The statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee was melted down into bronze ingots by the Swords into Plowshares project at an undisclosed foundry on October 21. Photo by Eze Amos
After years of legal battles, the Swords into Plowshare project has melted down the statue of Robert E. Lee, which once stood in a park near Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. Opposition to the monument’s initial removal fueled the deadly violence of the 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally. Now, the bronze which once formed the likeness of a Confederate general will be used to make a new piece of public art, set to be on display in Charlottesville by 2027.
The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center’s proposal to repurpose the statue’s bronze, under the project name Swords into Plowshares, was selected by City Council in 2021. But the project’s proponents have spent the last two years battling it out in the Charlottesville Circuit Court with two other groups that unsuccessfully bid to acquire the Lee statue. After the last remaining legal challenge to the Swords into Plowshares project was dropped this summer, the Jefferson School was finally able to crank up the heat on Lee on October 21 of this year.
Traveling with the disassembled statue in secret, Swords into Plowshares melted down the Lee Statue at an undisclosed foundry in the South.
The project team purportedly plans to transform what was previously considered by some to be a symbol of hatred into artwork that embodies Charlottesville’s values of “inclusivity and racial justice.”
For more on the melting down of the monument and the Swords into Plowshares project, check out the November 1 edition of C-VILLE Weekly.
Jason Kessler (center) and two dozen other Unite the Right organizers and participants go on trial October 25 in Sines v. Kessler. Photo: Eze Amos
Four years after white supremacists invaded Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally, the biggest civil trial in federal court here starts October 25, and could last up to four weeks.
The case is Sines v. Kessler. Nonprofit Integrity First for America filed the complaint in October 2017 on behalf of victims of that violent August weekend. IFA’s strategy is simple: Make white nationalists and neo-Nazis pay for what the suit claims was a conspiracy to engage in racially motivated violence.
“It’s an incredibly ambitious case to bring justice,” says Heidi Beirich, co-founder of Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “A big chunk of organized white supremacy is being sued. I can’t think of another anti-hate case of this magnitude.”
The number of people involved in the case is huge: nine plaintiffs—and their pro bono attorneys, two dozen defendants and their attorneys, jurors, witnesses, court staff, and security. Citing COVID safety, Judge Norman Moon has ordered that they’re the only people allowed in the courtroom during the trial.
Citizens who want to follow the trial are relegated to a live audio feed. Reporters who secure credentials will watch a live video feed from another room in the courthouse.
Plaintiff Elizabeth Sines was a second-year UVA law student who survived both the August 11 tiki-torch march through UVA Grounds and neo-Nazi James Fields plowing his Dodge Charger through a crowd of celebratory counterprotesters August 12, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens more.
Marcus Martin and fiancée Marissa Blair were on Fourth Street with their friend Heyer. Martin was captured suspended in mid-air in Ryan Kelly’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo. So was Thomas Baker, a conservation biologist who still cannot stand for long periods of time without pain. Fields’ car also struck UVA student Natalie Romero and crisis counselor Chelsea Alvarado, and, like plaintiffs April Muniz and the Reverend Seth Wispelwey, they still suffer from extreme emotional distress, according to the complaint.
The trial originally was scheduled for 2019, but has been delayed because some defendants have flouted orders to produce evidence. A judge has granted default judgments against seven defendants, including Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi founder of The Daily Stormer. An arrest warrant has been issued for his colleague Robert “Azzmador” Ray, who has blown off every court order.
Also earning default judgments are the Nationalist Front; the East Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights, the military arm of the Proud Boys; FOAK leader Augustus Invictus; and the Loyal White Knights of the KKK, who protested in Charlottesville in July 2017.
The trial hasn’t started yet, but for the defendants, things are already falling apart.
The court has sanctioned Traditionalist Worker Party founder Matthew Heimbach, Unite the Right’s operations manager Elliott Kline, aka Eli Mosley, and neo-Nazi group Vanguard America and ordered them to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys $41,000.
Wrote Judge Joel Hoppe, “For now it is enough to say that each Defendant disobeyed at least four separate orders to provide or permit discovery of materials within his control while the litigation slowed and everyone else’s costs piled up.”
Kline also was found in contempt and jailed last year. The plaintiffs won an adverse influence ruling against him, which means the jury will be instructed to assume that allegations the defendants “formed a conspiracy to commit the racial violence that led to the Plaintiffs’ varied injuries” are plausible, according to a court document.
