Tag: unite the right

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Paying the consequence: Activists fined $15 for late-night street protest

Veronica Fitzhugh was one of seven community activists arrested June 8 for protesting the day's earlier conviction of Corey Long. Photo by Eze Amos

When Corey Long was found guilty of disorderly conduct last month for pointing a homemade flamethrower at white supremacists on August 12, a slew of local activists who’ve dubbed him a “community defender” waited until the sun went down to take to the streets and protest his conviction.

In Charlottesville General District Court on July 19, seven of those activists were found guilty of stepping in the road with poor visibility and fined $15. (A number of those seven had already paid their fines and did not appear).

Around 9:30pm June 8, with signs and banners in tow, several dozen activists began marching around the Downtown Mall, chanting “Corey Long did nothing wrong” and “Cops and the Klan go hand in hand.” And it wasn’t long before things got more heated.

At the west end of the mall, their procession took a right onto Ridge-McIntire, where they began spilling off of the sidewalk and onto the street, and gained the attention of several city police officers.

The cops insisted they stay off the road, and by the time the group took another right onto Market Street, more than a dozen officers were following them. Crowds drew and traffic started backing up as the demonstrators continued to scream at the officers, demanding to know why law enforcement didn’t protect them during last summer’s deadly Unite the Right rally, and refusing to get out of the roadway.

It wasn’t long before the police started arresting them, and in one instance, they hauled activist Veronica Fitzhugh off a Market Street crosswalk and into the back of a paddywagon—her dress exposing her rear and her knees scraping the ground as they dragged her.

“We are, without a doubt, living in a historic moment,” said Sara Tansey, one of the community members charged. She read a statement to the judge on behalf of all of the defendants. “History has proven to us that some laws are bad laws, and some illegal actions will fall on the right side of history.”

Tansey continued, “We believe that when a black man is sentenced to jail time for defending himself against a mob of neo-Nazis, then we are in a moment that demands each member of society to question whether the law is just and whether our actions within the system will endure the test of time.”

Civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel represented the defendants, who each entered an Alford plea, which is not an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgement that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them.

“I like the idea that if you have civil protests, that you’re willing to pay the consequences,” said visiting Judge Steve Helvin. “I’m certainly going to find y’all guilty.”

Defendants were ordered to pay $89 in court fees along with the $15 fine.

Outside the courthouse, Fogel said his clients were satisfied with the outcome.

“They didn’t want to make a big deal out of this,” he said.

Fogel, who was also present during the late-night protest in June, criticized police for insisting the activists stay on the sidewalk as they marched down Ridge-McIntire, where he says there was no traffic. “Police lose perspective of why they’re there.”

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Not healed: #ResilientCville showcases residents’ distrust of officials

A panel of local and regional leaders addressed questions from the public about preparations for the proposed August 12 anniversary rally at a city-sponsored event exactly one month prior. Photo by Jeff Gleason

By Jonathan Haynes

Indignation hung in the air during the July 12 city-sponsored #ResilientCville event as around 150 Charlottesville residents filed into the pews of Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church to confront a panel of public officials about the city’s failure to contain white supremacists on August 11 and 12.

The crowded panel—consisting of Assistant City Manager Mike Murphy, Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney, Virginia State Police Captain Craig Worsham, UVA Vice President of Safety and Security Gloria Graham, Albemarle County Police Captain Darrell Byers and Charlottesville Fire Chief Andrew Baxter—sat center stage, while Charlottesville spokesman Brian Wheeler jotted minutes on the side.

Before fielding questions, each member gave a brief statement explaining his or her approach to the one-year anniversary of August 12, stressing that enhanced interagency coordination was integral to their plan.

A strident Jeff Fogel was the first resident to the microphone, and his accusation that law enforcement has refused to acknowledge last year’s failures received a lively applause. The Reverend Alvin Edwards stepped in and told him he needed to ask a question.

Brackney said, “We acknowledge gaps, then we respond to those, and that’s how we learn.”

