Tag: richard spencer

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In brief: Statues in Richmond, Spencer in MT

Protesters gathered at the Robert E. Lee Statue in Richmond last summer. Photo: Sanjay Suchak.

Richmond Lee statue will fall

At press time, the statue of Robert E. Lee in downtown Richmond still stands—but that won’t be the case for long, as the statue is slated to come down on Wednesday, September 8. Last summer, Governor Ralph Northam ordered the statue’s removal, and a recent Virginia Supreme Court ruling confirmed that the state does in fact have a legal right to take the monument down. 

The city will have to chop the statue up on the spot in order to haul away the 60-foot-tall monstrosity. There are no plans to remove Lee’s stone pedestal, which is still covered in graffiti from last summers’ protests.
The area around the statue, informally known as Marcus-David Peters Circle, in honor of a Black biology teacher who was killed by Richmond police, will remain a community gathering space. 

Protesters gathered at the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond last summer.

Richard Spencer flounders

Richard Spencer, the white nationalist UVA alum who played a key role in the 2017 Unite the Right rally, isn’t doing so well these days, according to a New York Times report published over the weekend. The Times story says that Spencer “is now an outcast” in his Whitefish, Montana, home, that his organization has fallen apart, and that he can’t pay for a lawyer for his upcoming appearance in the trial over Unite the Right.  

Richard Spencer. Photo: Eze Amos.

“Richard Spencer wanted [Whitefish] to be his happy vacation place where he could play and have fun, and people would just live and let live,” area Rabbi Francine Green Roston told the Times. “Then he started suffering social consequences for his hatred.” 

“The Court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

—Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow a Texas abortion ban to stand

In brief

Planning commission hears (lots of) zoning comments

Debate continues around the city’s new Comprehensive Plan and subsequent zoning overhaul. Last week’s Planning Commission meeting lasted for more than five hours, with dozens of speakers tuning in to offer their opinions on the map. Some, especially those who live in neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family housing only, have advocated for the continued existence of single-family-only neighborhoods. Others want increased housing density throughout the city, and especially in neighborhoods where dense development isn’t currently allowed. Watch this space for updates as the process continues. 

Good says hello to UVA 

Bob Good. Supplied photo.

Congressman Bob Good visited with UVA conservative student group Young Americans For Freedom last week, reports the Cavalier Daily. Good delivered his usual shtick: “We absolutely have a border invasion on the southern border right now,” the congressman said, before disparaging Democrats’ new voting rights act and downplaying the need to take preventative measures against COVID-19.

Bullet fired through Boylan bathroom injures one

A customer was shot at Boylan Heights in the early hours of Saturday morning when a bullet was accidentally discharged and went through the wall of one bathroom to another. The female victim, who was hit in the arm, is in stable condition, reports a UVA community alert, and an arrest has been made.   

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In brief: Constitutional choices, banned from Grounds, $4-million manse and more

The Rivanna River flooded in May and edged near homes in Woolen Mills. Skyclad ap

But wait, there’s more on the ballot

While congressional candidates are getting all the attention, they’re not the only choices that need to be made at the polls November 6. Virginia likes to ask voters to weigh in on additions to its constitution, such as the now-unconstitutional marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman amendment. A repeal of that will not appear on the ballot, but there are two other constitutional amendments for voters to consider on Tuesday.

One expands a property-tax exemption to spouses of service members who were killed or totally disabled in action to allow the spouse—as long as he or she does not remarry—to relocate and still claim the exemption. A “yes” on this amendment means approving the exemption.

The second, more controversial amendment, allows localities to offer property tax breaks to owners who make improvements to flood-prone properties. That means people who put money into protecting their property against rising waters can get a real estate tax break.

Critics say such breaks mean people who don’t live on the water are subsidizing the cost of waterfront living for others, and that they encourage building on flood-prone land. Supporters say the tax relief provides an incentive for owners to make expensive fixes to protect their properties.

A “yes” vote on this amendment means you support allowing localities to offer the property tax break.

Earlier this year, Delegate Steve Landes, who represents western Albemarle, voted against the flood amendment in the House because of concerns about the increasing number of constitutional amendments providing “more and more exemptions from property taxes.” But he says he supports both amendments now, and notes that while the flood amendment allows localities to provide this exemption, “it does not require them to do so.”

