Former chief Al Thomas will be succeeded temporarily by Deputy Chief Gary Pleasants until an interim chief is named.
Eze Amos
After initially refusing to confirm reports that Charlottesville police Chief Al Thomas had resigned and was packing his office on Monday and would be out of the building by 5pm, the city issued a release Monday afternoon that said Thomas would be retiring, effective immediately.
The hasty departure raised questions at the December 18 City Council meeting about whether Thomas was forced out following Tim Heaphy’s critical independent review about the lack of police intervention August 12 when protesters brawled in the streets and an unattended mall crossing allowed a neo-Nazi from Ohio to plow into a crowd on Fourth Street, killing Heather Heyer.
City Manager Maurice Jones denied that Thomas’ resignation was involuntary.
“You can’t be left with the feeling he voluntarily resigned when it’s effective immediately,” said civil rights lawyer Jeff Fogel.
Thomas, who previously was police chief in Lexington, was the first African-American hired to head Charlottesville’s police department, and he’s spent 27 years in law enforcement since he started in Lynchburg.
Some of the allegations in the report—that Thomas deleted texts, that he used a personal email to skirt FOIA and that he said to let protesters fight to make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly—he denied through his attorney, Kevin Martingayle.
The report also alleged that officers feared retribution for criticism, another claim Martingayle disputed.
And some had a different interpretation of the report. Said Fogel, “It’s clear Thomas is being undermined by his own staff.” Fogel and others have challenged the notion of blaming the handling of white nationalists on two black men—Thomas and Jones.
“Nothing in my career has brought me more pride than serving as the police chief for the City of Charlottesville,” said Thomas in a statement. “I will be forever grateful for having had the opportunity to protect and serve a community I love so dearly.“
Martingayle says Thomas has no immediate plans and is looking forward to some time off.
“I think it’s very important that he confide in us what happened August 12 if he loves us so much,” said Fogel.
Jones praised Thomas in a statement: “Chief Thomas has served his country and three communities here in Virginia with distinction and honor. He is a man of integrity who has provided critical leadership for our department since his arrival.”
Jones’ choice of Deputy Chief Gary Pleasants as acting chief until an interim one is named drew complaints at City Council. Pleasants ordered the use of tear gas at the July 8 KKK rally without Thomas’ approval, and when asked about it, replied, “You are damn right I gassed them, it needed to be done,” according to the Heaphy report.
Speakers at council blasted the decision. “I think this is unacceptable,” said councilor-elect Nikuyah Walker. “There is no trust here.”
“You can’t hire that man,” said former local NAACP chapter head Rick Turner. “It would be the biggest farce. He’s the worst.”
Former Police Chief Al Thomas is still collecting a paycheck. Photo by Eze Amos
After initially refusing to confirm reports that Chief Al Thomas had resigned and was packing his office on Monday and would be out of the building by 5pm, the city issued a release that says Thomas is retiring effective immediately.
Thomas, who previously was police chief in Lexington, was the first African-American hired to head Charlottesville’s police department, and he’s spent 27 years in law enforcement since he started in Lynchburg.
He also received much of the blame for the lack of police intervention and for the deadly turn of events at the August 12 Unite the Right rally in Tim Heaphy’s independent review of the city’s handling of the summer’s invasion of white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
Some of the allegations in the report—that Thomas deleted texts, that he used a personal email to skirt FOIA and that he said to let protesters fight to make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly—he denied through his attorney, Kevin Martingayle. Martingayle did not immediately respond to messages from C-VILLE Weekly.
The report also alleged that officers feared retribution for criticism, another claim Martingayle disputed.
And some had a different interpretation of the report. Said civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel, “It’s clear Thomas is being undermined by his own staff.” Fogel and others have challenged the notion of blaming the handling of white nationalists on two black men. City Manager Maurice Jones is black.
“Nothing in my career has brought me more pride than serving as the police chief for the City of Charlottesville,” said Thomas in a statement. “I will be forever grateful for having had the opportunity to protect and serve a community I love so dearly. It truly has been an unparalleled privilege to work alongside such a dedicated and professional team of public servants. I wish them and the citizens of Charlottesville the very best.”