But demands for the police force to acknowledge its mistakes continued throughout the night. At one point, someone asked Brackney to list city police failures. She declined.

Some audience members suggested they would take self defense into their own hands. One denizen said that her complaints to law enforcement last year had been ignored and suggested that she would rely on vigilante groups instead. “I do not trust the fascists, Nazis, or KKK,” she said. “I do trust the antifa. Will you trust us?”

Graham and Worsham admitted that many of the crimes reported by citizens last year went unanswered and reiterated that their new approach will involve communication among agencies and will take citizen complaints more seriously. For her part, Brackney said she understood that many citizens don’t trust law enforcement, and many city authorities, including herself, are new to Charlottesville.

Panelists did not address antifa.

Regarding UVA, someone touched on the university’s new assembly policy, which requires people who are not students to obtain a permit to assemble on grounds. Graham noted that students are exempted from the policy, but also maintained that the policy would not regulate the content of speech. She was met with a chorus of boos.

Toward the end, someone questioned the scheduling of that night’s event, which conflicted with the pilgrimage to the lynching memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and precluded Mayor Nikuyah Walker and City Councilor Wes Bellamy from attending.

Wheeler took responsibility, declaring it an oversight.

While few preparations were divulged, Worsham said many VSP will be present on August 11 and 12 this year, and in Charlottesville in various uniforms during the week leading up to that weekend—and they’ll be ready to make arrests this time.

Brackney said there will be multiple road closures and parking restrictions. She also said she was “shamed” police stood by last year, and promised that wouldn’t happen again.

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James Fields pleads not guilty to federal crimes

James Fields earlier in the day, before he plowed his car into dozens of people on Fourth Street. Photo Eze Amos

The man charged with 30 federal hate crimes, including the murder of Heather Heyer by ramming his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters on August 12, gave a clipped introduction to the judge when he announced himself as James Alex Fields Jr. on July 5.

Each hate crime charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, and it’s unclear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty.

Wearing a gray-striped jail jumpsuit with bright orange slip-on shoes and rectangular glasses, the 21-year-old Ohio man, escorted by U.S. marshals, strode slowly into the courtroom. He sat next to his attorneys with his back facing those seated in the room, and turned around twice to peer at the crowd, once waving to someone in the first row, who waved back and appeared to work with his attorneys.

While answering procedural questions in a monotone voice before his arraignment, Fields never tacked “sir” onto the end of his responses. He told the judge he has a high school diploma.

“I’ve been a security guard,” he said, when asked about past employment, and he also said he’s been receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression and ADHD, which have required “several medications” such as antipsychotics and antidepressants.

His brown hair was longer on the top than the sides, and his beard was starting to grow back from what appeared to be a recent shave, as also illustrated by the sketch artist sitting in the front row of the Western District of Virginia federal courthouse.

At one point, seven uniformed marshals were present in the room with the man who some have called a domestic terrorist. At the Unite the Right rally on August 12, Fields was seen standing shoulder-to-shoulder with members of white supremacist group Vanguard America, and carrying a shield marked with their logo. The organization with neo-Nazi ideology has denied that Fields was a member.

After he drove his Challenger into a group of counterprotesters on Fourth Street, sending bodies flying and ramming his vehicle into the back of a Toyota Camry, Fields fled the scene. Police stopped his car on a nearby street and arrested him, and it wasn’t long before classmates and teachers at his former high school in Ohio started speaking to national media outlets such as Vice and ABC News about the kid who drew swastikas and idolized Adolf Hitler, and whom they dubbed “the Nazi of the school.” Fields also previously hit his mother and locked her in a room when she asked him to stop playing video games, and on another occasion, threatened his mother with a 12-inch knife, according to police reports.

As Fields pleaded not guilty to the 30 hate crimes, an unidentified person on the other side of the room—which was packed with victims of the car attack and Heyer’s friends and family—let out a loud, exasperated, “pffffft.”

Federal public defender Lisa Loresh and Denise Lunsford, who also represent Fields in his first-degree murder trial on state charges, will defend him in the federal trial.

Both offered no comment outside of the courthouse.