Quote of the week

“I don’t need thoughts and prayers—I need change.”—Jordan Bridges, a UVA third-year and president of Jewish Voice for Peace, at an October 27 candlelight vigil for the 11 people shot to death in a Pittsburgh synagogue earlier that day, according to the Cavalier Daily.

In brief

Unite the Right organizer Richard Spencer will not be welcome at his alma mater the next four years. Eze Amos

Banned from UVA

Ten people associated with last year’s August 11 march through Grounds are banned from university property for four years. The list includes alum Richard Spencer, whose wife filed for divorce last week, alleging assault; Elliott Kline, aka Eli Mosley, former Identity Evropa leader in charge of Unite the Right security; former Marine Vasillios Pistolis; the Daily Stormer’s Robert “Azzmador” Ray, and four members of California-based Rise Above Movement arrested in early October.

Fields files charge

James Fields, the man charged with driving his car into a crowd on August 12, 2017, killing one person and injuring many others, was allegedly attacked by another inmate at the local jail earlier this month. Fields filed an assault charge against Timothy Ray Brown Jr, but he showed no physical signs of being beaten up at his October 29 motions hearing,

Too young to drink—and buy handguns

Two UVA students filed a lawsuit challenging a federal ban on the sale of handguns to those under 21 (18-year-olds can legally buy rifles and shotguns, but not handguns). Tanner Hirschfeld, 20, and Natalia Marshall, 18, are suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, its acting director, Thomas Brandon, and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, claiming the age limit is unconstitutional.

George Allen’s old house on the block

staff photo

Social Hall, the circa 1814 house once owned by the former Virginia governor and U.S. senator on East Jefferson Street, is for sale for nearly $4 million. Janice Aron bought it in 2006 for $1.1 million, and extensively renovated the 6,500-square-foot manse, which features five bedrooms, a lap pool, and an unparalleled view of Market Street Park and the statue of General Robert E. Lee.

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In brief: U-Hall rocks, new police chief and a rally no one wants to attend

It's time to say goodbye to University Hall. Photo by: Skycladap

Hall of fame

It’s never the right time to say goodbye, but loyal patrons of the University of Virginia’s iconic, clamshell-roofed venue with notoriously bad sound quality don’t have much longer—the dumping of more than 40 years’ worth of stuff from University Hall has begun, with a complete demolition scheduled by 2020. To help you grieve, here’s a look back at some of the basketball stadium and concert hall’s greatest—and not-so-great—hits.

1965: It opens as the home court of the university’s men’s and women’s basketball teams.

1969: Janis Joplin rocks U-Hall, but trash talks some stage crashers in an after-performance interview with the Cavalier Daily. “That tonight wasn’t natural,” she says.

1971: The Faces grace the stage, fronted by Rod Stewart, who was then accompanied by guitarist Ron Wood—who later became a member of the Rolling Stones.

1973: Paul Simon plays U-Hall and uses portions of the show in his live album Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin’.

1974: Sha Na Na takes the stage, and about an hour after the show, lead guitarist Vinny Taylor is found dead in his Holiday Inn hotel room, where he allegedly overdosed on heroin.

1975: Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie tells the Cavalier Daily in a post-concert interview that the U-Hall crowd was the worst she’d seen in a “long while.”

1982: The Grateful Dead trucks into its highly anticipated show, which sold out two weeks in advance.

1984: Elvis Costello plays a solo acoustic and piano set, though a WTJU DJ pranked the world earlier that year by saying the rock star had died—a hoax that even made it into the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post.

1986: R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck chases, punches, attempts to strangle and rips the shoes off a fan’s feet after he jumps on stage during “7 Chinese Brothers.”

1986: An attempt to break the ACC attendance record by offering free admission, hot dogs and sodas to attendees of a women’s basketball game brought about 13,000 fans, including the fire marshal, who kicked out a couple thousand, bringing the total down to 8,392. Former men’s coach Terry Holland said Hot Dog Night cost them about 1,800 seats for future years, which totaled about $10 million in lost revenue.—Compiled from the Hook

Regrets only

Jason Kessler, middle, arrives to the rally. Photo by Eze Amos

Newsweek reports that the white supremacist leaders who attended last year’s Unite the Right rally, such as Richard Spencer and Mike Enoch, are reluctant to return to Charlottesville for the anniversary event organizer Jason Kessler hopes to get off the ground.

