they were coming - Wu said local officials didn't; Rollins didn't go quite that far, saying law enforcement does not always say everything it knows - without any threats, the group is covered by the First Amendment.

"In many cases, even ignorant, vile or repugnant hate speech can be at times covered by the First Amendment," Joseph Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the Boston FBI office, said. That talk has to be paired with actual actions - or threats - for the feds to get involved, he said.

Still, "we know these threats are continuing to escalate across the country, and that Boston must be the leading light" in combating them, Wu said.