Tag: Nic McCarthy

Categories
News

Activists stop traffic, arrested in late night protest

Community activist Star Peterson, a victim of the August 12 car attack, was arrested when she parked her wheelchair in the middle of Market Street, faced traffic and threw two middle fingers into the air. Photo by Eze Amos

Last night, Charlottesville police arrested about eight community activists who were protesting yesterday’s conviction of Corey Long, the man they say defended the community on August 12 when law enforcement failed to do so.

A couple dozen activists gathered in Justice Park around 9:30pm, and with signs and banners in tow, began marching around the Downtown Mall, chanting “Corey Long did nothing wrong” and “Cops and the Klan go hand in hand.”

By the time they made it to the west end of the mall and turned right to march down Ridge McIntire Road, they had gained the attention of police in at least two vehicles and on two bikes. As some marchers spilled off the sidewalk and onto the street, police demanded they step back onto the sidewalk, nudging activist Nic McCarthy as he shouted, “Corey Long protected us! Where were you?”

Nic McCarthy. Photo by Eze Amos

McCarthy was one of the people arrested and escorted to the local jail, after their procession made it to Market Street, where they stopped traffic by, again, refusing to get out of the street.

Nearly 20 police officers were present on Market Street and the area was awash in blue and red police lights as cops and about 20 activists engaged in screaming matches. Approximately 15 other marchers immediately obeyed police and stepped out of the roadway.

Veronica Fitzhugh, a known community activist, was one who did not. She lay in the middle of a Market Street crosswalk until multiple police pulled her up from under her underarms and dragged her to one of their squad vans—her knees scraping the ground as they removed her from the street. Fitzhugh and McCarthy were also arrested for obstructing free passage at the July 8 Ku Klux Klan rally in Justice Park when they, along with several other protesters, locked arms in front of the gate that the Klan was planning to enter the park through.

Veronica Fitzhugh. Photo by Eze Amos

Police demanded that C-VILLE freelance photographer Eze Amos, who was documenting the protest and arrests, step out of the roadway. He argued that he was a journalist, and that pedestrians are allowed to walk in the crosswalk.

“I can take photos for God’s sake,” Amos said. “That’s my job.”

To that, the officer said Amos was not permitted to walk back and forth across the crosswalk while officers were arresting people there. Amos was not arrested.

Police also arrested Star Peterson, a victim of the August 12 car attack who parked her wheelchair in the middle of Market Street, facing traffic, and threw two middle fingers into the air. She was given a summons, and after eventually moving a bit further down the street, she did it again. This time, police wheeled her out of the street, and called an ambulance to haul her to jail.

Star Peterson. Photo by Eze Amos

As the remaining activists waited for the night to play out, one could be heard saying to the crowd, “Y’all want me to go to Lowe’s and get torches? They’ll let us march then.”

All activists who were taken to jail were released by 1am, according to The Daily Progress.

The other activists arrested were Eleanor Ruth Myer Sessoms, James Alan Swanson, Jenna Hochman and Keval Mandar Bhatt.

Photos by Eze Amos

Updated June 13 at 9:30am with a list of people who were arrested.

Categories
News

Obstruction cases: Nine dropped, two plead guilty from KKK rally charges

Nic McCarthy was one of nine people to have an obstruction of justice charge dropped after the July 8 KKK rally. Photo by: Eze Amos

In the never-ending string of court cases stemming from this year’s run-ins with white supremacists and neo-Nazis, 15 people went before a judge October 30 for charges brought against them during the July 8 Ku Klux Klan rally in Justice Park.

Approximately 50 members of the Loyal White Knights of the KKK, a North Carolina-based group, dropped by over the summer to protest the tearing down of the General Robert E. Lee statue—and were met by intense opposition in the form of hundreds of angry counterprotesters. Just over 20 people were arrested that day, primarily for obstruction of justice and free passage.

Kandace Baker was among those in Charlottesville General District Court October 30.

After pleading not guilty to obstruction of justice, she testified that she was looking for her husband near Justice Park around 4pm when a Virginia State Police trooper told her an unlawful assembly had been declared and she needed to leave the area. Baker tried several times to turn and walk back through the alley she initially came through, but the officer pushed her and would not allow her to exit the way she entered, she said. He arrested her and another VSP trooper “dragged [her]” to the courthouse to press charges, she said.

Though Judge Robert Downer said he had probable cause to believe she was obstructing justice, he said he’s not sure she’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and he let her off the hook.

“Just because you make their job a little more difficult, that’s not enough for obstruction of justice,” Downer said.

He dropped charges against nine counterprotesters who were arrested for obstructing free passage at the rally, likely in a demonstration where several anti-white supremacists linked arms in front of a gate that police planned to usher the robed Klan members through. These people include Kendall Bills, Cameron Bills, Jo Donahue, John Neavear, Nic McCarthy, Jeanne Peterson, Evan Viglietta, Whitney Whitting and Sara Tansey, who wore teal lipstick and matching tights to court in true Halloween fashion.

