GLENDALE, Ohio — Dozens gathered in the Glendale Village Square on Wednesday, sharing a message of peace and unity in response to a village resident's involvement in a neo-Nazi rally in Arkansas earlier this month.
According to the Little Rock Police Department, Keith Elflein, 51, was among 22 other apparent neo-Nazis who took part in the Dec. 6 demonstration. Video from the event shows a group of masked people waving flags bearing swastika symbols, and reportedly carrying guns, as they marched.
The individuals, identified by local media as belonging to the white supremacist group the Blood Tribe, marched near the Arkansas State Capitol building before gathering at Little Rock Central High School, a site entrenched in civil rights history.
WATCH: Police say a Glendale man participated in a neo-Nazi demonstration. His neighbors are now showing their community is not about hate
Police identified several other men from the surrounding area as having attended the rally: Matthew Dwyer, 37, of Oldenburg, Ind.; Bryan Hale, 45, of Springfield, Ohio; Daniel Aspin, 41, of Mount Olivet, Ky.; and Charles Miller, 31, of Miamisburg, Ohio.
We reached out to Elflein on Wednesday for comment, but have yet to hear back. We learned the names of those involved after police cited one of the men for driving the group around in a U-Haul truck while they sat in the back of it.
"All of us are just beyond confused, shaken up," said Aaron Binik-Thomas, operator of Cincinnati Krav Maga. "We're definitely worried a little bit about security."
Binik-Thomas, who is Jewish, attended the peace vigil on Wednesday and said Elflein has been a student at his self-defense school for years.
"We never had any idea that this is what he thought, that these were the kind of people that he would roll with — that Keith, who trained in Jewish martial arts, would be marching around Arkansas with a swastika," Binik-Thomas said.
In a state of shock, Binik-Thomas said he reached out to his rabbi for advice on what to do next. That led him to reach out to Elflein, who hasn't returned his message yet.
"The Keith that I saw down in Arkansas is not the Keith that I know, and I'm hoping that you'll reach out. We can change things," Binik-Thomas said, speaking directly to Elflein during our interview. "I don't know how I'm going to handle this emotionally, but I want to have a conversation."
The peace vigil on Wednesday took place not too far from a similar incident that happened in the Tri-State in February. The community came together in an uproar after roughly a dozen people displayed swastika-emblazoned flags on an overpass over I-75 near Lincoln Heights and Evendale.
The group eventually left in the cargo area of a U-Haul but were not cited. At the time, Evendale Police Chief Tim Holloway said they were allowed to do so because "the overwhelming public safety concerns of this situation outweighed any potential positives associated with issuing a single traffic violation."
