Heather Heyer's coworker and mentor Alfred Wilson, mother Susan Bro, and Mayor Mike Signer spoke at the dedication of Heather Heyer Way on Fourth Street. Photo by Eze Amos
On the morning of December 20, around 50 people drew to the scene of the August 12 vehicular attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more, where dead flowers still line the street and brick walls are still chalked with messages that mourn the 32 year old and disavow the hate that came to town that day.
“It’s always hard for me to come to this street,” said Susan Bro, the mother of the woman who died after being run over by a white supremacist in a Dodge Challenger. “I find it easier to go to the cemetery than to come here, frankly,” she said.
Photo by Eze Amos
But on this particular day, Heyer’s friends and family, coworkers, city officials and community members on whom she left a lasting impression gathered for the dedication of a street in her honor—Heather Heyer Way.
“I’m proud of how she died,” Bro said. “What other legacy could a mother ever want for her child?”
She, along with Heyer’s father, Mark, and her mentor and coworker at the Miller Law Group, Alfred Wilson, cried as they spoke.
“The terror attack that resulted in Ms. Heyer’s death and serious injuries to dozens more shocked our community and touched the heart and soul of not only Charlottesville, but the entire country,” read Mayor Mike Signer from a proclamation he signed that day. “This honorary designation pays tribute to Ms. Heyer’s dedication to justice, fairness, equal rights for all and positive social change.”
Heather Heyer Way extends from Market to Water streets and is an honorary designation, so Fourth Street addresses will not change.
A story published December 7 in UVA Today boasted that minimum wage for the school’s new hires has increased by more than 16 percent since 2011, and President Teresa Sullivan and Chief Operating Officer Patrick Hogan presented this milestone to the Board of Visitors earlier this month.
The current minimum wage for newly hired, full-time staff at the university is $12.38 per hour, which beats the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and an estimated $11.86 living wage in Charlottesville, according to the report.
“This article reads like classic Soviet-era propaganda,” writes former mayor Dave Norris on Facebook, citing what he called a gross mischaracterization of a living wage in the city.
While, sure, data collected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that $11.86 is the living wage in the city, Norris points out that that’s for a single adult, when “many hard-working and low-wage UVA employees have children.”
According to MIT’s living wage calculator, that number for a household with one parent and one child is $25.40 an hour and $30.06 for an adult and two little ones.
Norris says no one’s asking the university to raise its minimum wage to 30 bucks an hour, “but maybe stop patting itself on the back so vigorously when the best it chooses to do for the workers who make the university function is $12.38.”
Concludes the former mayor: “Try harder, UVA.”
Landmark vote
The Landmark Hotel. Photo: Ashley Twiggs
City councilors voted 3-2 at their December 18 meeting to not give John Dewberry a $1 million tax break over 10 years on his planned reconstruction of the Downtown Mall’s derelict Landmark Hotel. The Atlanta-based developer has promised Charlottesville he’ll turn the eyesore into the luxurious Dewberry Hotel.
Song of August 12
Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers released “The Perilous Night” in November, with the lyric, “Dumb, white and angry with their cup half-filled, running over people down in Charlottesville.” Proceeds from the single will go to Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, according to the Roanoke Times.
What’s with West2nd?
The Planning Commission okayed higher density for the Keith Woodard project that will be the future home of the City Market December 11, but refused to approve new designs for the L-shaped building, reports Charlottesville Tomorrow. Woodard won a competition for the project in 2014, but earlier this year said that design was financially unfeasible.
Parking petition
At press time, 738 people had signed an online petition written by Jennifer Tidwell to nix the new parking meters installed around the Downtown Mall over the summer. “Plain and simple, we do not need them,” it says.
Grisly death
Police say Bethany Stephens, a 5-foot and 125-pound Goochland native, was mauled to death by her two pit bulls over the weekend as she was walking them through the woods near her home. When her father found her body, it was being guarded by the canines, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Quote of the Week:
The weight of the urn in my arms was about the same weight she was when she was born… I flashed back to the day they put her in my arms when she was born, and I sat and held her for a long time. —Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, in a December 14 Daily Beast interview
Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, walks into Charlottesville Circuit Court to see the man charged with killing her daughter for the first time. Photo by Eze Amos
James Fields earlier in the day, before he plowed his car into dozens of people on Fourth Street.
Photo Eze Amos
The scene December 14 at Charlottesville Circuit Court was like a flashback to August 12. A heavy police presence closed High Street outside the courthouse and barricades kept protesters from the man many consider the perp of the day’s fatal finale, Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler.