“Sad situation, man,” said car attack victim Marcus Martin as he was leaving the courtroom with Heyer’s parents, Susan Bro and Mark Heyer. “Sad, sad, sad.”

Updated Friday, July 6 at 4:00pm with additional information.

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Inciting words: Kessler gets a win and $5

In a separate instance in February, Donna Gasapo followed Jason Kessler down Market Street, shouting and with two middle fingers in the air. Staff photo

In a civil suit against an angry activist, Unite the Right rally organizer Jason Kessler has won $5.

The man who planned the August 12 event where neo-Nazis and counterprotesters clashed in the streets, leaving three people dead by the end of the day, said his suit was intended to bring “decorum.”

He sued Donna Gasapo, who called him every name in the book outside of Charlottesville General District Court in March. In a string of about 30 insults, “murderer,” “racist,” “asshole” and “goddamn crybaby” made the list.

Donna Gasapo communicates her feelings about Jason Kessler both verbally and nonverbally at a December 14 court hearing. EZE AMOS

“They are the exact words I said,” Gasapo told the judge. It was during DeAndre Harris’ assault trial, when community activists rallied outside the courthouse in support of him, and Kessler showed up to report on the trial for vdare.com, which appears to be an alt-right news source.

After missing the trial, Kessler told the judge he began covering the behavior of the activists outside the general district court, by filming them on his phone with personal commentary.

“I was trying to drown his words out so other people wouldn’t hear the terrible things he was saying about them or DeAndre,” Gasapo said.

Her attorney, Pam Starsia, who is also an anti-racist activist, argued that because Kessler is a public figure, Gasapo’s insulting words would have to meet a standard of actual malice. She said the entire community has been on edge since he brought a thousand white supremacists to town.

“Public discourse around those issues is protected by the First Amendment,” Starsia said, though Kessler said calling him a murderer was “reckless disregard for the truth,” and “it hurt [his] character.”

While Judge Bob Downer agreed with Starsia that Kessler’s reputation wasn’t damaged by Gasapo’s comments, he still sided with Kessler and ordered her to fork over $5, though Kessler originally asked for $495 more than that.

Amidst his win, Starsia said she doesn’t think it’ll stop the community of local activists from engaging in such behavior: “I’m very proud and confident that folks who have been having that discourse will continue to have it.”

In other court news, remember Kessler’s August 13 attempted press conference in front of City Hall, where his voice was drowned out by hundreds of shouting protesters until he was eventually chased off, tackled to the ground and escorted out by police?

Phoebe Stevens, a local advocate of peaceful intervention who was found guilty of assault in February, maintains that taking Kessler down wasn’t her intention. She was in Charlottesville Circuit Court June 28 to set a date for her appeal.

As she saw the crowd moving in on him, she said, “We love you, Jason,” and wrapped her arms around him, accidentally knocking him down in the chaos, according to her previous testimony. Her two-day trial is scheduled to start on Valentine’s Day.

In Charlottesville General District Court June 28, an assistant prosecutor announced that hearings for Nic McCarthy and Eleanor Ruth Myer Sessoms would be continued until July 19.

Both were arrested early last month during a late night protest on Market Street, where several community activists blocked traffic in protest of the day’s earlier conviction of Corey Long, the man who they say defended Charlottesville on August 12 when he pointed a homemade flamethrower at white supremacists.

Update July 2: Judge Bob Downer’s first name was omitted in the original version.

Updated 2:40pm July 2 with additional court case news.

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August 12 flamethrower Corey Long to serve jail time for disorderly conduct

Corey Long, center, was convicted of disorderly conduct for pointing a homemade flamethrower at a white supremacist on August 12. Photo by Eze Amos

“It is what it is. It’s no sweat.”

That’s the statement Corey Long gave today outside the Charlottesville General District Courthouse after he was convicted of disorderly conduct for lighting an aerosol can and pointing it in the direction of white supremacists on August 12.

Community activists wiped tears from their eyes and hastily left the courthouse when Judge Robert Downer sentenced Long to 360 days in jail, with all but 20 suspended, after Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania advocated for no jail time.