City Manager Maurice Jones praises Thomas in a statement: “Chief Thomas has served his country and three communities here in Virginia with distinction and honor. He is a man of integrity who has provided critical leadership for our department since his arrival. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
Jones did not name Deputy Chief Gary Pleasants interim chief, and says in the release that Pleasants will guide the department until an interim chief is named, and the search for a new chief begins immediately.
Updated 2:55pm
ORIGINAL STORY
Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas has resigned and reportedly is packing his office today and will be out of the building by 5pm, according to a knowledgeable source who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
City officials declined to confirm the ouster. “I don’t have anything,” says city spokesperson Miriam Dickler. “When I do we’ll announce it.”
Thomas did not immediately respond to messages left with his office.
Hired in April 2016 from Lexington, Thomas was the first African-American to head the city police department. And much of the blame for the deadly results of the August 12 Unite the Right rally fell on his head in Tim Heaphy’s independent review of the city’s handling of the summer’s invasion of white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
Some of the allegations in the report—that Thomas deleted texts, that he used a personal email to skirt FOIA and that he said to let protesters fight to make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly—he denied through his attorney, Kevin Martingayle. Martingayle did not immediately respond to messages from C-VILLE Weekly.
The report also alleged that officers feared retribution for criticism, another claim Martingayle disputed.
And some had a different interpretation of the report. Said civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel, “It’s clear Thomas is being undermined by his own staff.” Fogel and others have challenged the notion of blaming the handling of white nationalists on two black men. City Manager Maurice Jones is black.
Tim Heaphy summarizes his findings of government response to the summer of hate.
Staff photo
Since the August 12 Unite the Right rally that left three people dead, Charlottesville residents have asked where the police were that day and why Fourth Street was open so that a neo-Nazi from Ohio could plow into a group of counterprotesters, injuring dozens and killing Heather Heyer. The release of former U.S. attorney Tim Heaphy’s 207-page report today offered some answers, with the use of the word “failure” 44 times.
Police were stationed behind barricades and while they were not given “stand down” instructions, says Heaphy, they were told to intervene only in instances of serious violence.
The report confirmed word that had been going around since August 12: A school resource officer was stationed alone at the intersection of Fourth Street NE and Market Street. When an unlawful assembly was declared and protesters flooded from emancipation Park into Market Street to clash with counterprotesters, the officer feared for her safety and was relieved of her post—leaving only a wooden sawhorse to block Fourth Street.
Heaphy pulled in four additional full-time lawyers, reviewed half a million documents and interviewed 150 witnesses, racking up what would be $1.5 million in legal fees, had his firm, Hunton & Williams, not agreed to undertake the review for $350,000.
“It was truly an independent review,” says Heaphy at today’s press conference. “I wouldn’t have undertaken it if it was not.” He stresses that he was “quite critical of the city.”
Heaphy outlined three major areas of failure: preparation, communication and protection of public safety.
The plan was to have the rally declared an unlawful assembly, and one officer told Heaphy that during the brawling on Market Street, police Chief Al Thomas said, “Let them fight for a little while” because that makes it “easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”
Thomas comes under additional fire in the report for failing to “exercise functional control of VSP forces despite his role as overall incident commander.” As the rally drew closer, he displayed a “hunkered down” mentality in refusing to consider alternate plans, and insisted Albemarle County police refused to offer assistance, an account county officers contradicted.
During the course of Heaphy’s investigation, Thomas attempted to limit the information Heaphy requested, deleted text messages, as did other command staff, and used a personal email account to conduct official police business, then denied doing so in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, according to the report.
“Chief Thomas’s attempts to influence our review illustrate a deeper issue within CPD—a fear of retribution for criticism,” says the review.
The attitude of city police, says Heaphy, was, “we’ve got this.” And while some officers talked to their peers in other cities that had experienced violent clashes, like Pikeville, Kentucky, and Portland, Oregon, that information did not factor into the city’s operational plan.
Rather than being in the midst of protesters, city cops were behind barricades, and when it became necessary to don protective gear, they had to retreat to another location to put on equipment some of them had never used before, says the report.
