Tag: Jason Kessler

Categories
News

Not guilty: A win for Veronica Fitzhugh

Updated Tuesday, October 24 at 3pm with a second story about court appearances on Monday, October 23.

 

Even months prior to August 12, the community was up to its figurative elbows in lawsuits stemming from the emergence of Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler into the local spotlight and the people who’ve made it their goal to publicly confront him.

At the end of last week and the beginning of this one, several familiar faces from the alt-right, as well as its rejectors, were in Charlottesville General District court to learn their fate from Judge Robert Downer.

Wearing a hot pink wig and carrying a Donald Trump mask as a purse, Black Lives Matter activist Veronica Fitzhugh was found not guilty October 20 of obstructing free passage at the summer’s Ku Klux Klan rally in Justice Park.

An arresting officer with the Charlottesville Police Department testified that Fitzhugh refused to leave a passageway police had secured to safely usher the KKK into the park for its permitted demonstration July 8.

The Klan was in town to protest the removal of the city’s General Robert E. Lee statue, and Fitzhugh and about 10 other counterprotesters locked arms in front of a gate into the park, delaying the white supremacist rally for about an hour, according to the CPD officer’s testimony.

When Fitzhugh was instructed to step away from the gate, she laid down in front of it and was carried out by four officers.

“No one was allowed in there except for the people authorized by the police, so this was not a public passageway,” argued her attorney, Jeff Fogel, who noted that the CPD officer’s body cam footage showed a cameraman was also standing in front of the gate that officers later corralled the Klan through. “I don’t know how they could claim Ms. Fitzhugh was obstructing the gate and that gentleman wasn’t.”

The following Monday, in the same courtroom, her attorney had several wins and losses—for additional clients and himself.

On June 1, Kessler’s own video evidence shows he and his buddy, Caleb Norris, approached Fogel outside Miller’s on the Downtown Mall. They were surrounded by members of activist group Showing Up for Racial Justice, as its members shouted “Nazi, go home” at the alleged alt-righters.

The video shows Kessler chastising Fogel for calling him a “crybaby” in April, and Norris can be heard calling the attorney a “communist piece of shit.” Fogel replies, “What did you say?” and is seen putting his hands toward Norris.

“Oh my God, this guy just assaulted my friend,” an elated Kessler says, and urges his friend to press charges against the lawyer who was running for commonwealth’s attorney at the time.

Back in the courtroom, Fogel, represented by his law partner Steve Rosenfield, said Norris leaned over at him and put his hands up to keep Norris from coming any closer. In the video, it was unclear whether Norris leaned into Fogel, but Downer cited Fogel’s unaggressive disposition when Kessler was lambasting him earlier in the clip, and said he couldn’t find Fogel guilty.

Fogel also represented Sara Tansey October 16, who was charged with destruction of property for snatching Kessler’s phone while he was live-streaming a February 11 Corey Stewart rally in Emancipation Park.

Joe Draego, best known for suing the city for being dragged out of a City Council meeting in June 2016 (after he called Muslims “monstrous maniacs” and lay down on the floor), testified that he took the phone out of Tansey’s hand and gave it back to Kessler.

While Tansey was found guilty for nabbing Kessler’s cell phone, Draego was also found guilty of assault and battery of Tansey when he took the phone back.

The judge waived Tansey’s $50 fine, and Draego was ordered to fork over $100.

Fitzhugh was also charged May 31 with assault and disorderly conduct stemming from an encounter with Kessler, in which she allegedly screamed in his face and told him to “fucking go home” as he was sitting at a table on the Downtown Mall.

The activist, known for her outlandish wardrobe, will go to trial for the assault and disorderly conduct charges November 20. What will she wear next?

Among the familiar faces in court this week was Veronica Fitzhugh, wearing a hot pink wig and carrying a purse that resembled Donald Trump’s head.

———————————————————————————-

Original story:

Wearing a hot pink wig and carrying the head of Donald Trump as a purse, activist Veronica Fitzhugh was found not guilty of obstructing free passage at the summer’s Ku Klux Klan rally in Justice Park.

An arresting officer with the Charlottesville Police Department testified in the city’s general district court October 20 that Fitzhugh refused to leave a passageway police had secured to safely usher the KKK into the park for their permitted demonstration July 8.

The Klan had dropped by to protest the tearing down of the city’s General Robert E. Lee statue, and Fitzhugh and about 10 other counterprotesters locked arms in front of a gate into the park, delaying the white supremacist rally for about an hour, according to the CPD officer’s testimony.

Police warned the crowd that they would be arrested if they did not clear the pathway for the North Carolina group called the Loyal White Knights, and as some counterprotesters began to disperse, Fitzhugh laid down in front of the gate, the officer said. He and three Virginia State Police troopers then carried her out of the vicinity, and she was charged with obstruction of free passage.