“I find that this behavior was very serious,” Downer said when he went against the prosecutor’s recommendation.

After the conviction, Long’s legal adviser offered a few more words than his client.

“Corey Long was and is and remains a hero,” said Malik Shabazz, president of Black Lawyers for Justice, to cheers from the dozens of community activists who showed up in support of the 24-year-old who they say protected the town during the Unite the Right rally that left three people dead and many injured.

Shabazz echoed what the activists have been saying since his client was charged: “Corey Long did nothing wrong.”

He advised that in Virginia, inmates with good behavior only serve half of their sentenced time for misdemeanor charges, and said Long will likely be incarcerated for 10 days. Long was ordered to report to the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail on June 22.

Shabazz told Long they’ll be the “proudest days you will serve in your life,” and reminded him and the crowd that Martin Luther King Jr. was also arrested and convicted.

As white supremacists filed out of Emancipation Park on August 12, immediately after law enforcement had declared the Unite the Right rally an unlawful assembly, Frank Buck testified that he heard someone say, “Kill the nigger.” He then saw Baltimore Ku Klux Klan leader Richard Preston point his handgun at Long, who was outside of the park and holding the homemade flamethrower with his arm extended. Buck said the flames were first between 20 and 24 inches, and then a bit shorter.

“I thought [Long] was going to be shot and killed,” Buck said. “I then heard the gunshot.”

He says he saw the bullet hit the ground near Long’s feat, causing a tuft of dirt to shoot into the air. He then saw Preston lower his gun and exit the area.

“I lit the can because he wouldn’t get out of my presence,” Long told the judge, though it is unclear whether he was referring to Preston or another man who can be seen swinging a rolled up flag at Long in a photo of the incident that has since gone viral.

Richmond-based defense attorney Jeroyd Greene said Long had been spit on and called racial slurs that day, and that Long first sprayed his aerosol can without lighting it. He only lit it when he perceived a threat, which doesn’t make a case for disorderly conduct, the attorney argued.

In fact, Greene said two men, including Preston, who fell out of line with their white supremacist allies and moved toward Long once they walked down the steps at the park, were the true aggressors who acted disorderly.

“There’s no evidence that they’re doing anything at all but walking down the steps,” said Platania, who argued that lighting the aerosol can was enough of an “annoyance or alarm,” which is required to prove a disorderly conduct had been committed.

Downer said the state’s disorderly conduct statute is complicated and problematic, and in his 17 years of experience, he’s seen only a few people convicted of the crime.

“I don’t have the least bit of doubt of his guilt of disorderly conduct,” Downer said. “It clearly motivated people to react in a way that involved a breach of the peace.”

Preston pleaded no contest May 9 to a charge of discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school, a class 4 felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years and fine up to $100,000.

Long was also accused of assault and battery by rally attendee Harold Crews in a separate incident, but Platania said he was unable to reach Crews, and the charge was dismissed.

In the crowd of activists outside the general district court was Kendall Bills, the daughter of local philanthropists Michael Bills and Sonja Smith, who was also involved in August 12 litigation after Dennis Mothersbaugh, whom she calls a “neo-Nazi,” punched her in the face during the rally.

The video of the Indiana man clocking her has also gone viral. Mothersbaugh pleaded guilty to assault in November.

“He was sentenced to a decent amount of jail time, but, more importantly, I was not subject to the intimidation and harassment that now men of color—especially DeAndre Harris, Corey Long and Donald Blakney—are facing in this community,” she said. “As a white woman, I was protected. My case was settled quickly.”

Bills said she took to the streets on August 12 to do exactly what those three black men did, which was “trying to protect and defend our community,” but she hasn’t faced the same “inappropropriate judicial harassment” and retribution the men continue to face in their personal lives.

“The city of Charlottesville should be ashamed today,” she said. “I am proud to be a Charlottesville community member many days, but today is not one of them.”