The alignment of police—and the lack of any being stationed at points of ingress and egress at the park—was a “recipe for disaster,” says Heaphy.
Virginia State Police sent 600 officers, helicopters and equipment, yet had their own operational plan that was not shared with city police. The state police were there to protect Emancipation Park, says Heaphy, and one VSP commander said about the violence around the park, “We’re not going into that mess,” according to Heaphy.
And the lack of a unified command—not even using the same radio frequency—was “horribly inefficient,” says Heaphy.
City Council, led by Mayor Mike Signer, also had a role in further complicating matters by caving to constituent pressure and making a last-minute decision to move the rally to McIntire Park, despite nearly unanimous advice that such a move would not withstand a legal challenge.
By interjecting itself into what “should be an operational decision,” says Heaphy, council created “further uncertainty” about where the event would be held and spread police resources even further.
“City Council should have been the mouthpiece in saying what the law says,” Heaphy says.
While the August 11 torch-lit march through UVA was not the responsibility of the city, it did have a “direct effect” on what happened the next day, he says.
University Police’s “soft response” to the alt-righters surrounding counterprotesters at the statue of Thomas Jefferson made a lot of people who were not planning to go the the August 12 rally decide to show up to defy the white nationalist and neo-Nazi presence, he says, while it “emboldened” the Unite the Righers.
The fundamental goals of government, says Heaphy, are to preserve free speech and public safety. “The city failed and it was not able to protect that fundamental right,” he says.
In a statement, City Manager Maurice Jones says that while the city does not agree with every aspect of Heaphy’s findings, he does acknowledge that the city and “our law enforcement partner in the Virginia State Police undoubtedly fell short of expectations, and for that we are profoundly sorry.
“This report is one critical step in helping this community heal and move forward after suffering through this summer of hate.”
Jones says he will present an action plan to City Council Monday night.
Mayor Mike Signer, center, falls on the sword surrounded by fellow councilors Bob Fenwick, Kristin Szakos, Kathy Galvin and Wes Bellamy, who could have voted to remove him from office.
Staff photo
Charlottesville City Council now has a mayor on restriction. Council is made up of five elected equals, with the mayor playing a largely symbolic role, and that was a lesson Mayor Mike Signer appears to have forgotten. On August 30, his fellow councilors held a three-hour closed door meeting to discuss the “performance and discipline of an elected official.”
Afterward, Councilor Kathy Galvin said the elected officials had accepted Signer’s apology and were not requesting his resignation, a signal of the gravity of the confrontation.
It was a humbled Signer who read an apology to reporters and citizens gathered in council chambers. “In the deeply troubling and traumatizing recent weeks, I have taken several actions as mayor, and made several communications, that have been inconsistent with the collaboration required by our system of governance and that overstepped the bounds of my role as mayor, for which I apologize to my colleagues and the people of Charlottesville.”
Jones was called into a closed session with councilors on August 24, and the next day, a copy of a nine-page Signer-written memo demanding explanations from Jones was leaked—a breach that some suspect Signer of, but which he has adamantly denied.
Even the night before facing the jury of his peers, Signer emailed a reporter to denounce Jones for releasing “confidential closed session material in a blame game.”
Jones publicly responded August 26 to the allegations in the leaked memo, and he noted that in the middle of the violent white nationalist crisis, Signer was clamoring to get into the command center and twice threatened to fire Jones and Thomas when his entrance was denied.
The remainder of Signer’s tenure as mayor comes with conditions, which he listed in his apology, flanked by somber fellow councilors. Those include meeting with senior staff only with another councilor present, except for regular check-ins with Jones; being more mindful of the time of the council clerk; allowing fellow councilors to make announcements and comments at council meetings, and not making pronouncements as mayor without working with his colleagues—and having one present if he did so.
“My comment to two former mayors was, ‘Wow,’” says former mayor Blake Caravati. “Unfortunately it’s necessary. It’s also mortifying to me. Not so much the apology, but the four to five will-dos. That’s mortifying.”
Adds Caravati, who supported Signer in his 2015 run for council, “It seems unfortunate to me they had to put a code of conduct in writing.”
Caravati says all of the 13 mayors he knows have said the wrong thing at times. “We all do,” he says. “Unfortunately Mike did that numerous times over the past few weeks.”