The same ruling has been made against Azzmador Ray and the National Socialist Movement, and the plaintiffs are asking for adverse inference against Heimbach.
Some lawyers representing defendants have asked to be released because of nonpayment or failure to produce evidence, or have cited their client’s “repugnant” behavior in the case of Chris Cantwell, who threatened the plaintiffs’ lead attorney Roberta Kaplan.
Cincinnati attorney James Kolenich is listed on court documents representing a dozen defendants, but now his only clients are rally organizer Jason Kessler, Identity Evropa, and its founder, Nathan Damigo. Kolenich declined to comment about the case.
“Crying Nazi” Cantwell, who was ordered out of Virginia after pepper spraying counterprotesters at the Thomas Jefferson statue August 11 and currently is in prison for threating to rape the wife of a fellow white nationalist, will represent himself.
So will UVA grad Richard Spencer, who headed the National Policy Institute and was a poster boy for the alt-right. He told the court in June 2020 that the lawsuit was “financially crippling” and he can’t raise money because he’s been booted off so many platforms, according to IFA.
The suit is already having an impact, says Beirich. “Some of the groups sued are falling apart.” Spencer’s National Policy Institute is “basically defunct at this point,” she says. “Other groups like the League of the South have descended into infighting and ineffectiveness in the face of the lawsuit.”
Even Beirich, an expert in extremism for years with Southern Poverty Law Center, was shocked at the number of white supremacists who showed up in Charlottesville in August 2017. The suit is “bringing judgment for the victims of the biggest white supremacy rally in recent years,” she says.
“Sines v. Kessler basically said, ‘No, we are not going to let this continue,’” she says. “They’re holding so many different individuals and organizations, who orchestrated that horrible weekend in 2017 financially liable for their activities that caused so much great harm.”
Thousands of rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6. PC: Starmax/Newscom Via ZUMAPress
Two weeks ago, the far-right riot at the U.S. Capitol—fueled by President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the election—shocked people across the world. But for many, it was a familiar scene. As the country looks ahead to a new administration and beyond, Charlottesville’s leaders and activists have hard-won advice for President Joe Biden.
“[The January 6 siege] is the same horrific play we’ve seen over and over again in this country,” says community activist Don Gathers, who was at the infamous 2017 Unite the Right rally. “So much of the opening act of that play looked just like Charlottesville, where the police stood by and did nothing.”
For weeks, watchdog groups and activists repeatedly warned law enforcement that Trump supporters’ plans to violently storm the Capitol—and assault, kidnap, and even kill members of Congress—were posted across social media.
Despite these warnings, the Capitol Police anticipated a crowd in only the “low thousands,” and prepared for “small, disparate violent events,” according to Representative Jason Crow.
So, like in Charlottesville, police on the scene were massively unprepared for the thousands of people who showed up to Trump’s rally. Insurgents later overpowered the police and stormed the building, resulting in dozens of injuries and five deaths.
“It’s not like they were secretive…It was all over the internet,” says community activist Ang Conn, who was also at the Unite the Right rally.
Before August 11 and 12, 2017, members of the far-right also openly discussed their plans to incite violence and threatened local residents online, as well as held a few smaller “test” rallies in Charlottesville, says Conn. Local activists continuously alerted law enforcement and urged the city to stop the event from happening, but were not taken seriously.
“The people who were supposed to be keeping the peace had all of this information given to them and they ignored it,” says Tyler Magill, who was hit on the neck with a tiki torch during the Unite the Right rally, later causing him to have a stroke.
Video evidence also shows several Capitol officers moving barricades to allow rioters to get closer to the building, as well as one taking a selfie with a member of the far-right mob. Some rioters were members of law enforcement themselves, including two off-duty Virginia police officers.
The scene at the Capitol serves as a stark contrast to the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests last year, during which police deployed tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and other types of force against thousands of people, and made over 10,000 arrests.
“If Black and brown folks were to do that exact same thing [at the Capitol], we would be dead,” says Conn.
Now, those who were present for the Unite the Right rally say a key to moving forward is to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Since January 6, federal authorities have arrested around 100 people, and say they could arrest hundreds more.
“This cannot be seen as anything other than armed insurrection,” says City Councilor Sena Magill, speaking solely for herself. “It needs to be very clear that people who participated in this need to be prosecuted, and not lightly. …Representatives who instigated this also need to be held accountable.”