“No one was allowed in there except for the people authorized by the police, so this was not a public passageway,” argued her attorney, Jeff Fogel, who noted in the CPD officer’s body cam footage that a cameraman was also standing in front of the gate that officers later corralled the Klan through. “I don’t’ know how they could claim Ms. Fitzhugh was obstructing the gate and that gentleman wasn’t.”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman, who prosecuted the case, said she was arrested for “admirable reasons” and “she simply took it too far.”

Judge Robert Downer found her not guilty, and Fitzhugh and Fogel emerged from the courthouse to a crowd of about 30 supporters, who cheered and clapped and lined up to hug the activist who wore a hot pink, rhinestone handcuff necklace that matched her bodacious wig.

Fitzhugh was was also charged May 31 with assault and disorderly conduct stemming from an encounter with homegrown white nationalist Jason Kessler on the Downtown Mall, in which she allegedly screamed in his face for him to “fucking go home.” Her attorney was charged with assault after a confrontation with an associate of Kessler’s June 1.

The activist, known for her outlandish wardrobe, will go to trial for the assault and disorderly conduct charges November 20. What will she wear next?

Veronica Fitzhugh knows how to accessorize. Staff photo
Categories
News

August 12 victims sue Unite the Righters

UVA library systems employee Tyler Magill is one of 11 plaintiffs suing white nationalists and ne--Nazis who came to Charlottesville. Photo by Eze Amos

Eleven residents injured during the August 12 weekend, represented by legal powerhouse firms, filed a suit in federal court October 11 seeking monetary compensation from organizers of the Unite the Right rally, including Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer and more than three dozen white supremacist and neo-Nazi individuals and groups, alleging they conspired to commit violence in Charlottesville.

Tyler Magill, who had a stroke a few days after being whacked by a tiki torch during the August 11 march through UVA’s grounds, Marcus Martin, who was struck by defendant James Fields’ car, which broke his leg and ankle, his fiancée, Marissa Blair, and the Reverend Seth Wispelwey are among the plaintiffs suffering physical and emotional trauma, according to the suit.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs include Roberta Kaplan, who represented Edie Windsor in the landmark Supreme Court case on gay marriage, and former federal prosecutor Karen Dunn with Boies Schiller. In a 96-page complaint, the plaintiffs allege an unlawful conspiracy to intimidate, harass and injure blacks, Jews, people of color and their supporters.

The suit cites Andrew Anglin, publisher of the Daily Stormer, who wrote of an “atavistic rage in us, deep in us, that is ready to boil over. There is a craving to return to an age of violence. We want a war.”

Organizer and new Identity Evropa CEO Eli Mosley promised,”They will not replace us without a fight,” according to the suit.

Says Kaplan, “The whole point of this lawsuit is to make it clear that this kind of conduct—inciting and then engaging in violence based on racism, sexism and anti-Semitism—has no place in our country.”

tylerMagill et.al. v. whiteSupremacists

Categories
News

Alt-righters found guilty of failing to disperse

JonPaul Struys, Evan McLaren and Nathan Damigo leave Charlottesville District Court after being convicted of failing to disperse August 12. Photo Natalie Jacobsen

Police had to intervene after an October 13 court hearing where three white nationalists were found guilty of failure to disperse during the Unite the Right rally, and then were chased into a nearby parking garage by people waiting for them outside the courthouse.

Counterprotesters with their middle fingers in the air rushed Nathan Damigo, Evan McLaren and JonPaul Struys when they left Charlottesville General District Court. The group chanted “fuck white supremacists” and followed the men into the Market Street Garage where McLaren was parked.

Damigo—founder of white supremacist group Identity Evropa—trailed McLaren—the executive director of the National Policy Institute, which was formerly reigned by Richard Spencer—to the car while Struys turned to face the angry group, making a peace sign and pursing his lips.

About a dozen police were on-hand, and ordered everyone who wasn’t parked in the garage to leave. The three men then rode off in the silver car McLaren was driving.

In court, Virginia State Police troopers testified they arrested Damigo and Struys on August 12 after the rally had been declared an unlawful assembly and its participants were instructed to leave Emancipation Park. The two refused to leave and pushed up against the shields of a line of riot cops.

Another trooper testified that McLaren was lying face down on the ground in the park when he was arrested for failure to disperse.

All three are represented by Elmer Woodard, who also represents “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell and Richard Preston, who’s charged with firing a gun during the rally. The Blairs, Virginia-based attorney argued that the rally should never have been declared an unlawful assembly, so police did not have grounds to arrest the men.

He said his clients were “bellyaching,” and not participating in violence.

Attorney Elmer Woodard threatens to sue a photographer if she sells his image for profit. Photo Natalie Jacobsen

Brian O’Donnell, who served as a Charlottesville Police Department zone commander August 12, testified that people in attendance threw bottles, used pepper spray and beat each other with sticks and bats, and prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony said that was enough to declare the meetup unlawful.

But Woodard said all of the violence was happening on the outskirts of the permitted area, so if an unlawful assembly needed to be declared, it should have only affected those participating in violence outside of Emancipation Park. He called rally organizer Jason Kessler to testify, who said the three alt-righters in question were his guests, and they all behaved during the event.

