Tag: unite the right

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Downtown visitors get a parking break

Lynelle Lawrence, co-owner of Mudhouse Coffee Roasters, says business owners hope the holiday parking promotion will welcome patrons back to the Downtown Mall after a stressful summer. Photo by Amy Jackson

Some business owners say the Downtown Mall hasn’t been quite the same since shield-wielding white supremacists and neo-Nazis invaded it over the summer, followed immediately by the onset of a pilot parking meter program that required drivers to pay to park for what was once a free space.

So what better way to welcome back its patrons than offering free holiday parking?

“The timing [of the parking meter pilot] made it so people who perhaps were feeling a little skittish to come down after the summer just kept that feeling,” says Lynelle Lawrence, co-owner of Mudhouse Coffee Roasters, a Downtown Mall institution of 24 years. “The idea is just to allow the downtown area to welcome people back and have nothing be a deterrent.”

The city announced November 14 that the newly metered spaces surrounding the mall would be available at no cost from Friday, November 17, until Monday, January 1, and parking in the Market Street Parking Garage would be free on the weekends for the holiday season, starting at 5pm each Friday.

Lawrence says her coffee sales have certainly declined since the onset of the parking program, and Joan Fenton, chair of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, says that seems to be a trend for other business owners.

“I know that there are a lot of businesses that are very upset by the meters and think it’s a bad idea,” says Fenton, who also owns Quilts Unlimited & J. Fenton Gifts. “We haven’t seen the figures but, anecdotally, people have told us that they don’t want to park because of the meters.”

Local writer and downtown frequenter Elizabeth Howard is one of those people.

“The sun was shining on the meter, so the prompts were a little hard to read and it took me several tries to make it work,” she says, adding that she had to take a few trips back to her car during the parking process, including when the computer system asked for her license plate number, which she doesn’t have memorized. “It was frustrating, plus I was in a hurry.”

Adds Howard, “I would still come downtown, but I would avoid the meter.”

Fenton’s personal qualm is that the rate is too high. “I’m not sure that we’re in a community that will accept a $1.80-per-hour rate,” she says. “At this point, I don’t think it works.”

But Fenton says when the businesses called for help this season, Charlottesville management acted fast.

“The city has been through a great deal since August 12,” says parking manager Rick Siebert. “There have been a lot of hard feelings expressed by a lot of people about what went on, and perhaps what mistakes were made, so I think this is the city partnering with the businesses on the mall to say ‘come on back.’’’

And while the parking meters are a hot topic, he adds, “I don’t think this is all about the meters. I think this is all about the mall and the need for the city to support the efforts of the business community and to remind everybody what a great place it is.”

Siebert says the meter pilot program will likely run through May (the holiday parking promotion ends at the beginning of the new year), and would then go before City Council for recommendations. Despite all the backlash, he says the program has helped improve turnover and create available spaces.

“There are certainly a number of people who are upset, and not happy about the elimination of the free parking, but there are other business owners, property owners and customers that I’ve talked to personally who have talked about how great it is that they can now actually find a place to park on-street without driving in circles, and I think the $1.80 per hour is worth that convenience.”

And he says he’s heard from several satisfied Market Street garage parkers because their rates have decreased since the pilot was implemented—instead of paying $2.50 an hour, it now costs a dollar less with the first hour free.

Lawrence says she expects to see another dip in Mudhouse sales in January, but that happens at the beginning of each year, so she won’t necessarily be able to attribute it to the reinstated meters. For now, she’s enjoying what she calls “this beautiful moment” of business collaboration, where employees are saying, “Let’s see what we can do to create a holiday spirit downtown. This is a lovely place to be and we’ve got you.”

Adds Lawrence, “It’s never been this tight and strong, and the city is right with us. It’s given us energy and focus.”

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Not ‘finger pointing’: State task force weighs in on August 12

The city prepares for the anniversary of last summer's Unite the Right rally. Photo by Eze Amos

 

Almost immediately after the violent clashes in Charlottesville August 12, Governor Terry McAuliffe established a task force to review the events of that weekend, and consultants presented a preliminary report November 15.