Tyler Magill says it’s crucial to expand our definition of white supremacy. “We as a society just don’t take far right extremists seriously,” he says. “We think of it as rednecks [and] trailer park people when it’s not—it’s everybody. The people at the Capitol riot tended to be middle class and above, and the same happened in Charlottesville.”
Other activists have warned that arrests or the threat of arrests will not be enough to deter far-right extremism on—and after—Inauguration Day, pointing to white supremacist calls for violence online.
“We know that they’re not finished,” says Gathers. “I’m fearful for what may happen on the 20th of January, not only in D.C. but really all across the county.”
And though Biden’s inauguration, and the end of Trump’s term, will be a cathartic moment for many, Conn emphasizes that it won’t solve our problems overnight. After the inauguration, she anticipates more white supremacist violence across the country, and says she doesn’t expect President Biden to handle the situation in the best possible manner. Instead, she fears the new administration will ramp up its counterterrorism programs, which are “typically anti-Muslim and anti-Black,” she says.
“The change of the administration doesn’t change the fact that the system of white supremacy is embedded in the fabric of what we call America,” she explains. “We cannot expect [anything from] an administration that condemns uprisings stemming from state violence against Black and brown folks but calls for unity without resolve.”
Gathers also does not agree with the calls for unity made after the riot. “You can’t and shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists, and that’s who we seem to be dealing with,” he says.
However, both activists hope that now more people will not only see white supremacy as a serious threat, but actively work to dismantle it.
“We’ve got to figure out how to change not only laws, but hearts and minds,” says Gathers. “If what we saw [at the Capitol]…and in Charlottesville in 2017 wasn’t enough to turn people around, I’m not sure what it’s going to take.”
Area activists wonder why Joe Biden, who’s made Charlottesville a central part of his campaign, hasn’t visited the city.
PC: Gage Skidmore
When Joe Biden announced last year that he was running for president, the first words he uttered were “Charlottesville, Virginia.” The campaign video that followed featured footage of the Unite the Right rally overlaid with a voiceover from Biden, responding to President Trump’s infamous comment: “[You] had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
Throughout his campaign, Biden has continued to bring up the events of August 11 and 12, 2017, most notably during his first debate with President Trump—yet he has not visited Charlottesville, or reached out to city residents since announcing his presidential bid. Those who were closest to the violence have noticed.
“Don’t use us as a prop,” says activist and deacon Don Gathers. “[The rally] is a very sore spot for many of us. It’s painful reliving that weekend.”
After neo-Nazi James Fields rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, “I stood there on the corner and watched the [EMTs] feverishly working on Heather…I literally saw life leave her body,” he says. “You just can’t get that sort of thing out of your head.”
Though Gathers will be voting for Biden, he believes the former VP still owes Charlottesville a visit, even if it’s after Election Day.
“He needs to have a public forum with some of the activists here,” Gathers says. “He needs to hear how we feel…We have got to make people [know] that we are more than a hashtag, more than just a blip on the troubled racial history of this country. We deserve better than that.”
UVA library employee Tyler Magill was also frustrated with Biden for using the rally as a talking point, but now tries to not let it bother him too much.
“When he first mentioned Charlottesville, I was originally very angry…but it’s going to happen,” says Magill. “The powerful will use my trauma…It is another thing that is taken from me, that is taken from us.”
Magill attended the August 11 torch-lit rally on the UVA Lawn just to observe. But after seeing the crowd of white supremacists and neo-Nazis surround and attack a group of student counterprotesters, he stepped in to support them. Magill was threatened, doused in gasoline, and hit on the neck with a torch, which damaged his carotid artery. A few days later he suffered a stroke.
Though Magill has largely recovered from his injuries, he still has a small blind spot, and a “difficult time having new memories stick,” explains his wife, Charlottesville Vice Mayor Sena Magill. “We’re still dealing with PTSD. He gets triggered all of the time.”
“I wouldn’t not do what I did,” says Tyler Magill, “but there are days I feel it has ruined my life.”
Like Gathers, Tyler Magill will be voting for Biden, but wishes the former VP had reached out to rally victims, as well as Black Charlottesville activists and residents.
“It would be nice if people would come to us,” he says. “Don’t say you fucking care…if you’re not asking people.”
While Sena Magill does not like seeing Charlottesville continuously brought up as a symbol of hate, she believes it’s important to note why Biden talks about Unite the Right so much. The rally is a crystal-clear example of Trump’s repeated failure to condemn white supremacy.