Photo Eze Amos
Inside the courtroom, more than 20 victims and family members, including Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, filled three rows and faced the man accused of plowing into a crowd on Fourth Street and killing Heyer.
James Alex Fields, 20, entered the room shackled and in a gray-and-white prison jumpsuit, sporting a beard grown during the past four months in jail. Flanked by his attorneys, former Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney Denise Lunsford and James Hill, Fields mostly kept his eyes down, and occasionally made a note during the proceedings.
Security inside the courtroom put local reporters in the first two rows, and deputies refused to allow anyone to sit in the immediate rows behind them, creating a buffer around Fields and a lot of empty seats for a case with intense public interest.
And Kessler, who was called “murderer” as he entered the courthouse and who spoke to a TV camera during a break to denounce Charlottesville as “communist” and the proceedings as a “kangaroo court,” often had a row entirely to himself.
Most shocking for many in the courtroom was watching previously unseen videos of the Fields-driven 2010 Dodge Challenger flooring it into the counter demonstrators. The first shown was from a Virginia State Police helicopter piloted by Lieutenant Jay Cullen and Trooper Pilot Berke Bates, who died when their chopper crashed three hours later.
“Shit! Holy crap! Did you see that?” one of the pilots hovering above asked. “I can’t believe he did that.”
The helicopter video followed Fields as he backed up Fourth Street, dragging the Challenger’s front bumper, drove east on Market Street, turned right to drive across the Belmont Bridge and then turned left onto Monticello Avenue, where he stopped about a mile from the scene that left 36 people injured, according to the prosecution’s only witness, Charlottesville Police Detective Steven Young.
One of the victims, Ohio resident Bill Burke, who was hospitalized from his injuries, returned for the preliminary hearing and stared at Fields after the state police video of the crash.
Even more chilling was footage from Red Pump Kitchen, the Italian restaurant on the corner of the Downtown Mall and Fourth Street.
First are the vehicles that drove down Fourth Street, which was supposed to be closed: a maroon van, a black pickup truck and a ragtop white Camry, which were all stopped by the counterprotesters who had marched east on Water Street and turned left onto Fourth.
Then the Dodge Challenger slowly drives down Fourth—and pauses out of view near the mall crossing for nearly a minute. The car is seen backing up, and a moment later it speeds by.
“Take me out of this fucking shit,” yelled Marcus Martin, who was seen in photographs of the day being flipped over Fields’ car after it rammed into the crowd. Others in court wiped tears from their eyes.
At the beginning of the hearing, the prosecution upgraded a second-degree murder charge against Fields to first-degree murder for the death of Heyer, 32, which carries a penalty of 20 years to life in prison. He’s also charged with three counts of malicious wounding, three of aggravated malicious wounding, two of felony assault and one count of felony failure to stop.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony questioned Young, who was on the scene after Fields was arrested at Monticello and Blenheim avenues. The detective noted the heavy front end damage to the Challenger and “what appeared to be blood and flesh on the front of the vehicle.”
Young also described two holes in the rear window and said they were made “after the initial crash,” which disputes allegations some white nationalists have made that Fields was surrounded by car-bashing protesters and feared for his life.
Fields, who drove to Charlottesville from Ohio, was known to spout Nazi and white supremacist rhetoric, according to his Kentucky high school social studies teacher.
During the rally, he stood with members of Vanguard America, but under questioning from Lunsford, Young testified there was no evidence Fields was a member of the white nationalist group.
After the rally was declared an unlawful assembly, Fields walked with three Vanguard Americans from Emancipation to McIntire Park , and Lunsford asked if they described him as “significantly less radical than some of those at the rally,” to which Young answered, yes.
When the detective first encountered him, Fields asked if anyone was hurt. And upon learning someone had died, he appeared shocked, testified Young.
“Did he cry and sob?” asked Lunsford.
“Yes,” replied the investigator.
Judge Bob Downer found probable cause to certify the charges to the grand jury, which meets December 18. If the grand jury indicts him, a trial date will be scheduled.
Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler allegedly took a job in Ohio, but he was in Charlottesville December 14 for court proceedings against rally attendees. Eze AmosSusan Bro enters the courthouse to see the man accused of killing her daughter, Heather Heyer. Photo Eze AmosFields’ attorneys James Hill and Denise Lunsford enter the courthouse through a side door. Photo Eze Amos
Ann Randolph performs her show, Inappropriate in All the Right Ways, at Virginia Organizing’s benefit for racial and social justice at the Paramount on December 9. Publicity photo
Writer and performer Ann Randolph has lived an amazing life. In college, rather than paying to live in a dorm, she lived in the schizophrenic unit of a state mental hospital in exchange for writing plays with patients. She worked the graveyard shift at a homeless shelter for minimum wage for 10 years. And she once lived on a boat in Alaska for a year with 14 men from Louisiana with whom, at first, she appeared to have nothing in common.