The top two takeaways: This is a new era of protests—and a stronger permit process for those seeking to use public facilities could avoid the violence in the streets that left counterprotester Heather Heyer dead.

“People were coming in from out of state,” says Nicky Zamostny, the task force director who works in Secretary Brian Moran’s Office of Public Safety. In comparing videos, “we’re seeing a lot of the same faces. It’s a completely new sort of incident.”

The preliminary report notes competing, heavily armed groups of protesters out to harm one another, loaded with weapons and projectiles and using social media to coordinate efforts.

The other significant finding, says Zamostny, is a “strong permitting process” is the best way to avoid what happened at Emancipation Park. Among the recommendations is to restrict the length of time of the permit, change state law to allow the prohibition of weapons and have a protocol in place before the next Jason Kessler asks for a permit.

“We’ve worked with a First Amendment scholar,” says Zamostny. “Localities can absolutely have a strong permit process.”

The task force, made up of about two dozen top public safety officials from across the state—except from Charlottesville—heard a report from the consultants who actually did the review heavy lifting: the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which was paid around $46,000, and the Olsen Group, which cost $300,000, according to Zamostny.

“It’s not about finger pointing,” says Zamostny—several times in the course of a phone interview—perhaps mindful that the day the initial report came out, Charlottesville spokeswoman Miriam Dickler fired off a statement: “It is disappointing that, from what we have heard to date, the report lays fault on one organization rather than comprehensively considering the roles played by each participating agency.”

The city hired Tim Heaphy to conduct an independent, in-depth review that’s expected to be presented to City Council December 4.

As much as the state’s review was not about placing blame, the initial report notes, “Recommendations communicated by the state to the City of Charlottesville were not accepted, including industry best practices for handling violent events.”

Among the concerns shared with Charlottesville were intelligence the participants were planning to be violent and a mass-casualty event, such as a car attack, was a possibility, according to the report.

The big question in Charlottesville since August 12 has been, where were the police and why didn’t they intervene when demonstrators were fighting. The governor’s task force does not address that issue, but it does note the “lack of a unified command.”

Virginia State Police appeared after an unlawful assembly was declared. Staff photo

Activist Emily Gorcenski says she has not read the entire report, but her impression is that it was more a presentation of tactics. “My question was, is this a review of what happened in Charlottesville or was this a case study for future events. My sense is it’s the latter.”

Zamostny likely wouldn’t disagree. She says the focus was public safety, and “to have necessary precautions in place” across the state to prevent future violent events.

The report also identified “a lot of things that went well,” she says. The state provided “an unprecedented level of resources,” including 600 Virginia State Police, 125 National Guard members and more than 400 on standby.

State police leave Emancipation Park after protesters were ordered to disperse August 12. Staff photo

But the recommendations suggest the state may have second thoughts about providing such a level of resources while allowing a locality to retain command. “The state should re-evaluate the extent to which it is comfortable remaining in a support role to local jurisdictions, particularly following a declared state of emergency and when large numbers state resources are allocated,” advise the consultants.

What went wrong: the state’s perspective

  • Charlottesville didn’t heed state recommendations
  • Charlottesville didn’t put restrictions on Jason Kessler’s Emancipation Park permit
  • Disparate incident action plans
  • Lack of unified command, unclear chain of command
  • Multiple command posts—and the one at Wells Fargo was “not functional”
  • Decision-makers weren’t trained on command post operations
  • Similar functionary units couldn’t communicate on the same radio frequency
  • No primary spokesperson
  • Criminal histories of participants not evident in operations plan

 

govTaskForcereviewAug12

Work Group RecommendationsAug12

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Militia madness: City files suit against August 12 participants

The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection lawsuit hopes to keep "unlawful paramilitary activity," like that seen on August 12, out of Charlottesville. Photo by Eze Amos

 

Exactly two months after the summer’s Unite the Right white nationalist rally that left three dead and many injured, a legal group has filed an unprecedented complaint on behalf of Charlottesville, local businesses and neighborhood associations that could prohibit “unlawful paramilitary activity” in the city.