“The fact that hundreds of people thought…that they could have a Klan rally in 2017, and the president of the United States did not 100 percent disavow and say how horrendous that was…We have to use that to change,” says Sena Magill.
If not for the death of his son Beau and the pandemic, Magill believes Biden would have paid a visit to Charlottesville before the election. “We need to give the man a little more grace for that, for not coming here in 2017 and 2018,” says the city councilor.
UVA alumna Alexis Gravely doesn’t think there is a reason for any political candidates to use Charlottesville as a part of their campaign, unless they personally experienced it. As a reporter for The Cavalier Daily, Gravely trailed the neo-Nazis and white supremacists during the torch-lit rally on the Lawn, and witnessed their violent clashes with counterprotesters on the Downtown Mall.
“There were very few public figures, if any, who came to Charlottesville, and offered support to those who’ve been affected and the community,” says Gravely, speaking solely for herself. “So for me, anytime Charlottesville comes up in politics, it’s very disingenuous…They had nothing to do with that day, [or] picking up the pieces in the months and years afterwards.”
“Three years later, August 11 and 12, that whole week is a very difficult week for me,” she says. “To have to constantly relive it, just because I am tuned into politics, it’s not that great of a feeling.”
“Regardless of your party, Charlottesville isn’t a talking point,” she adds. “It’s a real event that happened.”
Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of downtown Charlottesville May 30, demanding an end to police brutality and justice for the murders of black people across the country. PC: Eze Amos
Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of downtown Charlottesville May 30, demanding an end to police brutality and justice for the murders of black people acrossthe country, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade.
In solidarity with the dozens of other Black Lives Matter demonstrations around the nation, people of all races and ages carried homemade signs and chanted statements like “Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” “White silence is violence,” and “No justice, no peace.” Others joined in by car, blowing their horns and waving signs as they drove along Market Street.
“I was extremely pleased both with the turnout and the resiliency of the participants to remain peaceful…I am certain we got our message across,” says community activist and former Blue Ribbon Commission member Don Gathers, who spoke at the march.
But he believes there should have been “tens of hundreds more” at the event. “Anyone with a pulse and a moral compass should have been out there protesting the disgusting murder and ongoing brutalization of blacks across this country,” he says.
Don Gathers PC: Eze Amos
The march was initiated by local resident Ang Conn, who, after seeing the murder of Floyd on video, felt “just completely distraught with what to actually do.” Floyd died after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the black man’s neck for nearly nine minutes, despite Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe. (Three other police officers on the scene, who failed to intervene, were fired along with Chauvin, but only Chavin has been arrested.)
Conn reached out to multiple racial justice groups and put a local team together to plan the Charlottesville protest, and get the word out.
The event started at 3pm in front of the city’s police department, where activists, including Zyahna Bryant and Rosia Parker, led chants, gave speeches, and invited the crowd to take a knee. Demonstrators later marched down the mall to City Hall, then through Market Street Park, along Preston Avenue, and into Washington Park, chanting and listening to speeches from area activists and residents. Nearly all wore masks, bandanas, and other facial coverings.
While police in other cities have responded violently to protesters (including in Richmond, where peaceful demonstrators were tear-gassed Monday evening), cops did not confront the crowd in Charlottesville, and the event remained nonviolent. CPD, which has been criticized in the past for heavy-handed treatment of protesters, chose to have “officers remain at a respectful distance, so that people attending could engage in civil discourse peacefully,” says spokesman Tyler Hawn.
City Councilor Sena Magill was thankful that CPD took a hands-off approach to the protest, instead of “trying to stop it.” She says she’s also “proud of our community in general for coming out and saying enough is enough, and doing it in a way that was peaceful.”
As for Conn, she says she hasn’t thought much about how it was peaceful, or how many supporters came out. “We’re protesting black people getting murdered. That’s not fun. It wasn’t a party [or] a get together. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and there are millions of black and brown people locked up in jail cells…which was also what this protest was about.”
On Sunday, the Albemarle High School Black Student Union hosted a demonstration in front of the Albemarle County Office Building. Joined by community members, students of all races stood on the sidewalk in masks, chanting and holding signs with phrases like “Justice for George.”
“We wanted to continue the momentum. It’s important for us to keep protesting peacefully and raising awareness,” says BSU president Faith Holmes. “We’re actually really happy with the way it turned out…we weren’t expecting the numbers that we had. It was fulfilling to see people from [the community] come out and support Black Lives Matter.”