Tansey was found guilty of destruction of property in the same court October 16 for nabbing homegrown white rights advocate Jason Kessler’s phone while he was live-streaming a Corey Stewart rally in Emancipation Park February 11.

Also on October 30, Morgan Niles and Erika Ries pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and were both sentenced to 30 days in jail, with all of that substituted for 40 hours of community service.

Three people had their cases continued. Tracye Redd, also charged with obstruction of justice, will appear December 1. Jarrell Jones, charged with assault and battery, and Rashaa Langston, charged with failing to disperse in a riot, will be back in court March 5.

Categories
News

Unite the Right rally turns violent, three die

Photos by staff, Eze Amos, Hawkins Dale and Aaron Cohen

A 32-year-old woman died following today’s long-anticipated white nationalist assembly in Emancipation Park, and two Virginia State Police pilots perished in a crash late in the afternoon near the Bellair neighborhood.

The Unite the Right rally erupted in violence and was shut down before it ever began when city and county leaders declared a local state of emergency around 11:30am. Police deemed it an unlawful assembly shortly thereafter.

A silver car plowed through a large group of counterprotesters on Fourth Street around 1:30pm, leaving one person dead and 19 injured. According to eyewitness and Charlottesville resident Nic McCarthy, the car hit about a dozen people and backed over at least one before speeding off. It was later found at Monticello Road and Blenheim Avenue.

Police arrested Ohio resident James Alex Field, 20, from Ohio, who was charged with one count of second degree murder,  three counts of malicious wounding and one count of hit and run attended failure to stop with injury.

City officials said nearly 1,000 police officers would be on the scene, yet when fights erupted between alt-righters and antifas outside Emancipation Park—rally organizer Jason Kessler had a judge issue an injunction to keep the city from moving the event the day before—police were not immediately spotted.

Pepper spray, tear gas and bottles of urine were tossed between the two sides an hour before the noon rally was to begin. Around 11:39am, police called the event an unlawful assembly and ordered the park, filled with hundreds of alt-righters, cleared into the surrounding streets filled with counterprotesters.

UVA alum and Unite the Right headliner Richard Spencer pushed up against a line of riot police who were trying to clear the park and was maced twice.

Richard Spencer describes his ordeal of being maced twice by police to supporters at McIntire Park. Staff photo

“I cannot express my absolute outrage at the governor of Virginia and Mayor Mike Signer,” said Spencer around 1:40pm when his followers regrouped at McIntire Park. He said it was the first time he felt like his government was cracking down on him.

“As I was coming in, these antifa assaulted us,” said Spencer. He complained that Charlottesville police would not let him go past barriers, behind which was the stage platform. “We have a permit,” he said.

Virginia State Police in riot gear lined up against the remaining alt-whites still in the park. “They looked like stormtroopers,” said Spencer. “They were in effect pushing us out of Lee Park toward the Communists.”

After crowds dispersed from Emancipation, counterprotesters followed a group of alt-righters up the street to the Market Street Parking Garage where the latter group had vans waiting to take them to McIntire Park to continue their celebration of Western heritage.

Here, police did not intervene as the groups of enemies brawled and an elderly white-rights supporter was knocked to the ground and beaten with what appeared to be a wooden stick. Barricades were dismantled and used as weapons during the melee.

After a fight in the parking garage, a Black Lives Matter supporter emerged with a face full of blood and lay on the porch in front of NBC29 until medics arrived.

Many of those who came from out of town left McIntire Park after hearing Spencer, former KKK head David Duke and Mike Enoch, founder of alt-right media hub the Right Stuff, speak.

Shortly before 5pm, a Virginia State Police helicopter crashed in the woods near Old Farm Road. Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen, 48, of Midlothian, and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates, who would have turned 41 August 13, of Quinton, died at the scene.

At 6pm, Governor Terry McAuliffe and city officials held a press conference. McAuliffe sent a message to the “white supremacists and Nazis who came into Charlottesville today: Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth.”

The night before, the white nationalists held a tiki-torch march through the grounds of UVA, where Kessler is also an alum. Fights broke out with a small group of counterprotesters surrounding, but no one was seriously injured.

This is a developing story and reports of disruptions continue.

Updated August 13.

 

Categories
News

Laufer live from the Democratic National Convention

Amy Laufer takes a selfie in front of the Virginia delegation. Photo Amy Laufer

Ever wonder how delegates at the conventions all seem to spontaneously raise their “Make America First Again” or “Change Maker” signs at the same time?

Well, Charlottesville School Board Chair Amy Laufer is attending the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and she clues us in: They get texts telling them what to chant and when to hoist signs—and when not to, like during Michelle Obama’s speech July 25, when the Virginia delegation was in danger of blocking the teleprompter, according to a dispatch from Laufer.

“As soon as the totals were done and Bernie conceded, the H signs were distributed and we all chanted Hillary, Hillary!” Laufer writes.