Lawyers with the University of Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection claim the independent militiamen and women, many carrying “60 to 80 pounds of combat gear,” such as semi-automatic assault rifles slung over their shoulders, made tensions boil at what some have called the largest gathering of white supremacists in recent history.

“Regardless of ideology, the presence of these private armies, whether armed with assault rifles or bats, batons or clubs, significantly heightens the possibility of violence, as we saw on August 12,” said Mary McCord, an attorney with Georgetown Law’s ICAP, who filed the complaint which is, as she says, “seeking to ensure that the streets do not become battlefields for those who organize and engage in paramilitary activity.”

According to the complaint, rally organizers, including homegrown Jason Kessler, solicited private militias to attend the rally, held group-wide planning calls and circulated an instructional document called “General Orders.”

“All the while, attendees encouraged one another to ‘prepare for war,’” according to ICAP.

Named defendants in the lawsuit include Kessler and Identity Evropa CEO Eli Mosley, white nationalist groups Traditionalist Worker Party, Vanguard America, League of the South, and the National Socialist Movement, and private militia groups Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, New York LIght Foot Militia, Virginia Minutemen Militia, American Freedom Keepers, American Warrior Revolution, Redneck Revolt and the Socialist Rifle Association.

Kessler and the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia did not immediately respond to interview requests.

“It’s a unique lawsuit,” says Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead, who has represented far-right and far-left defendants for 40 years. “There are some real complications.”

According to Virginia law, “the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power,” but Whitehead points to the 2008 Supreme Court decision of District of Columbia v. Heller, in which justices voted 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry weapons unconnected with service in a militia. He says the definition of “militia” under Virginia law is vague, and several groups named in the suit do not identify as militia groups.

The 75-page complaint is a culmination of investigations, including interviews with residents and bystanders, hours of footage, hundreds of photos and thousands of social media posts, McCord said outside Charlottesville Circuit Court after her group and members of City Council filed the suit.

“The investigation uncovered overwhelming evidence, much of which has only become available after August 12, of planning by alt-right groups to engage in the very type of militaristic violence that resulted,” McCord says. “They have vowed to come back, as have the self-professed militia purporting to be peacekeepers.”

Michie Hamlett attorneys Lee Livingston and Kyle NcNew will serve as the local counsel for the suit. Livingston reminded those outside the courthouse of the terror the city faced that day.

“August 12 is a tragic story now—a part of the lives of all Charlottesvillians,” he says. “A street we walk to restaurants, where we enjoy life with our neighbors, on that street, our neighbors were plowed over by a car. The images of bodies being smashed by that car will never leave us. A park where we celebrate festivals became a scene of medieval squad maneuvers, people struck down, people bleeding. We fear that a dark chapter was opened in our nation’s history on our doorstep, a chapter many had thought was closed in the 20th century.”

He said he hopes the suit will provide public servants “who protect the peace” a tool to prevent private armies from returning to the area, protect those who use Emancipation Park and the surrounding area from the “intimidating, unregulated soldiers,” and allow the community to come together, “in at least a small step, to reduce what feels like a dark turn of our story.”

Added Mayor Mike Signer, “I support [the lawsuit] as a stand against the disintegration of our democracy, and as a call for us to put a firm close to this horrible chapter in our democracy where people think it’s okay to parade in military outfits in public, to openly threaten violence against other people, to fire weapons into crowds, to beat people in public and to use a car as a weapon.”

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‘Trash bags’ can stay: Statue lawsuit moves forward

A judge will decide by February 27 if the tarps that shroud statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson should be removed. Photo by Eze Amos

In the case of whether the city’s longstanding General Robert E. Lee statue should remain on its feet, a judge ruled October 4 that a lawsuit protecting it can go forward, and the black shrouds temporarily draped over Lee and his buddy, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, can also stay.

In Charlottesville Circuit Court, S. Braxton Puryear—one of several attorneys representing plaintiffs who want to overrule City Council’s March decision to remove the Lee statue—argued that the tarps could cause irreparable harm to the monuments.

“It’s not a shroud, it’s a trash bag,” he said, bringing to mind an image of the statues as giant bags of leaves set out on the curb.