A writer from a young age, Randolph joined The Groundlings, an improv and sketch comedy theater in Los Angeles, after college. “I was very interested in creating outrageous characters,” she says, but her personal style evolved into “combining comedy and the human condition.” Drawing from her own life, she began writing and performing solo shows. “Whatever I’m struggling with I create a show around it,” she says, adding, “I find writing is very healing, very powerful.”
She wrote Squeeze Box about her time working at the homeless shelter and performed it in “a crappy theater” she rented in L.A. “That’s when Mel Brooks kind of discovered me,” she says. “He and his wife [Anne Bancroft] showed up.” One of the characters Randolph played was a prostitute addicted to crack, a character inspired by someone she met at the homeless shelter. “Anne Bancroft loved that character,” she says. “She wanted to make [the show] into a movie and play her on Broadway.” Brooks and Bancroft whisked Randolph away to New York City where they produced Squeeze Box off Broadway in 2004. “It was a big shift for me,” says Randolph, who went on to tour with the show.
Bancroft passed away in 2005 before they were able to adapt Squeeze Box into a film. Then Randolph’s own father and mother died. “So,” Randolph says matter-of-factly, “the next show was a comedy about death.” Titled Loveland, she performed it at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in 2014. A theater critic for the Washington Post called it “inappropriate in all the right ways,” which struck Randolph as the perfect title for her next show.
“I’ve been told I’ve been inappropriate my whole life so I just love that title,” she says. “I believe that there’s room for appropriateness and inappropriateness, and it can be done in an illuminating and hilarious way.” Most important to her is what is true. “If we can’t speak our truth we can’t be authentic in our lives,” she says.
Virginia Organizing has invited Randolph to perform Inappropriate in All the Right Ways as the headliner for its Night of Comedy and Storytelling for Racial and Social Justice, an event that will include Susan Bro (mother of Heather Heyer), former 5th District Representative Tom Perriello and local hip-hop group Sons of Ichibei.
Randolph’s show is a “story about resiliency” that chronicles her life “as a creator,” she says. At one point in the production, she invites willing audience members to share their stories. “How incredibly cathartic it can be to speak something you’ve been holding on to for a long time,” Randolph says.
The show also raises the question “Can we see ourselves in another?” and illustrates the camaraderie Randolph found in people different from herself. “You may start out thinking you’re different,” she says, “and in the end you’ll see where you’re united rather than divided. It comes from listening to people’s stories and dropping judgment and preconceived ideas.”
What’s one thing she believes helps people listen? Humor. “Sometimes when we hear someone’s strong point of view in a preaching voice we tune out. But if there’s humor there we’re more receptive and open,” she says.
Tim Heaphy vowed an objective assessment of the city’s handling of white supremacists over the summer, and acknowledged there are doubters of his ability to be unbiased.
Eze Amos
When City Manager Maurice Jones introduced the man hired to investigate the events of Charlottesville’s summer of hate, he listed former U.S. attorney Tim Heaphy’s “critical eye,” his experience with law enforcement and investigations, and then he described the city as “partnering” with Heaphy.
Heaphy immediately took some trouble to distance himself from the perception that he’s a partner working in the city’s pocket to sweep under the rug missteps that led to a fatality and multiple injuries at the August 12 Unite the Right rally.
“I don’t think that’s a fair characterization,” he said. “I think we were hired to look critically at the city.” The investigation, which will include the city’s handling of the July 8 KKK rally and the first assembly of tiki-torch-carrying white nationalists May 12, will not be a “whitewash to affirm decisions that were made or meant to point a finger at any individual,” he said.
Instead, he promised an “arm’s length investigation” that would “objectively assess” what happened. “I don’t really see the city as a partner,” he said.
The decision to hire Heaphy and his $545-an-hour firm, Hunton & Williams, has brought some criticism, including from several speakers during public comment.
“It’s been 51 days since a murder here,” said Don Gathers, who chaired the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces. “It’s been 51 days since the hounds from hell marched on our city.” If necessary, he said, the people would call on its own review board.
Gathers also urged the city to do away with the Pledge of Allegiance that begins every City Council meeting. “Please no longer ask us to start these proceedings with a Pledge of Allegiance to a flag or a country that shows no allegiance to us.” He ended his comments with a drop to both knees with both fists raised.