As the homegrown white nationalist took the stand, he was greeted with hissing from courtroom attendee Nancy Carpenter.

“I didn’t see anybody making any violence,” Kessler said, and added that the drone footage of the event that he watched a few days ago was “super boring.”

Judge Robert Downer found all three men guilty of the class one misdemeanor, and fined Damigo and Struys $200. McLaren, who was “cordial” with police, was ordered to fork over $100.

The three have appealed the charges and will appear on the December docket call in Charlottesville Circuit Court, according to prosecutor Antony.

 

Categories
News

Militia madness: City files suit against August 12 participants

The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection lawsuit hopes to keep "unlawful paramilitary activity," like that seen on August 12, out of Charlottesville. Photo by Eze Amos

 

Exactly two months after the summer’s Unite the Right white nationalist rally that left three dead and many injured, a legal group has filed an unprecedented complaint on behalf of Charlottesville, local businesses and neighborhood associations that could prohibit “unlawful paramilitary activity” in the city.

Lawyers with the University of Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection claim the independent militiamen and women, many carrying “60 to 80 pounds of combat gear,” such as semi-automatic assault rifles slung over their shoulders, made tensions boil at what some have called the largest gathering of white supremacists in recent history.

“Regardless of ideology, the presence of these private armies, whether armed with assault rifles or bats, batons or clubs, significantly heightens the possibility of violence, as we saw on August 12,” said Mary McCord, an attorney with Georgetown Law’s ICAP, who filed the complaint which is, as she says, “seeking to ensure that the streets do not become battlefields for those who organize and engage in paramilitary activity.”

According to the complaint, rally organizers, including homegrown Jason Kessler, solicited private militias to attend the rally, held group-wide planning calls and circulated an instructional document called “General Orders.”

“All the while, attendees encouraged one another to ‘prepare for war,’” according to ICAP.

Named defendants in the lawsuit include Kessler and Identity Evropa CEO Eli Mosley, white nationalist groups Traditionalist Worker Party, Vanguard America, League of the South, and the National Socialist Movement, and private militia groups Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, New York LIght Foot Militia, Virginia Minutemen Militia, American Freedom Keepers, American Warrior Revolution, Redneck Revolt and the Socialist Rifle Association.

Kessler and the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia did not immediately respond to interview requests.

“It’s a unique lawsuit,” says Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead, who has represented far-right and far-left defendants for 40 years. “There are some real complications.”

According to Virginia law, “the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power,” but Whitehead points to the 2008 Supreme Court decision of District of Columbia v. Heller, in which justices voted 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry weapons unconnected with service in a militia. He says the definition of “militia” under Virginia law is vague, and several groups named in the suit do not identify as militia groups.

The 75-page complaint is a culmination of investigations, including interviews with residents and bystanders, hours of footage, hundreds of photos and thousands of social media posts, McCord said outside Charlottesville Circuit Court after her group and members of City Council filed the suit.

“The investigation uncovered overwhelming evidence, much of which has only become available after August 12, of planning by alt-right groups to engage in the very type of militaristic violence that resulted,” McCord says. “They have vowed to come back, as have the self-professed militia purporting to be peacekeepers.”

Michie Hamlett attorneys Lee Livingston and Kyle NcNew will serve as the local counsel for the suit. Livingston reminded those outside the courthouse of the terror the city faced that day.

“August 12 is a tragic story now—a part of the lives of all Charlottesvillians,” he says. “A street we walk to restaurants, where we enjoy life with our neighbors, on that street, our neighbors were plowed over by a car. The images of bodies being smashed by that car will never leave us. A park where we celebrate festivals became a scene of medieval squad maneuvers, people struck down, people bleeding. We fear that a dark chapter was opened in our nation’s history on our doorstep, a chapter many had thought was closed in the 20th century.”

He said he hopes the suit will provide public servants “who protect the peace” a tool to prevent private armies from returning to the area, protect those who use Emancipation Park and the surrounding area from the “intimidating, unregulated soldiers,” and allow the community to come together, “in at least a small step, to reduce what feels like a dark turn of our story.”

Added Mayor Mike Signer, “I support [the lawsuit] as a stand against the disintegration of our democracy, and as a call for us to put a firm close to this horrible chapter in our democracy where people think it’s okay to parade in military outfits in public, to openly threaten violence against other people, to fire weapons into crowds, to beat people in public and to use a car as a weapon.”

Categories
News

Another bad day for Kessler: Plus words from a ‘canary in the coal mine’

Jason Kessler was chased away from his own August 13 press conference. Now, local antifa claim to have chased him off again. Photo by Eze Amos

Perhaps you’ve heard by now that homegrown white nationalist Jason Kessler was indicted by a grand jury for perjury and released on bond October 3.

While the guy who became famous in a small town for his crusade against Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy isn’t commenting on his most recent moment in the spotlight, the man he accused of socking him while out collecting signatures for a petition to remove the only African-American on City Council is.