The city’s Parks and Recreation department sheathed Lee and Jackson August 23, to mourn the loss of Heather Heyer and two Virginia State Police officers, who died during the August 12 white supremacist rally.

“Every minute those covers are in place, there’s harm being done,” Puryear said, and he cited evidence from experts on corrosion and aeronautics, who testified that the tarps could trap moisture that corrodes the statues, or catch like a sail in the wind and blow the whole monument over.

A stifled snarl could be heard from someone who appeared to believe Charlottesville winds are incapable of blowing away a massive bronze war memorial.

Lisa Robertson, the deputy city attorney representing Charlottesville in the case, motioned to strike all of the plantiffs’ evidence, and said she doesn’t think the shrouds have caused irreparable harm to the statues.

“Like it or not, since the covers have gone on, things seem to have calmed down,” she said. She called City Manager Maurice Jones to the stand, who said Parks and Rec employees intermittently check on the statues and haven’t reported any damages.

The shrouds have, however, been ripped from the statues so many times we’ve lost count. Now, Lee and Jackson are surrounded by orange fencing and no trespassing signs. Moore ruled they can stay that way for an undisclosed amount of time, so long as the coverings and barriers are temporary.

The judge also ruled that while a Virginia statute protecting war memorials does apply in this case—a major win for the plaintiffs—they have not convinced him that the Lee sculpture falls into that category. He gave them 21 days to amend their pleading and refile.

The code says it’s illegal for any locality “to disturb or interfere with any [war] monuments or memorials so erected, or to prevent its citizens from taking proper measures and exercising proper means for the protection, preservation and care of the same.”

Puryear’s pretty sure the Lee and Jackson statues are war memorials. “These are not a couple of old guys out riding on a horse,” he said. “These are Confederate generals.”

Plaintiffs also asked the judge to extend the injunction of the removal of the statue until May 2018, but he ruled that he would not expand it further than its November expiration date. He did allow the injunction to include the Jackson monument, because City Council has also voted to remove that one, too.

Robertson offered to tell the court the full costs of the Unite the Right rally on August 12, and said the “sole purpose” of the deadly white supremacist gathering was to protest the removal of General Lee.

Judge Moore called her comment a “red herring,” meant to distract from the questions at hand in the lawsuit.

“No one had to show up to confront those people,” Moore said, accompanied by groans from those in favor of tearing the statue down. “The statues didn’t cause anything. People did.”

Robertson replied, “Your honor, you don’t have to tell me that.”

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Meme-able Magill: August icon recovers, keeps fighting back

UVA library systems employee Tyler Magill is one of 11 plaintiffs suing white nationalists and ne--Nazis who came to Charlottesville. Photo by Eze Amos

During the August weekend that scarred Charlottesville, one man was in the thick of the major events, and became both a casualty and a meme of resistance to hate.

That man was Tyler Magill: a UVA alum, longtime WTJU DJ once known as the Velvet Facilitator and a local fixture in the community.

Before hundreds of white supremacists wielding tiki torches marched across UVA Grounds August 11, Magill, a UVA library system employee with access to Alderman, went there to observe the events—and became way more involved than he planned.

When the alt-righters, in town a day early for the Unite the Right rally, began encircling about 30 counterprotesters at the university’s Thomas Jefferson statue on that Friday evening, Magill says he joined the minority, mostly made up of young people, though he didn’t know any of them.

“Shell-shocked, not thinking, I ran down to join them, only hoping to be a witness, and hoping that even if [the white supremacists] were prepared to hurt, to kill 30 people, perhaps they wouldn’t kill 31,” he wrote in a widely read letter to university President Teresa Sullivan, who has been criticized for her handling of the neo-Nazi rally.

As the counterprotesters were surrounded by white-polo-shirted men with fash haircuts, Magill says they were doused with a liquid, and at some point, he was whacked in the neck with a tiki torch.

Four days later, he became thick-tongued, his reflexes slowed and he lost about half of the vision in his right eye—signs he was having a stroke, believed to be the result of blunt force trauma to his carotid artery. Though he still has a small blind spot and little energy from the August 15 health crisis, he says he’s grateful to be recovering as quickly as he has.