Another chief vacancy

University Police Chief Michael Gibson says he’ll step down this summer from the force he’s led since 2005 and worked for since 1982. UVA has formed a task force to find his successor. Both Gibson and Al Thomas, former Charlottesville police chief, were criticized in Tim Heaphy’s independent review of the events of August 11 and 12.

Vacancy filled

RaShall Brackney. Contributed photo

RaShall Brackney, the former chief of the George Washington University Police Department and a 30-year veteran of the Pittsburgh police, will succeed interim Charlottesville police chief Thierry Dupuis. She resigned from GWU in January, after serving for fewer than three years, and was sued by a former student for allegedly violating Title IX policies, according to school newspaper The GW Hatchet. Brackney was also known at GWU for buying her department a fleet of Segways.

Another vacancy filled

Giles Morris, vice president for marketing and communications at Montpelier and former C-VILLE editor, has been named executive director of Charlottesville Tomorrow. His first day will be June 11. He succeeds CT founder Brian Wheeler, who took the city spokesperson job in January.

Sistah city

Charlottesville’s soulmate city in France gets an honorary street at Second and Market May 10: Rue de Besançon.

Oh, brother

Zachary Cruz, the 18-year-old brother of Parkland, Florida, shooter Nikolas Cruz, was given permission by a judge last week to move to Staunton. The man who’s currently on probation for trespassing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has been offered free housing for a year, and a job as a maintenance mechanic, both provided by Nexus Services.

Quote of the week:

Jalane Schmidt by Eze Amos

“What happens to all that hate?” —UVA professor Jalane Schmidt in describing the festive atmosphere often found at lynchings

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In brief: August 11 bombshells, sexual harassment and more

Neo Nazis, alt-righters and white supremacists encircle counter protestors at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches on August 11, 2017. (Credit Image: © Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press)

What UVA knew

Through a public records request, the Chronicle of Higher Education obtained nearly 3,000 documents from the University of Virginia before, during and after the notorious August 11 tiki-torch march through Grounds. “Together, the emails shed light on the mentality of a university administration and a campus police force that were caught off guard by a throng of white supremacists who used one of the nation’s premier public institutions as the staging ground for a demonstration reminiscent of Nazi Germany and the worst days of the Ku Klux Klan,” writes reporter Jack Stripling in his November 20 article.

The biggest bombshells

They might come as tourists. “Of course we anticipate that some of them will be interested merely in seeing Mr. Jefferson’s architecture and Lawn,” President Teresa Sullivan wrote the Board of Visitors in an email on August 9, two days before the Friday night march.

The Cassandra figure. Captain Donald McGee with university police warned his supervisors August 8 that there could be a repeat of the tiki-torch march held in May and the Rotunda and Lawn might be targeted because white nationalist Richard Spencer is a UVA alum.

If charcoal grills are allowed… McGee noted that the torches were a fire hazard, but university police were unaware they could enforce UVA’s open flame policy.

Blame the victims. Sullivan was famously videoed chastising a student for not telling the administration what the Unite the Righters’ plans were. “Don’t expect us to be reading the alt-right websites,” said the president. But student and faculty warnings appeared unheeded.

Call the first lady. Religious studies prof Jalane Schmidt heard chatter about a march Friday afternoon, but fearing she wouldn’t be taken seriously because she’s an activist, she notified Mayor Mike Signer’s wife, Emily Blout, an assistant media studies professor, who said UVA knew since 3pm and that she “went to the top.”

We’ve got this covered. University Police Chief Mike Gibson expressed confidence that the upcoming situation was under control when offered assistance from the city and county police, which kept officers nearby on standby. When the march started, one lone UVA officer was spotted on the Lawn.

Eli Mosley lied? The Unite the Right security guy, Identity Evropa’s Mosley, told UVA police the group assembling at Nameless Field was smaller than he expected, would march up University Avenue and not through Grounds—and would pick up its trash.