Moving forward, Gathers says he and other local activists will “continue to monitor the situation across the country,” and “should there be a situation that comes to light, God-forbid, here in Charlottesville, we certainly will be at the ready and quick to respond.”
Charlottesville residents of all ages and races attended Saturday’s protest. PC: Eze Amos
Charlottesville has its own fraught relationship with the police. Following community anger over the tear-gassing of counterprotesters during the July 2017 KKK rally, and CPD’s failure to protect residents during the violent Unite the Right rally later that summer, City Council created the Police Civilian Review Board to enhance transparency and trust. After years of controversy and disagreement over the board’s bylaws, City Council appointed seven members to the board in February, but the board has not yet met—an eighth, non-voting member, who was required to have prior law-enforcement experience, was appointed at Monday’s City Council meeting. Councilor Lloyd Snook, however, announced during the city’s Cville360 broadcast on Tuesday that the board could begin virtual meetings.
Before Saturday’s protest, organizers also released a list of demands for the city, county, and state, which Conn read to the crowd on Saturday. It included an end to pretrial detention and home monitoring fees; the demilitarization and defunding of CPD; and the release of more people from jail and prison, especially given the current high risk of death from COVID-19.
Several Charlottesville officials offered statements condemning Floyd’s death and police violence against the black community. And while Magill did not comment on the specific demands, she says the recent incidents of police brutality around the country “have been weighing heavy on all of council” and, from what she’s seen, council is “committed to true change.”
“So many things are hard to get moving quickly, but we all know that we have to do something real,” she adds. “The time for thoughts and prayers is done—it’s been done.”
Updated 6/3 to reflect the recent appointment of a new CRB member and the board’s ability to have virtual meetings
Jalane Schmidt, a community activist and professor of religious studies at UVA, was recently sued for defamation for a comment she made in a C-VILLE Weekly article. PC: Eze Amos
On a chilly Thursday evening last week, several dozen people gathered at the Central Library for a talk on “the risks and rewards of public engagement” by someone who knows them all too well.
Jalane Schmidt, a community activist and professor of religious studies at UVA, was recently sued for a comment she made in a C-VILLE Weekly article about the plaintiffs suing the city to stop it from moving its Confederate statues. One of those plaintiffs, Edward Dickinson Tayloe II, objected to the story’s mention of his family’s history of slaveholding, and to Schmidt’s observation that the family had been “roiling the lives of black people” for generations. He sued Schmidt, this paper, and former news editor Lisa Provence for defamation, seeking $1.7 million. The lawsuit was dismissed October 28.
Schmidt’s case highlights current threats to academic freedom and public engagement, says Herbert Tucker, president of the UVA chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which sponsored the event. “If she is at risk,” he wrote in an email to C-VILLE, “in pursuing a call to community engagement that UVA now expressly encourages, and speaking her mind on a topic of public urgency that she has extensively studied, then all of us are at risk.”
In the McIntire Room, named for the man who commissioned the Lee statue, Schmidt began her speech with a deep dive into her background. She became passionate about “participatory cultural work” while conducting research in Cuba, where “learning was often conducted in the streets, or other open air spaces, or public forums,” she said.
After receiving tenure at UVA in 2015, Schmidt began teaching critical whiteness studies, which, in turn, piqued her interest in Zyahna Bryant’s petition to remove the city’s Robert E. Lee statue. In 2016, she started going to meetings of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces, which the city created to consider the issue. She was disappointed that, of the few people who attended, most were in favor of keeping the Confederate statues.
Wanting to “step up” her game about Civil War history, she did more research and connected with historians on Twitter, leading her to the work of respected Civil War scholars.
“It was from Ervin Jordan that I learned…that 52 percent of the local population was enslaved [before emancipation,]” Schmidt said. “Because this was such a compelling fact, I began to mention it every time I spoke to the BRC…if 52 percent of the population was enslaved, then those statues are lying to us.”
She, along with several other community activists, encouraged more people to attend BRC meetings and speak out against the statues. Before the commission’s final meeting, they handed out T-shirts saying, “I stand with the 52%.”
Following the release of the BRC’s report, City Council voted in February 2017 to relocate the Lee statue, and the announcement of the Unite the Right rally soon followed.