Jay Taylor was charged with assault in the January 22 incident on the Downtown Mall, but the prosecution dropped the misdemeanor when video footage from a nearby surveillance camera didn’t support the account that Kessler swore under oath was the truth.

Taylor says he’s been pushing Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci to look at the evidence and file charges ever since—and he says anyone who knows him could probably tell the accusation was false from the start.

“I would describe myself as a fairly mild-mannered guy,” says Taylor, a 54-year-old Albemarle County artist, craftsman and handyman who was not a stranger to Kessler when the two had their Downtown Mall scuffle. “I’m not a reactionary. I don’t fight. One of my life mottoes is ‘just enough, not too much.’”

When Kessler handed over his clipboard, Taylor says he told Kessler he didn’t vote in the city, but wanted to learn more about what he was calling for.

“As I was reading the petition, it occurred to me that what he was after had nothing to do with Wes Bellamy, or fixing anything,” Taylor says. “All he was trying to do was create chaos, create discord, continue his hate speech, and it didn’t have anything to do with making things better.”

When he pointed that out, Kessler hit him and told the police who intervened that Taylor punched him first and he was acting in self-defense. Kessler, who pleaded guilty to assault April 6, has since said he was just having a bad day.

While it’s certainly been a trend in Charlottesville to create GoFundMe pages for victims of Kessler’s efforts, such as the Unite the Right rally, Taylor says he can’t in good conscience create one for himself, though he’s out $3,000.

“That’s not who I am,” he says. “Though this whole thing has kind of derailed me for this year and I am behind on a lot of things and could certainly use some help, it isn’t necessarily about me. It’s about the community and about what harm is being done to our community. I was the canary in the coal mine.”

Kessler’s name became nationally recognized for his neo-Nazi rally that left three dead and many wounded August 12, and when City Councilor Kristin Szakos saw it on the public comment list for the October 2 council meeting, she called it “disturbing,” and said, “He is the person who called down the wrath of the far-right on our city.”

He did not show up to speak, and audience members sprang to their feet to clap for the antifa who allegedly drove Kessler and members of League of the South, a Southern nationalist group, out of town that day, when they were reportedly spotted scouting Emancipation and Justice parks and on the Downtown Mall.

That was also the day someone slipped a sheet of paper under the door of C-VILLE Weekly’s Downtown Mall office. It advertised the “New Byzantium Project,” and asked people interested in becoming a member of the “premier organization for pro-white advocacy in the 21st century” to email Kessler.

“We aim to create a foundation by which the European heritage of the Western world may survive the inevitable collapse of the American Empire,” the flier said. “New Byzantium is a civil rights organization operating through nonviolent action.”

One of the alt-right figurehead’s arguments for why he does what he does is that he has the right to, observes Taylor.

“I think one of the things that’s becoming more and more clear to me is just because you have the right does not mean you should use it.”

Disavowed

A week after his Unite the Right rally, organizer Jason Kessler tweeted, “Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.”

The next morning, he deleted it, and claimed he’d been hacked. He repudiated the “heinous” tweet, and then admitted to having been on a mixture of drugs and alcohol when he wrote it. “I sometimes wake up having done strange things I can’t remember,” he tweeted.

Then he deleted his account.

The apology wasn’t enough for some of his former buddies. Here’s what they had to say:

UVA grad Richard Spencer, often credited for creating the alt-right movement, tweeted, “I will no longer associate w/ Jason Kessler; no one should. Heyer’s death was deeply saddening. ‘Payback’ is a morally reprehensible idea.”

Tim Gionet, aka Baked Alaska, who was billed as a speaker for Unite the Right, tweeted, “This is terribly wrong and vile. We should not rejoice at the people who died in Charlottesville just because we disagree with them.”

Calling Kessler’s tweet “very gross,” co- host of Nationalist Review and rally attendee James Allsup tweeted, “Assuming this is a real tweet and his account was not hacked, I will no longer attend or cover events put on by Jason Kessler.”

And popular alt-right twitter account @FaustianNation tweeted at Kessler, “Why. Would You. Tweet This. This tweet makes
it impossible to defend you, and now the entire rally as you were the main organizer.”

In an email to C-VILLE, the Colorado Proud Boys said, “Kessler is not a Proud Boy. His only involvement was participating in a meet up, and being disavowed, and booted out shortly after.”

Categories
News

Meme-able Magill: August icon recovers, keeps fighting back

UVA library systems employee Tyler Magill is one of 11 plaintiffs suing white nationalists and ne--Nazis who came to Charlottesville. Photo by Eze Amos

During the August weekend that scarred Charlottesville, one man was in the thick of the major events, and became both a casualty and a meme of resistance to hate.

That man was Tyler Magill: a UVA alum, longtime WTJU DJ once known as the Velvet Facilitator and a local fixture in the community.

Before hundreds of white supremacists wielding tiki torches marched across UVA Grounds August 11, Magill, a UVA library system employee with access to Alderman, went there to observe the events—and became way more involved than he planned.