“In my 47 years of association with the University, this was the worst thing I have seen unfold on the Lawn and at the Rotunda. Nothing else even comes close.” —Professor and Lawn resident Larry Sabato in an email to Sullivan August 11 after the neo-Nazi march through Grounds.

 

 

 

In brief

And so it begins…

Cramer Photos

National Book Award winner and UVA creative writing professor John Casey is the focus of a Title IX complaint filed by former MFA student Emma Eisenberg, who alleges he touched her “inappropriately” at social functions, didn’t call on her in class and referred to women using the c-word. Casey is preparing a response, according to NBC29.

White power playbook

The apparently bogus UVA White Student Union posted a screed on Facebook that’s almost exactly the same as one posted for hoax organizations in 2015 at more than 30 schools, including UC Berkeley, Penn State and NYU. UVA says the owner of the page is likely not a UVA community member, and the White Student Union is not an official school organization, the Cav Daily reports.

“I felt like [August 12] was so volatile and it changed the mood of the whole country. My thought was: If these men aren’t held accountable, it will convey the message nationally that you can beat the life out of someone and just get away with it.”—Shaun King on why he dedicated himself to identifying violent alt-righters from the rally, as reported by the Daily Progress

Citizen oversight

City Council gave the go-ahead November 20 for a civilian review board to look at complaints against the Charlottesville Police Department or its officers.

City and county oversight

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors and City Council seek seats on the board of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, to which they contribute more than $1.7 million in tax dollars. The current bureau hired Clean, a Raleigh, North Carolina, advertising agency, according to the Progress. Previously, the now-defunct Payne Ross handled advertising.

Tired of vigils

Martyn Kyle

Five years ago, just before Thanksgiving, Sage Smith headed to West Main to meet Erik McFadden and was never seen again. Earlier this year, Charlottesville police declared the case a homicide and named McFadden a person of interest. Smith’s grandmother, Cookie Smith, told the Daily Progress she’s tired of candlelight vigils and was organizing a sock drive for the homeless.

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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

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In brief: More white nationalists, more arrests and a drought warning

About 40-50 white nationalists attended the October 7 tiki torch flash mob, most wearing khakis and white colored shirts. Photo by Jalane Schmidt

 

They said they’d be back

UVA alumni/white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was maced by police the last time he was here August 12, showed up at Emancipation Park under cover of dark October 7 for a tiki-torch flash mob that police say started around 7:40pm, lasted approximately five to 10 minutes and consisted of about 40 to 50
people—most wearing what’s become the uniform of neo-Nazis, khakis and white collared shirts.

Witnesses identified his alt-right buddies Mike Enoch and Eli Mosley among the mix, but homegrown whites-righter and Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler, whose August event drew white supremacists from 35 states, according to the Anti-Defamation League, was nowhere to be found.

Counterprotest photo by Eze Amos

Activist Jalane Schmidt, who saw the flames as she was walking home from work, says the “goons” put out their torches and hopped into vans. Police say they followed them to make sure they left the city.

Then came the response. Dozens of UVA students, faculty and community members marched from Emancipation Park to Carr’s Hill, President Teresa Sullivan’s residence, to protest the return of the extreme right-wingers and ask the university’s leader to revoke Spencer’s diploma. Police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly, and attendees dispersed without incident.

Quote of the Week:

“This is not business as usual or a classroom exercise where every threatening public utterance or assembly is met with ‘freedom of speech.’” —City Councilor Bob Fenwick, who calls the October 7 reappearance of white supremacists “a clear and present danger to the community.”

 

Buford lockdown

Days after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, terrified Buford Middle School seventh- and eighth-graders hid behind and under desks October 5 for part of the nearly hour-long incident, according to school officials. Police requested the lockdown because a person believed to be carrying a knife and involved in a rape was seen in the vicinity. Johnson Elementary also was on lockdown.

UVA protest. Photo: Rachel Coldren

Bicentennial arrests

UVA police arrested three student protesters for trespassing at the university’s bicentennial celebration October 6. As alumna Katie Couric was introducing the next act, they took the stage and unveiled a banner that read “200 years of white supremacy.” Hannah Russell-Hunter, Joshua Williams and Lossa Zenebe face Class 1 misdemeanors.