“It was not an option for those of us who oppose white supremacy to allow these groups to appear in public spaces unopposed,” Schmidt said. “That is what happened in the 1920s when the Klan crested here. I have not found any record in all of my research of any white people standing up to the Klan.”
Schmidt helped to organize counterprotests and publicized the Klan’s 1921 gift to UVA. Though she was “shell-shocked” after witnessing the violence of the rally first-hand, she continued to voice her opposition to the monuments, including by leading popular tours, with Andrea Douglas of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, that aim to provide a more complete story about the Confederate statues.
Of the lawsuit filed against her, Schmidt said she stands by her statements about Tayloe’s family, one of the largest slave-holding dynasties in Virginia. She called the lawsuit a “textbook case of white fragility” and an attempt to silence her.
Though the case was dismissed, with Judge Claude Worrell ruling that it had no legal basis to proceed, Schmidt remains displeased with way UVA handled the lawsuit. Virginia’s Office of Risk Management turned down her case, and the university did not ask the Virginia attorney general to overturn that decision.
Instead, the ACLU represented Schmidt and covered all of her legal fees.
“UVA has been encouraging [professors], especially as of late, to do public engagement scholarship,” she said. “But then the institution has not yet figured out what that means.”
Despite the risks, especially for those who do not have tenure, Schmidt encouraged more professors to speak to the press and be publicly engaged.
“Not everybody needs to be out in the barricades. There’s a whole lot of infrastructure that…supports the people who are,” she said, offering the example of making food for an activist group, babysitting kids during a protest, or supporting activists in court.
“There’s so many ways to be supportive that don’t require actual physical presence in the line of fire.”
Tyler Davis hit DeAndre Harris in the head with a tire thumper, causing a laceration that required eight staples. (Photo: Zach D. Roberts)
Just a little over two years after white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, the final criminal court case opened as a result of the events that unfolded August 11-12, 2017, came to an end Tuesday evening.
Tyler Davis, 51, was sentenced to two years and one month in prison for his role in the assault of DeAndre Harris in the Market Street Parking Garage, despite pleas from his lawyers for Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore to consider alternative punishments, citing his attempts to reconcile and his family’s dependence on him.
“My main goal is not what’s best for Mr. Davis,” Moore said when he delivered his verdict. “It’s not what’s best for his family. It’s about what’s right…If you consider all the impacts on families, no one would be punished.”
Davis entered an Alford plea February 8, admitting that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him of malicious wounding after he struck Harris on the head with a tire thumper while other Unite the Right protestors kicked and beat him on the ground. Born and raised in Lynchburg, Virginia, Davis, who had been living in Florida at the time of the rally, says he has since denounced white supremacy and dissolved his former allegiance to the League of the South.
“By lashing out at my perceived enemies, I was, without realizing it, lashing out at myself—I hated everyone,” Davis said during his lengthy remarks to the court. “I did a lot of damage, so this is an ongoing process that I will be working on for a long time, probably forever.”
The court determined that the blow Davis delivered was the most damaging to Harris, requiring eight staples in his head to mend. He was, however, given the lightest punishment of the four co-defendants because, Moore said, he only hit Harris once and wasn’t involved in the “group beating” that unfolded after Davis struck first.
Daniel Borden, who struck Harris three times with a large stick, was sentenced to three years and 10 months in January. Jacob Goodwin and Alex Ramos will serve prison sentences of eight and six years, respectively, in August 2018. Goodwin knocked Harris to the ground and Ramos sprinted into the garage to join him in hitting the African American man while he was down. Both Goodwin and Ramos have appealed their cases and are awaiting hearings in September.
Davis’ full sentence is for 10 years with seven years and two months suspended, and nine months credited to his time served for the three months he spent in jail and year that he submitted to electronic home monitoring. Davis was the only defendant in this case who was allowed out on bond; he was permitted to live at home with EHM in order to help take care of his now-19-year-old Autistic son.
Matthew Engle, Davis’ attorney, declined to comment after the verdict.
Joe Platania and Nina-Alice Antony from the commonwealth’s attorney’s office didn’t recommend a specific sentence, but both acknowledged that Davis deserved a lighter sentence than his co-defendants and recognized that he took ownership for his role in the attack.
Although the Charlottesville Police Department is still working to identify two other assailants from the attack, Platania and Antony hope the conclusion of these open criminal cases allows Charlottesville to gain a sense of finality and closure now that the trials are behind it.