Former mayor Virginia Daugherty says there was a feeling Signer had stepped out in front of council when he’s supposed to represent fellow councilors. “I think they were right to do it,” she says of the figurative spanking.
Following the August 12 Unite the Right rally, Signer called for a special session of the General Assembly to allow localities to repeal monuments, which did not come up on the council agenda. Nor did his capital-of-the-resistance rally, for which he had council clerk Paige Rice send out a notice.
On August 17, less than a week after the hate rally that resulted in the deaths of three people and dozens of others injured, Signer posted a photo of himself leaping in front of the Love statue erected in Central Place on the Downtown Mall, with the message, “After a hard week, Cville is back on our feet, and we’ll be stronger than ever. Love conquers hate! @virginiaisforlovers!”
“I was a bit disappointed in that public relations thing,” says Caravati. “It’s not all good. We’re struggling and we’ll get out of it, but it’s not all good.”
For some, like longtime resident Mary Carey, council calling Signer to the principal’s office did not go far enough. “It was a slap on the wrist,” she says. And she’s concerned about Signer’s political aspirations, and says he’s publicly said he was going to become governor and president.
“Mike Signer’s political career is over,” opined activist Jalane Schmidt while waiting for the results of the closed session.
However, Signer is not the only councilor who has eyed higher office, says Caravati, who admits he would have too, had the timing been right.
“In the short term, he’s debilitated,” Caravati says. “He can rehabilitate himself. Right now, it might be difficult, but he’s a stalwart guy.”
The councilors did not announce who called for the closed session, but it was Galvin who read the group’s response that the officials accepted Signer’s apology, and she reiterated council’s “shared responsibility for good governance.”
“That’s a hard thing to do,” observes Caravati, “to call your peers out.”
Signer’s term as mayor ends in January, and the likelihood of him being elected to another term, says Caravati, “at this time doesn’t seem probable.”
At the August 12 Unite the Right rally, they faced the opposite complaint: That they stood and watched assaults take place.
Civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel was on Market Street after the rally was declared an unlawful assembly, and hesays there were no police in sight.
“When fistfights broke out, state police did nothing,” he says. “I was a little surprised they made a decision to let all hell break loose.”
Throughout the weekend, people noted a number of occasions when the police were absent: the altercation in front of the Rotunda following the tiki-torch procession through UVA on Friday night. The assaults that took place on Market Street Saturday morning before Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency. And the brutal attack of Dre Harris by white nationalists in the Market Street Parking Garage beside the Charlottesville police station.
At an August 14 press conference, Police Chief Al Thomas disputed assertions that officers were ordered to not intervene. “Throughout the entire weekend, the Virginia State Police and Charlottesville police intervened to break up fights and altercations between those at the rally site, and that began Friday night,” said Thomas.
In many of the conflicts, someone was attacked and the attacker disappeared into the crowd, says Thomas. On Saturday alone, police received 250 calls for service at the rally, and state police treated 36 injured people.
And he says the department is still getting calls about assaults and civil rights violations that occurred over the weekend. The city has established a tipline and people can report incidents by emailing cvillerally@charlottesville.org or calling 970-3280.
City police and City Manager Maurice Jones said August 7 that they could not ensure the safety of Emancipation Park and used that as the basis for issuing rally organizer Jason Kessler a permit for McIntire Park, a change that was blocked in federal court the evening before the rally.
“We had a very large footprint to cover,” said Thomas, especially after the rally was canceled and opposing factions dispersed throughout the city.
At press briefings before August 12, Thomas said he’d learned a number of lessons from the KKK rally, and that the Unite the Right protest was an entirely different beast.
He also said there would be close to 1,000 law enforcement and emergency responders on hand.
Perhaps that’s why many wonder why this event was so much more violent than the KKK rally, with so many fewer arrests—six—compared with the 23 people charged July 8.
“Police obviously didn’t do their job,” says John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, which joined the ACLU of Virginia in representing Kessler in his suit against the city for its change of venue. “They didn’t separate the sides.”
Thomas says there was a plan to keep the factions separate by having the alt-rights enter through the back of Emancipation Park. “They did not follow that,” he says.