“I have no right to be alive, certainly not to be ambulatory in full possession of all of my faculties,” says Magill on a recent afternoon in which he had just returned from getting a CAT scan and was resting in bed. “But I’m coming out of this relatively unscathed,” he adds.

Doctors haven’t recommended when he should return to work, he says, but the university allows him six months of short-term disability leave, and he’s used six weeks so far. He says his job at the library is fairly physical, and he can only do about an hour of light activity right now before he requires rest.

A GoFundMe page has raised about $130,000 for his expenses, but Magill says he has good insurance through UVA and knows of other victims from that deadly weekend who need more help than he does.

That’s why, in his letter to Sullivan, he called for the university to pay off those victims’ bills in full.

“These people’s lives are in shambles because the University failed to take action on Friday night,” he wrote in his letter. “The University emboldened the fascists with [its] lack of action, and set the stage for the 12th. The University must acknowledge its complicity and make amends.”

Sullivan asked Magill to sit in the president’s box at Scott Stadium for the September 24 Concert for Charlottesville, championed by the Dave Matthews Band. That’s where he passed her the letter, which he says is set to be published soon in the Washington Post.

“You will be leaving and that is for the best,” he wrote. He says he hasn’t received a response—and isn’t expecting to.

While lying in bed, Magill says, “As much as I can, I sympathize with the problems that a modern university president has—so much of their job isn’t the classic university president job, so much of it is just raising money,” he says. Despite her own personal beliefs, she has to cater her statements to “a fairly conservative, if not reactionary, donor base,” he adds.

UVA president-elect James Ryan will take her place next year. “I would just hope that Mr. Ryan would weigh things a little bit more carefully,” Magill says.

An iconic photo from the weekend of the Unite the Right rally shows Magill rushing event organizer Jason Kessler with his hands in the air at Kessler’s August 13 attempted press conference.

Laughing, Magill says the photo shows him “being really big,” but in reality, he knew there was a sniper atop a building overlooking Kessler’s conference, and he wanted to approach the white nationalist while showing he wasn’t armed.

The library worker calls himself a “tourist” in the mess of alt-right protesters and counterprotesters, and says he doesn’t belong to any activist group.

He’s not a “shining example,” of how to confront white supremacy, but he tries to be, he says.

“We all need to try every day and not expect to get any reward for it,” he says. “The reward is in the doing.”

And for plenty of people, the terror of that weekend isn’t over. Magill says he’s been in “therapy up to [his] eyeballs.”

“Now I’m another middle-aged white person wearing sweat pants just walking down the street not doing much,” he says. “There’s plenty of people out there who still feel like it’s August 12 all the time.”

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Candid Cantwell: An afternoon with the ‘Crying Nazi’

Christopher Cantwell calls himself a political prisoner. Staff photo

In a minuscule, stagnant holding room just feet away from a barely bigger solitary confinement cell where he’s been housed since he turned himself in to police August 23, “Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell, a self-proclaimed racist and alt-right radio shock jock, says he wishes he never came to Charlottesville.

Perhaps most notable for his appearance in VICE News Tonight’s segment on the events of August 11 and 12 called “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” Cantwell is also the host of right-wing radio show “Radical Agenda,” and was billed as a speaker for the Unite the Right rally.

Jailed and denied bond for three felony counts related to allegedly pepper spraying two people during an August 11 tiki-torch march on Grounds at the University of Virginia, Cantwell denies those claims and says the only person he pepper sprayed that weekend didn’t file charges. He says his status as a “political prisoner” hasn’t kept him from preaching his doctrine.

That’s right. Cantwell is “LIVE from Seg!,” as in segregated from the general prison population. And though he can’t measure his analytics from a jail cell, he expects that more than 10,000 people have been tuning in to each episode to hear him gab with buddies Jared Howe, Mike Enoch and Jason Kessler.

The latter might come as a surprise. Kessler, the local champion of western heritage who organized the deadly rally and lambasted victim Heather Heyer on Twitter afterward, has since been given the ax by a lot of the whites righters he invited to his highly anticipated melee that some have called the largest gathering of white supremacists in recent history.