“As prosecutors that did six of these cases…we tried to be careful not to make it about message,” Platania says. “We tried to look at the conduct of each individual and focus on each individual case and not prosecute ideology but prosecute conduct. Having said that, we are hopeful that those six prosecutions speak loud and clear about how this community and our office feels about individuals that come here from out of the area to perpetrate hateful acts of violence on others.”
Reporter Natalie Jacobsen sued Virginia State Police about August 12, 2017, public safety plans, and a judge ruled police must release them within 30 days.
staff photo
More than a year and a half after a freelance reporter requested the Virginia State Police and the Office of Public Safety turn over its Unite the Right public safety plans, a judge ruled today that it’s time for the state to cough them up—although with some confusion about redaction and release.
Natalie Jacobsen worked with Jackson Landers, both of whom have written for C-VILLE, on the documentary Charlottesville: Our Streets about the August 12, 2017, Unite the Right rally during which dozens were injured and Heather Heyer was killed. Police were widely criticized for standing by while white supremacists and counterprotesters clashed in the streets.
Jacobsen filed a request for the safety plans under the Freedom of Information Act in 2017, and when the state refused to produce any documents, she sued, aided by the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which represents journalists around the world.
In Charlottesville Circuit Court last April, Judge Richard Moore ordered that the state turn over a redacted version of the safety plans. That same day, he issued a stay to the order so the commonwealth could appeal it.
In November, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled against the state because its appeal was filed several days before Moore had issued a final order.
During the May 22 hearing, Deputy Attorney General Victoria Pearson maintained the state should not have to release the safety plans because FOIA exempts tactical plans and because some information was already released in the reports from the governor’s task force and Charlottesville’s Heaphy report.
Virginia State Police did not turn over its plans to either investigative group, said Pearson, although Heaphy did receive some information about state plans that she suggested wasn’t accurate.
“I don’t know what harm comes from not releasing the report,” said Pearson. “It would be our position the entire report is exempt. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle once it’s out.”
Moore said the crux of the case was to balance public safety—and public access. He agreed to lift the stay and ordered the release of redacted reports.
Then he brought up an issue of how the plan would be redacted, either by blacking out the material the state police consider exempt, or by deleting the information and providing Jacobsen only what was not redacted.
Typically when reporters receive material that’s been partially redacted, information is blacked out. That was the case when Attorney General William Barr released the Mueller report.
Moore said he agreed Jacobsen should have a redacted copy, but asked that she not release it.
“I strongly object.” said her attorney, Caitlin Vogus.
“Okay then, I won’t give it to her,” said Moore. “I don’t want it released prematurely. I don’t want her saying they blacked out 20 pages.”
“Ms. Jacobsen is not interested in anything she cannot release publicly,” replied Vogus.
Moore ordered the plans released—without restriction—within 30 days.
Jacobsen said she wants to see a document with blacked-out information so she can tell how much has been removed.
“It’s a right for the public to see this information, because this was a public event,” she said after the hearing. “The Unite the Right rally actually resulted in the death of a civilian and two officers and that is pertinent and the public has a right to view it.“
She called it a “dangerous precedent” for police to think they don’t have to release information because it’s already been released by a leak or another firm, especially when the state says there may be discrepancies in the Heaphy report.
“We need to see what those discrepancies are,” said Jacobsen.
The decision, she said, “is a big win for freedom of information. It’s a right for the public to see it and I hope they will comply with the 30-day ruling and that we see it.”
Photographer Eze Amos snapped Sunglasses, left, arriving with a Vanguard America contingent. Sunglasses was later spotted attacking DeAndre Harris in the Market Street Garage.
Eze Amos
Where’s Red Beard—and Sunglasses?
Although four people have been convicted in the August 12 assault of DeAndre Harris in the Market Street Parking Garage, video and photographs from that day show there were other attackers joining the fray who have not been arrested—or even identified.
Charlottesville police photo of Red Beard.
CPD image of Sunglasses.
On February 14, Charlottesville police asked for the public’s help in finding the men online activists have dubbed Red Beard and Sunglasses: “Our detectives have worked tirelessly and exhausted all efforts to identify the other two men more than a year later, and hope the public’s assistance can help bring the assailants to justice and close this case.”
That appeal spurred former mayor Dave Norris to look at his photos from August 12, and he discovered a picture of Red Beard sitting near a helmeted man. Norris posted the photo on Facebook and wondered “if the guy in the helmet next to him knows his identity.