Alt-right attendees like Richard Spencer complained of having to run a “gauntlet” of counterprotesters, and Kessler said police did not do their job in protecting the people at his rally—at least before he was drowned out and chased by angry citizens at a press conference Sunday, when he had to run to the police for protection.
Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller told the New York Times, “It may have looked like a lot of our folks were standing around” because of the sheer number of officers on the scene, but “there were other troopers and law enforcement officers who were responding to incidents as they arose.”
Activist Emily Gorcenski livestreamed the tiki-torch procession through UVA Grounds Friday night, and was perplexed by the paucity of police at the event that ended with a brawl when white nationalists, vastly outnumbering a small number of protesters, surrounded them at the Thomas Jefferson statue in front to the Rotunda on University Avenue.
“The media showed up,” says Gorcenski. “If journalists knew and the event was publicized on Twitter, the police should have shown up.”
She says she did see police after she washed the pepper spray out of her eyes, and UVA says one officer was among those injured. University Police Chief Michael Gibson did not return a call from C-VILLE.
Gorcenski was not in the immediate rally area August 12, but says she saw from a distance “police using tactics for crowd dispersal with slow marches down the street that were very deliberate” efforts to calmly control the crowd.
“I thought police had significantly improved their tactics since July 8, when they did their job poorly,” says Gorcenski, referring to the “unnecessary deployment of chemical agents.”
While tear gas was in the air August 12, Charlottesville police say it did not come from them.
Former New York cop and prosecutor Eugene O’Donnell, now a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice,says, “I think it’s unfair to do a wholesale condemnation of police. It’s a fallacy that by police acting emphatically, that automatically makes things better.”
There’s no “magic book” that tells police what to do, and “police wrestle with this all the time,” he says. Bigger cities are better equipped to handle situations such as the one Charlottesville faced because they do it all the time and “the more you do it, the better you get,” says O’Donnell.
And while the vast majority of protests are peaceful, he says Charlottesville was hit with a “double whammy” because it’s a department that doesn’t handle a lot of violent demonstrations and “the people who came were intent on causing trouble.”
Says O’Donnell, “Police really do feel any action you take, you’re subjected to much less criticism for not acting than acting.”
Arrested August 12
Troy Dunigan, 21, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, for disorderly conduct for throwing something into the crowd.
Jacob Smith Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail
Jacob L. Smith, 21, of Louisa, Virginia, for misdemeanor assault and battery for allegedly punching a female reporter from The Hill in the face.
James M. O’Brien, 44, of Gainesville, Florida, for carrying a concealed handgun.
David Parrott, 35, of Paoli, Indiana, for failure to disperse in a riot.
Steven Balcaitis Charlottesville Police Department
Steven Balcaitis, 36, of York, South Carolina, for assault and battery for allegedly choking a woman in McIntire Park.
James Alex Fields, CPD
James Alex Fields, 20, of Maumee, Ohio, for second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and hit and run.
Riot-shield-wielding police were called in to assist in getting the KKK out of town.
Eze amos
In the post-mortem of the July 8 KKK rally in Justice Park that resulted in 22 arrests and riot-garbed Virginia State Police tear-gassing protesters, widely diverging accounts of the event are playing out like a Kurosawa film.
Police Chief Al Thomas says his force has gotten “hundreds and hundreds of compliments” for how city police handled the estimated 1,500 people who attended. At the same time, activists are decrying the “brutality” of militarized police and the tear gassing of protesters, and demanding that the charges against those arrested be dropped.
Chief Al Thomas defends the use of tear gas to disperse protesters after the KKK left. Photo Eze Amos
And four legal organizations—the ACLU, Legal Aid Justice Center, the National Lawyers Guild and the Rutherford Institute—have asked City Council and Governor Terry McAuliffe to investigate the “over-militarized” police presence, the declarations of unlawful assemblies and the use of tear gas, and called for a permanent citizen review board.
Thomas defends its use. “The crowd was becoming more aggressive toward law enforcement,” throwing water bottles, using a pepper gel and spitting, he says.