When the alt-righters, in town a day early for the Unite the Right rally, began encircling about 30 counterprotesters at the university’s Thomas Jefferson statue on that Friday evening, Magill says he joined the minority, mostly made up of young people, though he didn’t know any of them.

“Shell-shocked, not thinking, I ran down to join them, only hoping to be a witness, and hoping that even if [the white supremacists] were prepared to hurt, to kill 30 people, perhaps they wouldn’t kill 31,” he wrote in a widely read letter to university President Teresa Sullivan, who has been criticized for her handling of the neo-Nazi rally.

As the counterprotesters were surrounded by white-polo-shirted men with fash haircuts, Magill says they were doused with a liquid, and at some point, he was whacked in the neck with a tiki torch.

Four days later, he became thick-tongued, his reflexes slowed and he lost about half of the vision in his right eye—signs he was having a stroke, believed to be the result of blunt force trauma to his carotid artery. Though he still has a small blind spot and little energy from the August 15 health crisis, he says he’s grateful to be recovering as quickly as he has.

“I have no right to be alive, certainly not to be ambulatory in full possession of all of my faculties,” says Magill on a recent afternoon in which he had just returned from getting a CAT scan and was resting in bed. “But I’m coming out of this relatively unscathed,” he adds.

Doctors haven’t recommended when he should return to work, he says, but the university allows him six months of short-term disability leave, and he’s used six weeks so far. He says his job at the library is fairly physical, and he can only do about an hour of light activity right now before he requires rest.

A GoFundMe page has raised about $130,000 for his expenses, but Magill says he has good insurance through UVA and knows of other victims from that deadly weekend who need more help than he does.

That’s why, in his letter to Sullivan, he called for the university to pay off those victims’ bills in full.

“These people’s lives are in shambles because the University failed to take action on Friday night,” he wrote in his letter. “The University emboldened the fascists with [its] lack of action, and set the stage for the 12th. The University must acknowledge its complicity and make amends.”

Sullivan asked Magill to sit in the president’s box at Scott Stadium for the September 24 Concert for Charlottesville, championed by the Dave Matthews Band. That’s where he passed her the letter, which he says is set to be published soon in the Washington Post.

“You will be leaving and that is for the best,” he wrote. He says he hasn’t received a response—and isn’t expecting to.

While lying in bed, Magill says, “As much as I can, I sympathize with the problems that a modern university president has—so much of their job isn’t the classic university president job, so much of it is just raising money,” he says. Despite her own personal beliefs, she has to cater her statements to “a fairly conservative, if not reactionary, donor base,” he adds.

UVA president-elect James Ryan will take her place next year. “I would just hope that Mr. Ryan would weigh things a little bit more carefully,” Magill says.

An iconic photo from the weekend of the Unite the Right rally shows Magill rushing event organizer Jason Kessler with his hands in the air at Kessler’s August 13 attempted press conference.

Laughing, Magill says the photo shows him “being really big,” but in reality, he knew there was a sniper atop a building overlooking Kessler’s conference, and he wanted to approach the white nationalist while showing he wasn’t armed.

The library worker calls himself a “tourist” in the mess of alt-right protesters and counterprotesters, and says he doesn’t belong to any activist group.

He’s not a “shining example,” of how to confront white supremacy, but he tries to be, he says.

“We all need to try every day and not expect to get any reward for it,” he says. “The reward is in the doing.”

And for plenty of people, the terror of that weekend isn’t over. Magill says he’s been in “therapy up to [his] eyeballs.”

“Now I’m another middle-aged white person wearing sweat pants just walking down the street not doing much,” he says. “There’s plenty of people out there who still feel like it’s August 12 all the time.”

Categories
News

No invitation: Why Native American groups weren’t protesting Unite the Right

Ben Walters took part in the Native American Student Union purification ceremony August 30 at the Jefferson statue after the white nationalist torch march through Grounds August 11. Photo by Eze Amos

By John Last

On August 12, the streets around Emancipation Park were a riot of color: socialist red, antifa black, the white robes of clergy, bright rainbow flags.

But in this broad coalition of anti-racist activists, at least one group was missing: Virginia’s Native American tribes.

In organizing their response to the display of white supremacy at Unite the Right, none of the anti-racist solidarity organizations extended invitations to local Native American advocacy groups or tribes, according to multiple organizers and tribal sources.

For some, that’s the way they wanted it.

“We wouldn’t have been involved with it anyway,” says Chief Dean Branham of the Monacan Indian Nation, the indigenous people of Charlottesville’s region. “I don’t have any problem with those statues…I just don’t think it’s an Indian issue.”

For Branham, the demonstration was about “black and white issue[s].” But even within his own tribe, there are those who believe Native Americans should engage with the growing anti-racist movement.

“I think there are a lot more examples of hate and oppression to be considered,” says Karenne Wood, a member of the Monacan Indian Nation and director of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities’ Indian Heritage Program. “It’s not just about two groups of people.”