Dave Norris took this shot of Red Beard taking a break at Unite the Right.
Sunglasses and others have shields up as they appear to be leaving Market Street Park. Eze Amos
We took a spin through our own August 12 archives, and found a photo of Sunglasses carrying a Vanguard America shield and flag, and another of him with some of his fascist pals.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Declan Hickey at 970-3542 or Crimestoppers at 977-4000.
Quote of the week
“You either believe in equity or you don’t.” —Mayor Nikuyah Walker on why tax increases are necessary to fund affordable housing and school equity
In brief
While John Dewberry was feathering his nest in Atlanta, Charlottesvillians continue to contemplate a less appealing Dewberry project. Skyclad
Dewberry doings
As the skeletal Landmark in downtown Charlottesville continues to molder, its owner, John Dewberry, 55, has been refurbishing a 1924 neo-classical condo in Atlanta with his 30-year-old bride. The New York Times featured the Dewberry digs recently, but for those searching for clues about movement on our historic eyesore, the only mention of Charlottesville is to note an 18th-century Hepplewhite sideboard the couple found here to complete their décor.
No. 1 seed
Despite Virginia’s disappointing 10-point loss to Florida State March 15 in the ACC semifinals, the Cavaliers got the top seed in the NCAA South Region and will play No. 16-seed Gardner-Webb University March 22 in Columbia, South Carolina. We’ll try not to think about UVA’s encounter last year with aNo. 16—the UMBC Retrievers.
Youth in revolt
Eze Amos
Protest organizer Gudrun Campbell. Eze Amos
About 100 local kids ditched class for a cause March 15, when they joined thousands of students across America in a coordinated climate strike. Carrying signs with slogans such as “There’s No Plan(et) B,” they assembled on the Downtown Mall to protest and march. Gudrun Campbell, an 11-year-old sixth grader at Walker Upper Elementary and area event organizer, said she wants comprehensive education on climate change for grade schoolers, “so children grow up understanding the issue and that it’s based solely on science.”
Litigious candidate
Bryce Reeves Publicity photo
State Senator Bryce Reeves has threatened to sue his 17th District Republican challenger Rich Breeden for defamation, according to Daily Progress reporter Tyler Hammel. Reeves also filed suit in his unsuccessful 2017 bid for the GOP lieutenant governor nomination, saying an email that falsely alleged an extramarital affair came from the cellphone of opponent Jill Vogel’s husband.
Home sentence
Walter Korte, the ex-UVA film studies professor who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography in 2018, was granted permission March 18 to serve the remainder of his 12-month sentence—which he started in October—from home. The 75-year-old has no prior offenses, according to his attorney.
Jeff Schoep, longtime head of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, says he’s still in charge.
AP Images for the Southern Poverty Law Center
The National Socialist Movement, a defendant in a post-Unite the Right lawsuit, made a bizarre shift when its former leader signed over the organization to black civil rights activist James Hart Stern, who then filed a motion admitting liability for the neo-Nazi group.
The complaint, Sines v. Kessler, alleges that the 25 white supremacist defendants who showed up in Charlottesville August 12, 2017, conspired to commit violence. California resident Stern filed a motion for summary judgment in federal court February 28 “based on the truth of all statements made in plaintiffs’ complaint against defendant National Socialist Movement being true.”
Stern says he took over the group February 15 and does not hold the values of the neo-Nazi organization. The motion “rights a wrong that is over 25 years coming,” he says in the court filing.
Jeff Schoep, who has run the organization since 1994 and who is named individually as a defendant in the case, told the Washington Post that Stern “deceived” him when he convinced Schoep to sign over the NSM presidency.
According to Stern, Schoep called his neo-Nazi org an “albatross hanging around his neck” and was worried about the cost of the lawsuit.
It’s not the first time Stern has convinced a white supremacist to give him control: Stern was doing time for wire fraud in Mississippi and former KKK grand wizard Edgar Ray Killen, who was convicted of killing three civil rights workers in 1964, was his cellmate, the Post reports. Killen signed over his life story and power of attorney to Stern, who dissolved that Killen’s Klan in 2016.
And in another lawsuit involving some of the same players, attorney Elmer Woodard filed a motion to dismiss a complaint filed by Jason Kessler and the National Socialists and Traditional Workers Party against former police chief Al Thomas and Virginia State Police Lieutenant Becky Cranniss-Curl for not protecting their First and 14th Amendment rights August 12.