 

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Activist-theologian: Kessler protester talks about trespassing arrest

Eric Martin was escorted out of the UVA law library in handcuffs, while the organizer of the Unite the Right rally was not. Courtesy photo

When about 40 protesters gathered at the University of Virginia School of Law library in April to chase off Jason Kessler, one man was arrested—and it wasn’t the one who brought hundreds of torch-wielding white supremacists to Grounds last summer.

As Kessler sat doing legal research for his upcoming lawsuits in a room that wasn’t open to the public, it appeared to those who wanted him gone that the university had offered him a safe space. UVA law spokesperson Mary Wood says Kessler was not given an office, and was being assisted by a law librarian in the librarian’s office.

But to clear up the confusion at the time, Eric Martin decided to study with Kessler, and was escorted out in handcuffs shortly thereafter.

“I just thought it would help clarify the status—does he have a private office or not?” says Martin. “And the second thing I thought was, ‘Hold up. They had eight months to protect their students by barring this white supremacist who brought people that maced and beat students and beat one of the librarians into a stroke.’”

Martin, a part-time Charlottesville resident who also lives in New York while teaching and working toward his Ph.D. at Fordham University, was reading The Rise and Fall of Apartheid as he sat with Kessler and was told by multiple people that he wasn’t allowed to be there.

One of those was Stephen Parr, the law school’s chief administrative officer, who brought a few law enforcement officers with him.

“The police were clearly waiting for him to make a decision,” says Martin, who adds that Parr told him he was trespassing and asked him to leave. The alleged trespasser who, among other things, teaches Christian nonviolence, says he replied with something along the lines of, “That’s fine. I’m not going to. The students don’t feel safe and I’m going to stay here until Kessler leaves.”

Laughing, Martin says, “And then he had me arrested. I understood that it was possible when he said I was trespassing, but I didn’t think they’d be dumb enough to walk me out of there in cuffs and leave [Kessler] in there. They made their choice on who was the bigger threat at that table.”

Though Martin says some students were in tears, too afraid to attend their classes near the building that Kessler was holed up in, the university is following through with the trespassing charge. He’s scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing May 22, after C-VILLE goes to press, and says the hearing will be continued to a later date because he’ll be out of town.

Martin will be defended by Jeff Fogel, who has represented several other community activists, and says he will plead not guilty.

After being cuffed, escorted out of the library and taken to jail, Martin was banned from the university. Kessler was also later banned, which Martin says is a sign that he was correct in his peaceful protest of allowing the “white supremacist” access to a private room that day.

“I would imagine that this is extremely embarrassing to [UVA],” says Martin. “I can’t believe they’re pressing charges.”

The ban presents a problem for Martin, who has been using the law library to do research for his dissertation. At the time of his arrest, he had 20 books checked out from Alderman Library and received an email from staff, which said he needed to return them, but couldn’t do so on campus. They arranged a meetup at the university police department, which Martin calls “high comedy.”

In addition, he will no longer be allowed to drive his wife, with whom he shares a car, to the Curry School of Education, where she works as a research assistant. He also faces a year in jail for the trespassing charge.

“That’s a very small sacrifice compared to what Corey Long and Donald Blakney are facing, so it’s hard to complain,” says Martin. “I’m getting the straight white guy treatment. …I have a whole lot of privilege. It’s easier for me to do this than other people.”

Adele Stichel, a rising third-year law student who was at the library on the day of Martin’s arrest, is calling for UVA to rescind the no trespassing order against him.

“I remember being shocked that [Martin] had been arrested while Mr. Kessler had not,” she says. “I think what Eric did was very brave and helped to reveal a troubling attitude that I and others have often sensed from the UVA administration, which is that resistance to white supremacy is somehow a greater threat than white supremacy itself.”

Martin says other supporters—the majority of whom he doesn’t know, including parents of students—have reached out to check on him, thank him or offer to pay his legal feels. In a letter of support from 250 signatories across the country, including many professors and students at Fordham, he’s called an “exemplar of the kind of activist-theologian the academy (Fordham) is presently cultivating.”