Virginia’s racial laws once saw no distinction between Native Americans and African-Americans. From 1924 to 1967, the Racial Integrity Act categorized all non-whites as “colored,” a legacy that still prevents many Virginia tribes from obtaining federal recognition.

Today, white nationalists like Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler declare white Europeans to be the “indigenous” people of America, while Native Americans face many of the same structural inequalities as African-Americans.

Native Americans have the highest rates of poverty of any ethnic group in the commonwealth and are most likely to be the victim of a violent crime. In 2014, the Center for Disease Control found Native Americans are just as likely as African-Americans to be killed by police.

Even when it comes to statues, Native Americans have a shared cause with demonstrators.

The city’s central statue of explorers Lewis and Clark has been criticized for depicting Sacagawea, their guide, in a crouching, submissive pose. Another, at the Corner, depicts George Rogers Clark and soldiers with rifles threatening retreating Native Americans. Its inscription reads “Conqueror of the Northwest.”

“I do a little grimace every time I walk by that statue,” says Ben Walters, vice president of UVA’s Native American Student Union. “It’s even more of a reminder…than a statue of Lee of how this country embraces its prejudiced past.”

Both monuments are contemporaries of the statue of Lee at the center of the August protest, erected at the height of racial segregation.

According to Wood, Walters and other activists, Native Americans are badly underrepresented in local anti-racist groups. Wood believes it’s one reason they were not considered when organizers sought allies for the demonstration.

“We’re still that invisible in the American narrative,” says Wood. “That’s what it really boils down to.”

“There’s a lack of awareness of Native American issues in the activist community,” says Evan Knappenburger, the media liaison for the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, which helped support events August 12 in McGuffey Park. “It’s a very systemic-level issue.”

Showing Up for Racial Justice and Solidarity Cville, two of the main organizing groups, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Other organizers say Native American groups were not contacted because many of the organizations involved were formed only months ago.

Community activist Walt Heinecke, who secured the permits for events in McGuffey and Justice parks on the day of the rally, says the participants came down to “who contacted me once it was public knowledge that I had the permits and who didn’t.”

Heinecke did invite native activist Guy Lopez, a member of the Dakota Nation and a graduate of UVA. Though announced as a speaker, he did not speak at the event.

“I wish other Native American organizations would have reached out,” says Heinecke.

With scant resources of their own, Walters and Wood say partnering with other organizations is essential to having their issues heard.

For the student group, the events of the summer are seen as a reason to break the ice with other activists and bring Native American issues into the discussion.

“Natives have been overlooked for a really long time, so it’s time to change that attitude,” says Native American Student Union president Halle Buckles. “It’s not about who’s had it worse, it’s not about which statue has caused more hurt…it’s about [making] other people feel safe here.”

But Wood is more cautious. She says the legacy of mistreatment means many Native Americans may still not be ready to participate in activism.

“Monacan people still feel racially distinct and they don’t want to attract more problems,” she says. “Their parents lived through horrific oppression. …They’re not ready to stand up unless they have to.”

 Correction September 21: Ben Walters was misidentified in the original version.

Categories
News

In brief: The city’s biggest hurricane hits, bold protest signs and more

Hurricane Camille’s casualty count appeared on the front page of the Daily Progress in the summer of 1969. File photo

Charlottesville’s inland location has helped it dodge the likes of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, but it’s gotten slammed in the past.

Hurricane Isabel

September 19-20, 2003

By the time it hit Virginia, Isabel was a Category 1 storm. Nonetheless, it was a killer, taking 32 lives in the state directly or indirectly, according to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, and two in Albemarle when a car ran off the road during heavy rainfall and crashed into a tree. According to the Cav Daily, two others in vehicles were injured by falling trees, one person was hurt when a tree crashed into a house and a police officer was struck by a branch. The ground was already saturated from previous rain, and trees toppled like bowling pins, including a 250-year-old white oak near Brooks Hall on UVA Grounds. At the height of the power outages, 50,000 local Dominion customers were without power, and some were in the dark for nearly two weeks.

Hurricane Camille

August 19-20, 1969

For its sheer one-two punch—killing 174 when it made landfall as a Category 5 storm on the Mississippi coast, and then two days later as a tropical depression, drowning Nelson County, where 125 people perished—Camille remains the deadliest force of nature to hit central Virginia. Whole families were lost when Camille dumped what’s conservatively estimated as more than 27 inches in eight hours, and even today, you can see the bare spots on the mountains around Lovingston where pounding rain tore off the top soil. Still missing: 33 people.

Hurricane Agnes

June 21, 1972

Agnes, too, was a tropical depression when it hit Scottsville, flooding the town with water that rose 34 feet. That, following Camille’s 30 feet of water, prompted town fathers to seek federal funding for a levee. While no one died in Scottsville, 16 Virginians lost their lives to Agnes, according to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

Derecho

June 29, 2012

Until high-powered winds roared into Albemarle from the west, we’d never heard the term derecho, which means “straight” in Spanish. The blast killed six people, two of them in Albemarle County—John Porter, 64, when he stepped onto his porch in Ivy, and Catherine Ford, 52, when she got out of her car on Scottsville Road. Nearly 40,000 people lost power, some for a week, and Crozet canceled its Fourth of July celebration because of damage to Claudius Crozet Park.

