State of Emergency Declared in Charlottesville After Protests Turn Violent

The police cleared the area before noon, and the Virginia National Guard arrived as officers began arresting some who remained for unlawful assembly. But fears lingered that the altercation would start again nearby, even as politicians, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a Democrat, and Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and the House speaker, condemned the violence.

A couple of hours later, a car plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters, and a hospital official said at least 19 people were injured. .

Brennan Gilmore, a 38-year-old Charlottesville resident who came Saturday to oppose the white nationalists, was filming his friends demonstrating three blocks away from the park when he noticed a gray car drive past.

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Mr. Gilmore turned his camera in time to see the car slow as it approached the counterprotesters and then suddenly speed up, ramming into the car in front of it and the crowd itself.

“Bodies went flying — up onto the hood of the car and into the air,” Mr. Gilmore said. “It was horrifying.”

Mr. Gilmore continued filming as the gray car backed up quickly to escape the scene. After the car left, Mr. Gilmore ran over to help provide first aid to some of the injured.

“The violence and hatred in our society is out of control. We like to think that it’s better than places like Africa and Asia, but it’s not,” said Mr. Gilmore, who worked in Africa as a U.S. State Department foreign service officer before leaving to manage the campaign of Tom Perriello for Virginia governor earlier this year. “I’m worried.”

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Emergency medical personnel treated eight people after the earlier clashes, the Charlottesville Police Department said. It was not immediately clear how severely they were hurt. Several area hospitals did not return telephone calls seeking information.

The fight was the latest in a series of tense dramas unfolding across the United States over plans to remove statues and other historic markers of the Confederacy. The battles have been intensified by the election of Mr. Trump, who enjoys fervent support from white nationalists.

The president commented on the violence Saturday afternoon, tweeting, “We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!”

The protest, billed as a “Unite the Right” rally, was the culmination of a year and a half of debate in Charlottesville over the fate of the Lee statue. A movement to remove it began when an African-American high school student here started a petition. The City Council voted 3 to 2 in April to sell it, but a judge issued an injunction temporarily stopping the move.

The city had been bracing for a sea of alt-right demonstrators, and on Friday night, hundreds of them, carrying lit torches, marched on the picturesque grounds of the University of Virginia, founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson. The group included prominent white nationalist figures like Richard Spencer and David Duke, a former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

“We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” to “take our country back,” Mr. Duke told reporters Saturday. Many of the white nationalist protesters carried campaign signs for Mr. Trump.

University officials said one person was arrested and charged Friday night with assault and disorderly conduct, and several others were injured. Among those hurt was a university police officer injured while making the arrest, the school said in a statement.

Theresa A. Sullivan, the president of the university, strongly condemned the Friday demonstration in a statement, calling it “disturbing and unacceptable.”

Still, officials allowed the Saturday protest to go on — until the injuries began piling up.

The city of Charlottesville declared a state of emergency at around 11 a.m., citing an “imminent threat of civil disturbance, unrest, potential injury to persons, and destruction of public and personal property.”

Governor McAuliffe followed with his own declaration an hour later.

“It is now clear that public safety cannot be safeguarded without additional powers, and that the mostly-out-of-state protesters have come to Virginia to endanger our citizens and property,” Governor McAuliffe said in a statement. “I am disgusted by the hatred, bigotry and violence these protesters have brought to our state over the past 24 hours.”

The Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, Ed Gillespie, issued his own statement denouncing the protests as “vile hate” that has “no place in our Commonwealth.”

Mr. Ryan agreed. “The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville are repugnant,” he said on Twitter. “Let it only serve to unite Americans against this kind of vile bigotry.”