Spokeswoman departing

Miriam Dickler, city director of communications, will leave her nearly $91K a year job early in 2018 after five years. During the preparations for Unite the Right in August, Mayor Mike Signer accused her of bordering on “insubordination” for balking at working with a PR firm he wanted to hire. Dickler says she wants to “take some time and consider other opportunities and avenues.”

Arrests, white supremacy cont’d

Photo: © Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press

An iconic photo from the deadly August 12 rally shows Deandre Harris on the ground in the Market Street Parking Garage, surrounded by a group of white men kicking and beating him. Now, someone has alleged that Harris started the fight, and city police have issued a warrant for his arrest for unlawful wounding.

Robo World

Paul Perrone and Governor McAuliffe. Staff photo

Perrone Robotics will invest $3.8 million in driverless car research in Crozet, which will create 127 jobs. An elected official-studded announcement October 6 drew Governor Terry McAuliffe, Congressman Tom Garrett and Delegate Steve Landes, as well as a quorum of Albemarle supervisors.

 

Shallow waters

The last time Charlottesville saw a major drought was in 2002, when water was so scarce that restaurants started using paper plates and plastic utensils instead of washing dishes. We’re not there yet, but the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority bumped its drought watch to a drought warning October 5, when water storage at the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir hit 42 percent capacity—which was 100 percent August 3. That’s 370 million gallons, down from 880 million two months ago, and now the city has spoken: Conservation is no longer voluntary.

Here’s how you can help:

  • Don’t serve water at your restaurant unless asked
  • Don’t water your plants or grass
  • Don’t wash your car
  • Don’t fill your swimming pool
  • Don’t run your fountain
  • Don’t wash your street, driveway or parking lot

Click to enlarge.

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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.”

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City responds to weekend tiki torch rally

White nationalists held another tiki torch rally in Emancipation Park on October 7. Photo by Jalane Schmidt

“The so called ‘alt-right’ believes intimidation and intolerance will stop us from our work,” says Mayor Mike Signer in an October 8 press release after about 40 white supremacists held another torch-lit rally in Emancipation Park. “They could not be more wrong. We must marshal all our resources, legal and otherwise, to protect our public and support our values of inclusion and diversity in the future.”

Richard Spencer. Photo: Jalane Schmidt

Police say the rally, led by UVA alumni Richard Spencer, started around 7:40pm October 7, lasted approximately 5 to 10 minutes and consisted of about 40 to 50 people—most wearing what’s become the uniform of white nationalists, khakis and white polos.

Witnesses identified the Right Stuff host Mike Enoch and Identity Evropa CEO Eli Mosley among the mix.

The white nationalists chanted the same refrain from their May 13 rally, “You will not replace us,” “Jews will not replace us,” and “Russia is our friend,” and they made it clear they’d be back to give the speeches they weren’t allowed to give August 12, says activist Jalane Schmidt. Then they hopped into vans and police say they followed them to make sure they left the city.

Schmidt was walking downtown when she saw the torches and called for backup. The UVA associate professor, who snapped photos of what she calls the “goons,” was one of about 20 activists who then gathered at Congregation Beth Israel in case any alt-right stragglers decided to target the synagogue while its congregation was outside celebrating Sukkot.

“As a city, it’s important that we stand up to and reject every notion of white supremacy, the kind that is both overt and covert,” said Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy in the city’s press release. “As a city council, I firmly believe that my colleagues and I are committed to addressing these issues and showing the community that we hear them.”

Bellamy said he looks forward to hearing from the city’s commonwealth’s attorney’s office about different ways to enforce current laws and ordinances, and how to create “new parameters to stop hate groups from feeling so welcome here.” They’ve also been working with outside counsel on new procedures that would give the city additional authority to control the conditions under which a group can hold a rally or demonstration. Council is scheduled to receive this report October 16.

According to the press release, the city is also discussing how to better equip the police department with the ability to gather intelligence, and the department’s public information officer and the city’s communications director are working to create unified communication protocols.

“This is not business as usual or a classroom exercise where every threatening public utterance or assembly is met with ‘freedom of speech,” says Councilor Bob Fenwick, who  calls the alt-right rally “a clear and present danger to the community.”

“I want to be clear, for all who believe that bigotry, racism, hate and any other form of oppression [are] welcome in our city, you are wrong,” Bellamy said. “The Charlottesville that I love is not defined by white supremacy. Our new Charlottesville stands together for each other.”