Microbursts

June 2010

We say microburst, but UVA climatologist Jerry Stenger says it’s more accurately called a “downburst.” Whatever you call them, a spate hit Charlottesville in 2010, and the worst on June 24 left 45,000 without power. Trees came down all over town with the city fire department responding to 31 calls of crunched houses, and another 15 to 20 county homes were in the path of falling trees.

Camille’s casualty count appeared on the front page of the Daily Progress in the summer of 1969.

 

Jackson voted out

City Council unanimously agreed September 5 to send the statue of General Stonewall Jackson packing, along with his Confederate buddy General Robert E. Lee—pending litigation permitting.

Needs improvement

The UVA group charged with reviewing the events of August 11-12, including a white nationalist torch-carrying march through Grounds, found the university could have sought better intel on Unite the Right plans, enforced its open-flame policy and notified the university community when neo-Nazis flooded the premises, among other recommendations.

Mason Pickett. Staff photo

Quote of the Week: Wes is a jackass. —City Council gadfly Mason Pickett takes a sign to the corner of Preston Avenue and McIntire Road.

 

Press conference casualties

Jason Kessler filed assault charges against longtime activist Jeff Winder, 49, and PHAR organizer Brandon Collins, 44, who were among the angry mob that chased the Unite the Right organizer into the arms of police protection August 13, the day after his hate fest invasion resulted in the death of Heather Heyer and injured dozens more.

Western NC transplant

Jeffrey Richardson. Courtesy photo

The Board of Supervisors appointed Cleveland County, North Carolina, county manager Jeffrey Richardson as the new county executive, effective in November. Richardson has 27 years of local government experience, a master’s degree from UNC and a new $217,000 annual paycheck, according to the Daily Progress.

Hometown solace

The Dave Matthews Band, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande and more will perform a free September 24 show in the wake of the deadly August 12 rally. The ticket lottery is over, but a small number will be available at the UVA box office September 15.

Check this out

From left to right: Aimee Atteberry, Bob Kahn, Carolyn Rainey, Antonio Rice, Major James Shiels, Karen Rogers, Erik Greenbaum, and Pat Burnette. Staff photo

C-VILLE Weekly Publisher Aimee Atteberry, the vice chair of the Salvation Army advisory board, presented the nonprofit and beneficiary of this year’s Best of C-VILLE party with a check for $8,017.58 September 12.

Cost of inquiries

Former U.S. attorney/Hunton & Williams partner Tim Heaphy, who is preparing a review of the city’s planning and response to multiple recent alt-right and KKK rallies, will charge $545 an hour with a $100,000 max payment, which he says is a discount. UVA has hired its own outside source with a $250,000 price tag to review its procedures.

Artistic merit

Before its board pulled the plug on Piedmont Council for the Arts, it released a study last month about the economic prosperity
nonprofit arts and cultural orgs rained down upon the greater Charlottesville community in 2016.

$121.8million: Economic impact

2,100: Full-time equivalent jobs

$9.5 million: Government revenue

$36.11 per event: Amount a typical arts attendee spent, beyond the cost of admission

84%: Nonlocal attendees who say they visited to attend an arts or cultural event

 

Categories
News

In brief: Money pours in after hate rally, legal landscape and more

Healing heart

Over the last week and a half, this austere graphic has become a ubiquitous symbol of healing and hope in Charlottesville, found on Facebook profile pictures, store windows and on posters and T-shirts for unity events.

But its creator, Rock Paper Scissors’ co-owner Dani Antol, says she couldn’t have imagined the overwhelming response.

“Being a designer, I’m like, man, I could have created something more unique or different than just ‘C’ville’ in a heart,” she jokes, “but I think that is the beauty of it. It just relays the simple message of love and community, especially in a time of turmoil, disbelief and so many questions.”

Antol made the graphic—a teal heart, representing peace, tranquility and calm, with a scripted “C’ville” inside—on the afternoon of Saturday, August 12, and says it was meant as a message of unity to post at her shop and on social media accounts. But soon others were using it as their own, and the Downtown Mall store itself has given out almost 1,000 free posters printed with the graphic. Going forward, it plans to donate 50 percent of gross sales of items with the heart to the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation’s Heal Charlottesville Fund, to continue disseminating its message of goodwill.—Caite White

When your client’s a neo-Nazi

Photo Jackson Smith

Former Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney Denise Lunsford was assigned to represent James Fields Jr., who is accused of plowing into a crowd August 12 and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer. Buddy Weber originally was given the task of representing Fields, but he had a conflict of interest as a plaintiff in the lawsuit to thwart the city’s removal of the Lee statue.

More felonies for Fields

Besides second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop in an incident involving death, on August 18 James Fields Jr. picked up two more counts of malicious wounding and three of aggravated malicious wounding. At least 30 people were hospitalized from the attack.