The first day was tough, she reports: “The Hillary people are so excited for this historic moment but it is tempered by the tough looks and hard voices that are yelling about Bernie.” Obama’s speech was a turning point, says Laufer, “when she was talking about her daughters and what an example this will mean for generations. ”

She started July 26—Clinton nomination day—with a Women’s Caucus breakfast with former secretary of state Madeline Albright, interim DNC chair Donna Brazile and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “Each had such a different voice and style: Albright had such a command of Hillary’s history, Brazile shouted out the names of women that have come before [such as] Rosa Parks, Pelosi talked about policies on the Hill,” says Laufer.

Despite her bus being an hour late getting her to the convention hall, Laufer, a Clinton delegate, made it in time to cast her vote. And after Clinton was officially the nominee, all the women of the House of Representatives, led by Pelosi, came onstage. Laufer notes that there are no congresswomen from Virginia, although former Albemarle Board of Supervisors chair Jane Dittmar is running for the 5th District.

The lows from the day, says Laufer, were seeing a group of Sanders supporters who had walked out of the convention surrounded by heavily armed police. And some of his supporters were still feeling the Bern on the subway, when “rude things” and “expletives were shouted at me,” she says.

“In reflection, the truth is they are a very small number,” she says. “When I was on the bus to the convention, I sat with several Bernie people and actually his brother Larry was in the seat in front of me, and he was telling us about coming out to vote for his brother and it was all very friendly.”

Says Laufer, “In the end, history was made,” and she says she is grateful for the “amazing opportunity to be on the front lines.”

Other Charlottesvillians are at the convention, and Sanders supporter Nic McCarthy has posted a video on Facebook of the “Bernie or bust” protest outside the Wells Fargo Center. “They’re not making it easy for protesters to be heard,” he says.

“It puts us Bernie delegates in a really, really hard place,” says McCarthy, who says he will support the nominee.

 

 

Categories
News

Political season: Locals head to conventions

In between interviews, the Center for Politics’ Tim Robinson, Larry Sabato and Geoffrey Skelley snap a photo from the convention floor in Cleveland. Courtesy Geoffrey Skelley

 

While most of us followed last week’s Republican shindig in Cleveland on TV, several locals were there on the ground. And Charlottesville sent four people to Philadelphia as delegates for the Democratic convention this week.

UVA had a major presence in Cleveland with political pundit Larry Sabato and his Crystal Ball team from the Center for Politics on hand. The Miller Center, which specializes in presidential studies, sent Barbara Perry, co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program, and assistant prof Nicole Hemmer. Even UVA Today had a rep there—videographer Mitch Powers recorded the UVA experts behind the scenes.

The Crystal Ball team live tweeted the convention and provided real-time analysis, as well as interviews for the 15,000 credentialed press, whose numbers far exceeded the 2,470 delegates and 2,300 alternates. Sabato seemed to do nonstop interviews, judging from his Twitter feed.

Among the notable moments: former attorney general/Ted Cruz supporter Ken Cuccinelli throwing his credentials on the floor. “It was a moment that showed the divisions in the Republican party,” says the Center for Politics’ Geoffrey Skelley.

Charlottesville native Gray Delany was there working with the Republican National Convention caucus operations, and he witnessed those divisions firsthand. Delany had been campaign manager for 5th District candidate Michael Del Rosso’s unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination, and a high point for Delany was seeing Del Rosso at the convention talking to caucuses as a vetted RNC speaker.

The Virginia delegation “went rogue all week,” says Delany. “They were horrible.” Cuccinelli, he says, “burned a lot of bridges. The takeaway: He’s done.”

Charlottesville School Board Chair Amy Laufer is a Clinton delegate. She works with Women Leaders of Virginia, and thought, “Heck, I don’t have to just work on the state level. I can go to this historic event and see Hillary nominated.”

Former Newsplex anchor Bob Beard is an alternate delegate, and he, too, “thought it would be fun to experience this historical event,” he says. After years of working in the news business and having to be objective, he says, “Now I have a chance to be a citizen, not an observer.”

Beard spoke with C-VILLE before Clinton announced Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her vice presidential pick, but he already was reading the tea leaves from hotel bookings, and noted the Virginia delegation was staying in the same hotel as the New York caucus.

Kimberly Stevens and Nic McCarty crowd-sourced their trip to Philadelphia as Bernie Sanders delegates, and they were not ready to fall in behind Clinton when they spoke to C-VILLE before the convention. “We are very passionate about electing Bernie Sanders as our next president,” says Stevens. “And we’re very concerned about Hillary Clinton’s numbers polling against Trump.”

McCarthy was eager to push for issues on the Democratic platform that are popular with Sanders supporters, such as campaign finance reform.

But unlike the Republican convention, says Stevens, “At this time there are no plans for a revolt.”

All of the Charlottesville Dem contingent are first-timers to a national convention, and Skelley, a veteran, advises them to wander around as much as possible. While the Cleveland convention was downtown, the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia “is a little more isolated, and probably will have a different vibe,” he says.

“Take in all the sights and sounds,” he says. “You’ll see some crazy stuff, bizarre things.” And where else will you find a Donald Trump whoopee cushion?