Heaphy stressed that he was not the sole investigator, and said he was leading a team of four lawyers, other professionals and a separate group of law enforcement consultants. “It’s not me doing this, it’s me supervising a team,” he said.
The investigation is not just looking at law enforcement and police response, and it will also examine the permitting process, interagency coordination, internal and external communications and the relationship between council and staff, he said.
That became an issue when Mayor Mike Signer was not allowed into the command center August 12, and on Facebook and in a leaked memo, he pointed the finger at Jones and police Chief Al Thomas. Jones responded that Signer threatened to fire both him and Thomas during the height of the crisis. Signer was subsequently reprimanded by his colleagues on City Council, who reminded him in the city’s form of government, the mayor is one among five equals and the city manager is the CEO.
The investigation is “not strictly did police do a good job,” said Heaphy. “It’s much broader than that.”
Investigators are poring over thousands of documents, photos and videos, have established a tip line (charlottesvilleindependentreview.com, 877-448-6866) and have conducted 60 interviews so far, said Heaphy. “We’re trying our best to get a comprehensive report.”
He also acknowledged the lack of “universal acceptance” because of his own background and the “skepticism” of city government. “We’ve worked hard to disabuse people of that perception,” he said.
Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy asked the big questions that remain unanswered at this point: Why was Fourth Street, where Heather Heyer was killed and dozens of other injured when a car plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters, open? Was there a stand-down order for police, and why were protesters allowed to carry shields and weapons?
Those are “not simple answers,” said Heaphy, and he said he preferred to give a full narrative based on verifiable facts, which he anticipates could come by Thanksgiving or December.
He said there would be no legal prohibition preventing the release of the information.
Councilor Kathy Galvin urged a speedy release of the report. “I think the public is so hungry for news, it would be incumbent upon us to share it as quickly as possible,” she said, and not hold it for even “a single day.”
Honor code
photo eze amos
Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer, came to City Council to thank it for the “honor” of naming a portion of Fourth Street between Market and Water streets for her daughter, who died there August 12.
“I also wanted to point out it was my idea not to put a park associated with her name for a number of reasons,” said Bro, “and absolutely no statues.” Bro said she thought that “was a little bit much and Heather, frankly, hated statues for a number of reasons.”
Bro, who is not a Charlottesville resident, urged the city to consider naming more streets for African-American leaders who have made an impact, including Laura Robinson, who taught before and during segregation and who died earlier this year at 103.
An impromptu memorial for Heather Heyer, who was killed on Fourth Street during the August 12 rally, kept the street closed for nearly a month. Photo by Eze Amos
The swath of flower bouquets and candles that once laid across Fourth Street in remembrance of Heather Heyer has been cleared, and the road was reopened on September 9.
The Downtown Mall crossing had been closed since August 12, when the driver of a Dodge Challenger plowed into a crowd of people at the intersection of Fourth Street SE and Water Street, killing Heyer and injuring many others.
“In the spirit of bringing healing to the community, I have suggested that the city move forward with the reopening of the site of Heather’s impromptu memorial,” said her mother Susan Bro, in a press release published by the Heather Heyer Foundation.
The city and Heyer’s family are discussing a permanent memorial, and city spokesperson Miriam Dickler says a street naming or plaque could be on the horizon.
The city’s traffic engineers and public safety staff are currently assessing pedestrian safety at areas with heavy foot traffic downtown and beyond, says Dickler.
Gwen and Virginia Berthy, who own record shop Melody Supreme on Fourth Street, say they are glad to see the street reopen.
“We feel very conflicted. I don’t want to do anything to disrespect [Heyer] or the people who were injured,” Virginia says, but at the same time, their sales were halved during the road closure and down 35 percent for the month of August. “We’re still not sure we’re going to survive,” she adds.
Virginia suggests another way to memorialize the counterprotester who lost her life during the August 12 white supremacist rally: “We have a park that needs a new name. Why don’t we elevate what she was trying to do?”
Susan Bro, mother to Heather Heyer, spoke during a memorial for her daughter August 16 at the Paramount Theater. Heyer was killed the previous weekend when a vehicle drove into a crowd of counter-protestors after the Unite the Right rally. Photo/Andrew Shurtleff/The Daily Progress
Droves of community members clothed in shades of purple poured into the Paramount Theater August 16 to remember Heather Heyer, a local activist and paralegal who lost her life to what some have called an act of domestic terror the weekend before.
“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what. You just magnified her,” said her mother, Susan Bro. The crowd of hundreds erupted in applause and sharp whistles as nearly every person stood in support.