Over the past year, Charlottesville has been ground zero for white supremacist action and counterprotest, and some critics say it would all go away if ignored.

“That’s an argument that pays no attention to facts or empirical data,” says Martin. “That’s exactly what UVA tried to do, and clearly, eight months later, it did not go away. It keeps coming to the heart of their campus and terrorizing their students.”

Updated May 23 at 1:44pm to clarify that Martin’s books were checked out at Alderman Library.

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‘Commie killer’ Daniel Borden enters plea, is found guilty

Daniel Borden. Courtesy Charlottesville police

Another man charged with malicious wounding in the August 12 Market Street Parking Garage beatdown of DeAndre Harris has been convicted.

Daniel Borden, whose local TV station and newspaper have said he was known for his swastika drawings and Nazi salutes in high school, was 18 years old when he traveled from Maumee, Ohio, to Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally.

He entered an Alford plea in Charlottesville Circuit Court on May 21, which isn’t an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgement that there’s enough evidence to convict him. Judge Rick Moore did, indeed, find him guilty.

“His argument is he didn’t have malice in his heart or mind when he did this,” said defense attorney Mike Hallahan. The felony charge carries up to 20 years in prison.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina-Alice Antony—who noted that Borden was wearing a white construction hat with “commie killer” written on it during the attack—said videos show the teenager beating Harris with a wooden object while Harris was already on the ground, which the judge agreed was enough evidence for the malicious wounding charge.

Hallahan previously argued that Borden wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial in Charlottesville, and said at a March 29 motions hearing that the city has shown an “absolute sheer bias” against rally participants by pursuing charges against them but not prosecuting people for jaywalking or blocking Fourth Street during the car attack in which a white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others. Fourth Street was supposed to have been closed during the rally.

After two two-day trials for assailants in the same case, juries convicted Jacob Goodwin, from Arkansas, and Alex Ramos, from Georgia, and recommended a sentence of 10 years and six years, respectively. The judge will formally sentence both men in August.

Borden, who told the judge he’s currently working on getting his GED, is scheduled to be sentenced October 1, exactly one month from his twentieth birthday.

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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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Bellamy subpoenaed in neo-Nazi’s hearing

Daniel Borden. Courtesy Charlottesville police

Last week an attorney defending an alt-right client subpoenaed a reporter as a witness. This week the same lawyer called a city councilor to court to support his motion that Daniel Borden, charged with malicious wounding, cannot get a fair trial in Charlottesville

Mike Hallahan represents Borden, an Ohio man who was 18 years old and known for his high school swastika drawings and Nazi salutes when he came to Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally, according to Cincinnati’s local NBC affiliate WLWT and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Borden is one of four men charged in the Market Street Parking Garage beatdown of DeAndre Harris, who also was charged with malicious wounding, and who was acquitted in Charlottesville General District Court March 16.

In Charlottesville Circuit Court March 29, Hallahan said the city has shown an “absolute sheer bias” against rally participants by pursuing charges against them but not prosecuting people for jaywalking or blocking Fourth Street at the time of the car attack in which a white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of people, killing local woman Heather Heyer and injuring many others.

Hallahan, who subpoenaed this reporter in a different case, called City Councilor Wes Bellamy, who was vice-mayor in August, to the witness stand to testify about the community’s perception of rally goers.

Bellamy said Charlottesville residents have routinely called Unite the Right participants “white supremacists” and “Nazis,” but when asked if all locals feel that way, the councilman replied that he can’t speak for more than 40,000 people.

As Bellamy hobbled away from the witness box on crutches from a basketball injury, he stopped to whisper something in Borden’s ear and patted him on his right pectoral. Borden nodded his head.

The defense attorney had planned to call former councilor Kristin Szakos to the stand, but reported that she’s out of the country. He entered into evidence a Facebook post she wrote several months ago, when she said it’s interesting that “Nazis” want to move their trials out of the city where they committed their alleged crimes.

“We are not their people,” she wrote.

Hallahan also said the local media coverage of Unite the Right has been biased and not a single positive article has been written about it.