According to Solidarity Cville, police escalated a peaceful demonstration against “white supremacist hate” by declaring an unlawful assembly after the Klan left. At a July 14 press conference in front of the police department, Emily Gorcenski, who was one of those tear-gassed, called the decision “unnecessary and unreasonable” and pointed out, “Charlottesville residents can’t clear out of a Dave Matthews concert in under an hour, yet police declared a peaceful crowd to be an unlawful assembly within minutes of the KKK departure.”
In the timeline of events, the Loyal White Knights of the KKK had a permit to protest the removal of Confederate monuments from 3 to 4pm. Because of the crush of counter-protesters surrounding the park, the KKK wasn’t able to get in until about 3:45pm. Shortly before 4:30pm, Chief Thomas ordered an end to the Klan demonstration, and protesters followed the Loyal Whites out to a secured garage on Fourth Street NE.
Protesters clogged the street, and Deputy Chief Gary Pleasants declared the first unlawful assembly of the day. Police and protesters agree on one thing: “We were trying to get them out of here as fast as possible,” says Thomas.
“No one wanted to bar the KKK from leaving the city,” says Gorcenski. “We wanted to make sure the Klan didn’t spend a minute longer in Charlottesville than necessary.”
After the KKK left around 4:44pm, police headed toward High Street, where Thomas describes a hostile crowd of several hundred people becoming aggressive toward police. On-scene commanders from city police and the Virginia State Police made the decision to deploy tear gas, says Thomas.
At 4:58pm, fewer than 15 minutes after the Klan left, police declared an unlawful assembly, says Solidarity Cville.
“We reject the allegation the deployment of chemicals was in response to a police defense strategy,” says Gorcenski. “Video evidence shows police went through a lengthy, minutes-long process of preparing gas masks.”
The Rutherford Institute’s John Whitehead contends police use of military equipment, including riot shields, assault weapons, grenade launcher and BearCat, changed the dynamic of the event, and the civil liberties orgs say the “heavy-handed demonstration of force” escalated rather than de-escalated the event.
“I would say bringing a hate group in changes the event,” counters Thomas. “That’s when we saw a change, when the Klan arrived. They brought hate and fear into our city.” Thomas also notes that city cops were in their normal uniforms for most of the day and did not have riot gear.
After the Klan left, there was a scuffle on the ramp leading up to the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, and two people were detained there, says Gorcenski. “It was a very, very confusing situation,” she says. Police were giving contradictory instructions, and people on the ramp had nowhere to go, she recounts.
Solidarity Cville alleges one of the people sitting on the ramp was kicked in the head three times by police. In a video the group provided, it appears an officer trying to get around them stumbled against one of the seated protesters, Tracye Prince DeSon, and looks horrified when people start shouting that he’d kicked the activist.
DeSon claims police used pepper spray on him six minutes before the first tear gas was fired. A video shows a Charlottesville police officer with a cannister in his hand, and moments later people in the vicinity are filmed coughing and reacting to an irritant, including this reporter.
A number of people, among them street medics, bystanders, ACLU observers and journalists, have discussed getting tear-gassed, and many of them said they didn’t hear the order to disperse, nor the warning that a chemical agent would be used.
Solidarity Cville’s Laura Goldblatt says medics were treating a woman in distress on the grass beside the juvenile court when the first tear gas went off beside her.
C-VILLE photographer Eze Amos was behind police taking photos of a dancing man when the first cannister went off and the wind shifted. “Around my mouth was burning, around my eyes were burning,” he says. “I was choking.”
Civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel also got tear-gassed, and says it was unreasonable to order people to leave immediately after the Klan left. “Two people were arguing at the end and police said it was an unlawful assembly,” he says. “Does that justify using tear gas on 100?”
Thomas says, “It is unfortunate” that bystanders on the sidelines got caught in the tear-gas crossfire. “It does travel. A number of our officers not wearing gas masks took in some of the gas as well.”
Three people were charged with wearing a mask—a felony—and at the July 14 press conference, Don Gathers with Black Lives Matter said, “They used their shirts and scarves to protect themselves from the chemical agents released by police.” Earlier, a masked Klansman was asked to remove his mask and not arrested, says Gathers.