Heather was killed August 12 when a participant of the alt-right’s infamous Unite the Right rally plowed into a crowd of peacefully protesting pedestrians on the Downtown Mall with his Dodge Challenger.
“I’d rather have my child, but by golly, if I have to give her up, we’re going to make it count,” Bro said and encouraged those in attendance to notice the injustices going on around them and stand up for those who need it, just like Heyer always did.
Heather Heyer’s grandfather, Elwood Shrader, addresses hundreds of people at her memorial. Staff photo
Also among the list of speakers were her grandfather, Elwood Shrader, her father, Mark Heyer, her pastor, cousins, friends and co-workers.
All spoke about how the fiery 32-year-old was filled with love and passion, but never backed down from an argument.
“She wanted to put down hate. …She could tell if somebody wasn’t being straight and she’d call you on it,” her father said.
“It didn’t matter who you were or where you were from, if she loved you, that was it,” he added. “You were stuck.”
Diana Ratcliffe remembered Heyer’s infections smile and eyes that glittered. She read a letter she wrote to her “baby cousin” in the aftermath. “Did I tell you that you come from a long line of stubborn and passionate women?” she said. “Your patience was heroic,” and she, too, said Heyer never gave up on people.
Her coworkers echoed the same sentiments, and said Heyer treated her clients at the Miller Law Group—many of whom have shared their condolences—with the utmost care.
“She cared about everyone she spoke to,” said Alfred Wilson, her supervisor, and she always stood her ground. He remembered a time the two were leaving the office one evening and her boyfriend was outside waiting for her. “You didn’t tell me you worked for a black man,” her boyfriend said. Heyer, unsurprisingly, broke things off after that.
“Everyone who knows her knows that she cursed like a sailor sometimes,” said co-worker and close friend Freda Khateeb-Wilson, and the audience laughed while she recounted Heyer’s everyday battles with the office printer.
Governor Terry McAuliffe and Senator Tim Kaine sat in the front row next to Heyer’s family. Both were quick to give their condolences and denounce the white nationalist rally that thrust Charlottesville into the national spotlight and brought the community face to face with hate.
Marcus Martin, left, pushed finace Marissa Blair out of the way of the car that killed Heyer. Andrew Shurtleff/Daily Progress
“Maybe if you didn’t stand up, or if you didn’t talk so loudly, or if you weren’t so bold, they wouldn’t have heard you and you’d still be here,” Khateeb-Wilson said. “Thank you for making the word hate real, but thank you for making the word love stronger.”
In the most devastating blow of the Unite the Right rally, a local activist and paralegal lost her life to a white supremacist in a Dodge Challenger. Heather Heyer, 32, is remembered by many as sweet and funny with impeccable wit.
“She always had a very strong sense of right and wrong. She always, even as a child, was very caught up in what she believed to be fair,” Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, tells NPR. “Somehow, I almost feel that this is what she was born to be, is a focal point for change.”
Heyer’s profile picture on Facebook appears next to a banner that says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention,” and friends say she was quick to denounce any injustice.
She grew up in Ruckersville, was a graduate of William Monroe High School and attended Piedmont Virginia Community College in 2007. Heyer worked as a paralegal with the Miller Law Group, and also at Cafe Caturra.
“She was really caring about people,” says Larry Miller, her boss at the law firm. “We just celebrated five years of her working here. It was a struggle to get her to take time off because she knew people needed her here.”
Miller also describes Heyer as “humble” because “she didn’t know she was as good as she was.” He recently took her to lunch to celebrate her anniversary and told her how happy he was she was part of the firm’s family. “She cried,” he says.
“It’s been really tough coming into the office because her chair hasn’t been touched, her desk hasn’t been touched,” says Miller. “It’s been devastating.”
As Charlottesville grieves, many have lit candles and laid flowers and keepsakes on Fourth Street, in the spot where Heyer and many others were peacefully assembling when hit by the car.
A sign that lies on the road reads, “Yesterday, my baby son took his first steps. Yesterday, as our sweet town was brought to its knees, a new generation found its feet. We will teach him to walk the right path, and to always stand for what is right. Just as these brave souls who were injured and killed standing up for what’s right. We will teach him that love always wins.”
Bro told HuffPost that she wants her daughter’s death “to be a rallying cry for justice.”
At a press conference August 14, Chief Al Thomas said Fourth Street would remain closed indefinitely. “It was a tragic, tragic day,” he said.
“I think she’d be shocked to know we’re hearing from all over the world,” says Miller. “Some say she’s become the face of this whole thing.”
A memorial for Heyer will be held at 11am August 16 at the Paramount Theater.
