Gay man in viral DC Metro photo was ‘terrified’ surrounded by masked white nationalists
Roswell Encina was surrounded by masked white nationalists on a Washington DC Metro (Getty Images)
A gay Filipino American civic leader photographed surrounded by masked white nationalists on the Washington DC Metro has said he was “terrified” during the Fourth of July encounter.
Roswell Encina, president and CEO of the US Capitol Historical Society, was travelling to a holiday party in Maryland on Saturday (4 July) when his train filled with members of Patriot Front, the white nationalist group that marched through the capital as the US marked the 250th anniversary of its independence.
The moment was captured in a widely shared Getty Images photograph by Finn Gomez, showing Encina seated as masked members crowd around him.
Encina said the journey had begun like any Independence Day, with families in red, white and blue, before hundreds of masked men in caps and sunglasses began boarding. “I think I froze a little bit,” he told The Advocate.
He said he pieced together who they were from their patches, discreetly searched for the group online and texted friends so someone knew where he was.
“I would be lying if I said no,” he said when asked if he was scared. “I was terrified, honestly, just because I wasn’t sure what the motives were.
“When I saw that there were really hundreds of them getting off at New Carrollton, it really did kind of take my breath away.”
Encina, who came to the US as an infant and became a citizen, said the timing gave the moment weight. “So sitting there, on the Fourth of July, I couldn’t help but think about the promise of America and the work still required to protect it,” he wrote on Instagram.
Patriot Front, described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre as a white nationalist hate group, emerged from Vanguard America after the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
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