“These are not opinion pieces,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina-Alice Antony. “They are fact-based.”

She argued that the judge should not grant Borden’s motion to move his trial, but take it under advisement until the prosecutor and defense attempt to seat an impartial jury in June. Average jury pools include about 40-60 individuals, but 150 are being summoned for this one, she said.

Just as the attorney for Jacob Goodwin, another accused Harris assailant, did yesterday, Hallahan alluded to “sleeper activists” who would intentionally try to sit on the jury to convict Borden. The defendant’s dad shook his head vigorously.

Borden has been in jail since August, and Hallahan also asked for a bond hearing, which Judge Rick Moore denied because it was not on the docket. A separate date will be set for that, but Borden’s father, a retired commanding officer and combat pilot in the U.S. Air Force, testified that he’s willing to take his son home to Ohio until the trial.

A woman later identified as Borden’s father’s lifelong companion could be heard whispering that Harris didn’t spend a night in jail because he’s black.

Moore took the change of venue motion under advisement until after the court has attempted to seat an unbiased jury.

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Judge takes parking under advisement in August 12 case

Jacob Goodwin, one of four men charged in the beating of DeAndre Harris August 12, was found guilty of malicious wounding. Charlottesville police

An attorney for an Arkansas man who can be seen kicking DeAndre Harris in the face in videos of the August 12 Market Street Parking Garage brawl at the summer’s Unite the Right rally is now asking for a change of venue for his client’s upcoming trial.

Elmer Woodard—the lawyer from Blairs who represents Jacob Goodwin, as well as “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell and KKK leader Richard Preston—says Goodwin can’t get a fair trial in Charlottesville.

For one, because jurors are likely to park in the closest garage, which also happens to be the scene of the crime.

And if a judge bars them from parking there, their second choice could lead them to Charlottesville Circuit Court up Heather Heyer Way—the street recently renamed in honor of the 32-year-old woman who was killed on the day of Goodwin’s alleged offense.

“I think that’s a huge problem in seating a jury,” Woodard told the judge. Jurors are not legally allowed to visit a crime scene outside of the court’s control, he added.

But a parking problem isn’t the only reason he said his client can’t be tried here.

Woodard noted that media coverage of Goodwin often mentions Heyer’s death, “inflating” that the man who came to court in a gray and white-striped jail jumpsuit, with a brown beard and long, braided ponytail, was involved. Charlottesville residents aren’t able to be impartial about whether he should be found guilty of malicious wounding, said the attorney.

There’s also the potential for “sleeper activists,” he said—a phrase that Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler’s attorney, Mike Hallahan, said in a motion to change the venue of Kessler’s perjury trial. These people, the lawyers say, would intentionally try to be seated on the jury to convict unfavorable defendants.

Woodard said he no longer pays attention to what’s reported in local media about his clients.

“I had to stop reading [it] because my eyes crossed,” he said.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina-Alice Antony agreed with Woodard that jurors parking in the garage on Market Street could be problematic, but said the defense’s argument that seating a jury would be difficult is irrelevant.

“It’s not whether seating the jury will be difficult, it’s whether the court can seat an impartial jury,” she said. During the voir dire portion of the trial, Woodard will have the opportunity to examine and interview potential jurors, and motion to strike individuals he deems unfit from the jury pool.

Judge Rick Moore agreed that he could seat an impartial jury, but took the motion under advisement to consider the parking dilemma. He also denied a defense motion to exclude evidence.

The evidence in question was a surveillance video of the attack, which plays at 15 frames per second, while all other known videos that will be admitted during the trial are 30 frames per second.

Woodard opened his argument on that motion in an unusual way. In his initial statement, he only actually voiced every other word to the judge, or half the sentence.

He said a video that plays at 15 frames per second shows only half of what happened and would be misleading to a jury, as it was misleading to the judge when he spoke every other word of a sentence.

“You didn’t mislead me,” said Moore. “I just didn’t know what you were saying.”

Goodwin’s two-day jury trial is scheduled to begin April 30.