Kessler meltdown, dropped charges

The city’s neo-Nazi event organizer tweeted August 18 that Heather Heyer was a communist and her death was payback. The next day, he blamed drugs, alcohol and stress, his Twitter account disappeared, his website went down, and white nationalist Richard Spencer disavowed Jason Kessler’s comments. On August 21, the city declined to prosecute a disorderly conduct charge against Kessler stemming from a May 14 candlelight vigil.

ACLU shift

Following the deadly August 12 Unite the Right rally, the American Civil Liberties Union said it will no longer represent hate groups with firearms. The ACLU of Virginia sued on behalf of Jason Kessler and got an injunction to hold the event in Emancipation Park. Now the state ACLU is calling for the removal of all Confederate monuments.

“Mr. Kessler is a person that we have absolutely no respect for. He’s a very troubled person that we do not think fully understands the damage he’s caused this community and elsewhere, but he was not guilty of criminal conduct.”—Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony

Vacation tragedy

Peter Parrish and Tyler Sewell on Bald Head Island. Photo Pete Clay

Ivy resident Tyler Sewell, 51, was charged in an August 3 golf cart accident on Bald Head Island in North Carolina that killed his friend, Troy resident Peter Parrish. Sewell was charged with a felony count of serious injury by vehicle and driving while intoxicated. Parrish, 52, a 1987 UVA grad, died August 9.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lean on me

Saturday, August 12, was a dark day in Charlottesville’s history.  Fortunately, plenty of people from near and far have been willing to help. Crowdfunding sites abound for many of the injured—and the woman killed—over that
dreadful weekend. Amounts are as of press time on August 22.

Heather Heyer, killed in the car attack: $225,000 goal reached

Deandre Harris, brutally beaten in Market Street
Garage: $166,135 raised of $50,000 goal

Tyler Magill, suffered a stroke after being hit with a tiki torch: $121,271 raised of $135,000 goal

Marcus Martin, victim of the car attack: $61,480 raised of $40,000 goal

Dakotah Bowie, victim of the car attack: $32,663 raised of $50,000 goal

Tadrint Washington, driver of one of the cars James Fields slammed into: $13,392 raised of $75,000 goal

Unity Cville is raising money for victim relief: $151,300 raised of $50,000 goal

Congregation Beth Israel was targeted by white nationalists. Fund will support social justice and its increased security costs: $48,886 raised

SURJ is raising money to resist white supremacy: $16,872 raised of $5,000 goal

Heal Charlottesville Fund, sponsored by the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation: More than $200,000 raised

Portugal. The Man will donate 100 percent of the proceeds from its August 21 concert at the Sprint Pavilion to the Heal Charlottesville Fund.

Beloved Community Charlottesville collected pledges from more than 1,000 donors for every white nationalist who came, and raised $67,000 that will go to City of Promise, IRC, Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and Public Housing Association of Residents.

Categories
News

Kessler dodges disorderly conduct charge, man who spit on him pleads not guilty

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Nina Antony said the city couldn’t prosecute Jason Kessler for his words alone. Staff photo

The Charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney today asked a judge to not prosecute a disorderly conduct charge against Unite the Right rally organizer Jason Kessler stemming from the May 14 vigil at Emancipation Park, after torch-carrying white nationalists marched through it the night before.

And protester Jordan McNeish, who confronted the “you will not replace us” gang on May 13 and who was charged with disorderly conduct after spitting on Kessler the next night, pleaded not guilty. If he stays out of trouble for six months, that case will be dismissed.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony said that Kessler showing up with a bullhorn at the candlelight vigil was protected speech and the evidence “cannot support a conviction.”

Judge Bob Downer did not immediately agree to the prosecution’s request and said he didn’t have to accept it. “I feel it would be a waste of time to reuse the nolle prosequi at this time,” he said.

With the events of August 12 clearly in mind, Downer said, “Freedom of speech comes at a great cost and we’ve all seen that cost in this community.”

Kessler, who’s become a regular in Charlottesville General District Court since he was charged with and convicted of punching Jay Taylor in January, stayed hidden away in a back room until his case was called. After the judge agreed to accept the prosecution’s request to not move forward with the charges, Kessler scurried out a back door of the courthouse.

His attorney, Mike Hallahan, said outside the courthouse that Kessler was exercising free speech. “He broke no law. It was the protesters that broke the law.”

Hallahan also said he had no qualms about representing someone like Kessler, who was chased by an angry mob on August 13. “I’ll take any criminal case from any side of the aisle,” he said.

“Mr. Kessler is a person we have absolutely no respect for,” said Antony. “He’s a very troubled person that we do not think fully understands the damage he’s caused this community and elsewhere, but he was not guilty of criminal conduct.”

In McNeish’s case, Antony said he stipulated there was enough evidence to find him guilty of spitting, but his record did not warrant further prosecution and his case would be put under advisement for six months. If McNeish says out of trouble, it will be dismissed February 21.