“Jason is a guy who picks up the goddamn phone when I call him, which I cannot say for everybody else,” says Cantwell. “A lot of people don’t want to talk to me, either, and so they might be a little more vocal about severing ties with Jason, but I pay attention to who picks up the goddamn phone when I call them. Jason picks up the phone. Jason records the calls. Jason sends them to the guy who’s running my website, so Jason is helpful to me in that he insists on my voice being heard.”

That being said, Cantwell criticizes Kessler for organizing the rally here: “If I had known what Charlottesville was, I wouldn’t have come here. And I gotta think there’s something wrong with a person who fucking thinks this is a good place to do what he did.”

He continues, “This city is run by the goddamn Red Army…and the idea that we’re going to fucking pull this off is crazy and he should have known that.” Mayor Mike Signer did coin Charlottesville as the “capital of the resistance” last January, after all.

Cantwell currently resides in solitary confinement in the intake department of the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, where alleged murderer James Alex Fields, who is accused of plowing into a crowd of counterprotesters with his Dodge Challenger at Unite the Right, killing one and injuring many, was a few cells over when the radio host first arrived. Fields has since been moved.

The guy who’s now looking at as much as 60 years in prison says, “you better believe I need a few bucks,” and has a couple of fundraisers linked to his website. Booted off the popular crowdfunding site GoFundMe, he has turned to alternative platform GOYFUNDME.

He’s faced harsh criticism for a remark in his interview with VICE’s Elle Reeve, where he said Fields’ actions that day, which many have called an act of domestic terrorism, were “more than justified.”

Now, wearing a black-and-white-striped jumpsuit and bright orange slip-on shoes, and sucking on a hard candy, he says he may have second thoughts about that statement. After the VICE documentary aired, Cantwell says he had a conversation with someone claiming to be an FBI agent, who told him Fields drove through two blocks of clear roads with no foot traffic, and that he could have turned his car away from the crime scene at any time instead of mowing down more than 20 people.

“That gives me a second to pause and say ‘what the hell was he doing there?’” Cantwell says. “What I saw was a video of his car surrounded by communist rioters who had just pepper sprayed me twice in as many days and hit his car with a baseball bat. I knew these people were dangerous. So when he’s in that position and they attack him and he has no idea what to do and he just hits the gas, from that information, that looks reasonable to me.”

But Cantwell insists he never wanted trouble when he came to Charlottesville toting three pistols and two assault rifles.

“We didn’t come down here to start a riot,” he says. “We didn’t come down here to kill nobody. And we had a permit. I was invited to speak by a demonstration that had a permit and was championed by the ACLU, and in return for my trouble, I got maced.”

He says the idea that the white nationalists came to town to start a race riot or to terrorize people is “complete nonsense,” and that they came to defend white rights.

“I think that we have civil rights like everybody else, and so when people say that we’re racists and terrorists for standing up for ourselves, our country and our history, well then do not act surprised when we get pissed off about that,” he says. And with hundreds of his comrades packing heat, he calls it “a miracle that only one person died.”

Cantwell was dubbed the “Crying Nazi” when he posted a tearful video of himself on the web before turning himself into police in Lynchburg. He says he’s not a fan of the title.

“Well, first of all, I’m not a Nazi,” he says. “I came down here because I think that I fucking have rights and that I don’t deserve my fucking race to be exterminated from the planet,” he says, and adds that not everyone who’s “skeptical of Jews” is a Nazi. “I came down here because I feel like my country is going to shit. I came down here because the rule of law is going out the window and you get prosecuted for felonies because people disagree with your politics in America. That’s worth crying about.”

Regardless, he says he has a lot of time on his hands and he’s been reading a copy of Mein Kampf sent courtesy of an anonymous friend—or foe.

When Cantwell was originally thrown in the hole, he said it was his personal request to stay in solitary confinement. But now that he’s been denied bail and jailed for longer than he expected, he’s been advised that “the guy who kills [him] becomes a celebrity,” so joining the general population would not be a good idea.