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Tarped: Students shroud Jefferson statue in black at Rotunda

Students shrouded a statue of UVA founder Thomas Jefferson in front of the Rotunda September 12. Photo Eze Amos

By Natalie Jacobsen

“No Nazis, no KKK, no racist UVA!” a parade of students crossing University Avenue chant.

“Louder!” shouts a woman with a megaphone.

Just after sundown around 8pm Tuesday night, as the rain fell, more than 100 students gathered in front of the Rotunda and surrounded the Thomas Jefferson statue. Two students drummed a beat on a pair of buckets while a mixture of graduate and current University of Virginia students held banners and chanted familiar Black Lives Matter phrases:

“What do we want?” asks one student.

“Justice!” others respond.

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Within moments of reaching the statue, three students were hoisted by peers and climbed atop. One climbed up Jefferson himself and draped a black tarp over the university founder’s head and raised his fist to cheers.

An unidentified student explained they were “here to reclaim [their] Lawn and grounds,” referring to the August 11 torchlight rally, led by UVA alum/white nationalist Richard Spencer, that took place at the foot of the same statue. “Ten months ago, Donald Trump was elected president, and rolled in a new wave of white supremacy across the nation. But each day, there has been an unparalleled response and resistance that says…‘no’ to all forms of aggressive suppression.”

One by one, students took turns using the megaphone to express concerns, share anecdotes and state the demands of the Black Student Alliance: Relocate Confederate plaques to a museum, explicitly ban hate groups from campus and require all students to be educated on white supremacy, colonization, slavery, the university and the city of Charlottesville. The Student Council acknowledged and endorsed BSA in a public statement on August 21.

Kevin, one of the BSA leaders who organized the event and who asked that his last name not be used, says “[this event] is us telling the administration that we’re here to stay and will do anything it takes if they are unwilling to do anything about it.”

Three students made an amendment and added their own demands, reflecting recent news about DACA and local Dreamers. “UVA needs to protect and house children of undocumented immigrants and continue to provide them education,” says one, identified only as Danielle.

Speeches were made over the course of almost four hours as the three students who ascended the statue continued wrapping it in black tarp, pausing to tear and tape it down as they went along. Occasionally, they would hold up signs passed up to them by the students: “TJ is racist and a rapist” and “Hate has had a place here for over 200 years.”

Several students echoed sentiments that the University of Virginia administration has not “denounced anybody” or “taken [enough] action” in response to what students say felt like a “series of personal attacks” over the past year. About 20 faculty members, dressed in their PhD robes of their own alma maters, looked on from a few feet away. None were willing to comment.

Throughout the event, which Kevin described as “positive and peaceful,” dozens of onlookers stopped to listen and photograph the event. An unidentified female BSA member shouted into the megaphone, “We are your community, and you need to stand with your community,” directing the message at students on the periphery. “There is only one right side,” she says.

A handful of opposition members raised their voices to counter the students’ reasoning for draping his statue. De-escalation team members, unaffiliated with the protesters,  were there to approach and intervene, while four UVA policemen stood around the perimeter of the square. There were no physical altercations.

Around midnight, as the crowd dispersed, Brian Lambert, a self-proclaimed member of the alt-right, according to his Facebook page, and affiliate of Jason Kessler, was arrested for public intoxication near the statue. Police say Lambert was openly—and legally—carrying a gun.

UVA released a statement on Wednesday saying the tarp was removed an hour after the event ended, and that it was already gone when university staff arrived to do so.

On Facebook, veterans activist John Miska, who attempted to remove the tarp covering General Robert E. Lee shortly after it was installed August 23, says it was “patriots” and students “in the face of Communist aggression” who removed the Jefferson shroud.

In a message to the university community, President Teresa Sullivan says, “ I strongly disagree with the protestors’ decision to cover the Jefferson statue.” She adds that she recognizes their right to express their emotions and opinions.

In a separate missive to alumni, Sullivan says the shrouding desecrated “ground that many of us consider sacred.”

“If they’re not going to take action on our demands, we are going to shroud every statue on the grounds,” says Kevin.

Updated 10:42am with the addition of John Miska’s information on the removal of the covering.

 

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.