City Councilor Kristin Szakos, who was not present at the KKK rally, says, “I wish there hadn’t been tear gas.” She adds, “It wasn’t unprovoked. There were people who were actively confronting police.”
Police kept people safe, while allowing people to stand up to the hatred of the KKK, she says. “The Klan knows they’re not welcome here.”
City councilors Kathy Galvin, Bob Fenwick, Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy and Mayor Mike Signer are among the city officials who gathered to reassure the public safety is paramount.
Staff photo
The Loyal White Knights of the KKK is a tiny, disintegrating faction led by a felon facing a charge for abetting in attempted murder, who may not be able to legally leave North Carolina for the July 8 rally his group plans to hold in Justice Park. Yet such is the legacy of terror and hate associated with the Klan that Charlottesville has mobilized to deflect a visit from an organization that Mayor Mike Signer says is “already in the trash bin of history.”
Some argue that the impending August 12 “Unite the Right” March on Charlottesville with its modern-day white nationalism cloaked as the alt-right is the bigger threat.
But this year, rather than gearing up for July 4, Charlottesville is gearing up for July 8, in the hope that it will be “remembered as a day of unity, not a day of hate and fear,” said city police Chief Al Thomas at a June 20 press conference, one of several events that have been held to announce other activities and to encourage citizens to ignore the Loyal White Knights.
On the agenda are a dialogue at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center in the morning, a picnic at IX Art Park and a musical event at the Pavilion. Details for those events are still being worked out.
At the press conference, a dozen city officials and leaders stressed public safety and unity. Thomas says Albemarle and UVA police and the city sheriff’s office will join the Charlottesville Police Department in its public safety ops.
He also noted that police will make sure the exercise of free speech is enabled, “no matter how much we may disagree with the message.”
Advises Thomas, “If you have concerns about the KKK rally in the park, my advice is simple: Stay home.”
Signer said, “On July 8, I will not be going within a football field of Justice Park.” Nor will City Councilor Kristin Szakos.
Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, who has been targeted with threats toward him and his family, said, “We’re not going to let these idiots come here and define us.” He urged those who must confront the Klan to not engage with them. “Don’t get into a shouting match with people whose minds are not going to change.”
A week earlier on June 13, more than 150 people attended a “So Now What” community forum at Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church to discuss the impending appearance of the North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights.
Organizer Bellamy, along with City Manager Maurice Jones, Signer and Thomas, as well as members of the African-American community, spoke out on how to respond to the robe-wearing group that has terrorized blacks for more than 150 years.
Most urged ignoring the Loyal White Knights, and many black community members said they would not be attending. All urged restraint by locals who do show up to offer an unwelcome mat to Charlottesville.
“I don’t feel the need to go scream at these people,” said Yolanda Jones. She advised self-mastery and wisdom to those who did attend, and said white people “can be an interface in ways people of color can’t.”
Thomas acknowledged the emotion and pain of having the Klan come to town, and said city police can manage them. “Quite candidly, our main concern is not the KKK,” he said. “It’s being in a situation where local citizens make poor choices and we have to step in.”
The KKK “does not define this community,” he said. “Don’t take the bait.”
Thomas, who came here from Lexington, which has had its own share of confrontations over Confederate symbols, including the removal of the rebel flag from public property, said he’s dealt with the Klan before. And when it wanted to march through the black community, people came out and turned their backs to the white supremacist marchers, “the most powerful symbolism you can imagine,” he said.
Bellamy presented peaceful options for July 8. And for those who do want to show up at Justice Park, he suggested protesters wear black, lock arms and turn their backs on the Loyal White Knights—without engaging with them.
He made another plea for people who want to get involved: Volunteer for city and county boards. He distributed a sheet to the audience with options for July 8. And on the other side of the paper, he had a list of openings that allow other ways for voices to be heard in the community.
“It’s easy to go out with 300 people and yell at the Klan,” he said. “It’s harder to get involved on boards.”
Added Bellamy, “If you truly want to do something, here’s your chance.”
Charlottesville has been the scene of protests about the removal of Confederate monuments over the past year, most notably a tiki-torch rally led by white nationalist/UVA alum Richard Spencer May 13.