“I’m not particularly happy about it,” Cantwell says. “But, after all, I’m in here for a false accusation that stems from me defending myself. The last thing I need to do is get put into a cage full of fine, upstanding, young black gentlemen who decide they’re going to beat up the Nazi and then I gotta defend myself. And if I put someone in the fucking ICU, that’s probably going to come up in court.”

Cantwell is scheduled to appear November 9 with attorney Elmer Woodard in Albemarle County General District Court, where if it goes anything like his last appearance, Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci will try to use some of the inmate’s own comments to keep him locked up.

“Well, you know, I’m a shock jock. I offend people professionally,” Cantwell says. “If we’re going to talk about all the nasty things I said on the internet, we’re going to be here for a while.”

Corrected September 26 at 10am. The original version identified Jason Kessler as a Proud Boy. The Colorado Proud Boys reached out and said his only involvement was participating in a meet up and being disavowed.

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August 12 water bottle-thrower pleads guilty

Troy Dunigan, who pleaded guilty to throwing a water bottle into a crowd at the Unite the Right rally, says he doesn't like Nazis. Staff photo

Another crop of alt-righters and counterprotesters arrested for acts related to the infamous Unite the Right rally were heard in Charlottesville General District Court today.

Chattanooga, Tennessee, resident Troy Dunigan says he drove seven hours to plead guilty to a disorderly conduct charge for throwing an empty bottle at a group of white nationalists.

“I saw the Nazis marching through and got frustrated with them and threw an empty water bottle,” says Dunigan. “I’m proud of it, honestly, because Nazis are evil and they shouldn’t be allowed to march through the streets.”

Dunigan, who was given a 30-day suspended jail sentence and a $200 fine, says he watched as angry white men chased a group of African-American people down West Market Street with no police intervention—but he was arrested for a crime less savage.

“There was so much violence that day and I threw an empty plastic water bottle,” he says. “Why me?”

David Parrot, a Paoli, Indiana, man charged with failure to disperse in a riot, was not present, but was found guilty of the class three misdemeanor and fined $250. A police officer testified that Parrot was in front of the General Robert E. Lee statue in Emancipation Park after the state had declared the neo-Nazi gathering an unlawful assembly, and when the cop asked him to leave, he said, “We will not be replaced.”

James O’Brien, charged with carrying a concealed handgun, told Judge Robert Downer he is still working to hire an attorney. His hearing was continued to November 20.

Also scheduled to appear was Steven Balcaitis, a York, South Carolina, resident charged with assault at McIntire Park after the rally. He pleaded guilty September 18 and received a 180-day suspended sentence.

The judge also spoke with lawyers representing Brandon Collins and Jeffrey Winder, two men accused of assaulting Jason Kessler at a press conference he attempted to hold August 13. They are scheduled to appear November 17.

Updated September 25 with the Steven Balcaitis guilty plea.

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No invitation: Why Native American groups weren’t protesting Unite the Right

Ben Walters took part in the Native American Student Union purification ceremony August 30 at the Jefferson statue after the white nationalist torch march through Grounds August 11. Photo by Eze Amos

By John Last

On August 12, the streets around Emancipation Park were a riot of color: socialist red, antifa black, the white robes of clergy, bright rainbow flags.

But in this broad coalition of anti-racist activists, at least one group was missing: Virginia’s Native American tribes.

In organizing their response to the display of white supremacy at Unite the Right, none of the anti-racist solidarity organizations extended invitations to local Native American advocacy groups or tribes, according to multiple organizers and tribal sources.

For some, that’s the way they wanted it.

“We wouldn’t have been involved with it anyway,” says Chief Dean Branham of the Monacan Indian Nation, the indigenous people of Charlottesville’s region. “I don’t have any problem with those statues…I just don’t think it’s an Indian issue.”

For Branham, the demonstration was about “black and white issue[s].” But even within his own tribe, there are those who believe Native Americans should engage with the growing anti-racist movement.

“I think there are a lot more examples of hate and oppression to be considered,” says Karenne Wood, a member of the Monacan Indian Nation and director of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities’ Indian Heritage Program. “It’s not just about two groups of people.”

Virginia’s racial laws once saw no distinction between Native Americans and African-Americans. From 1924 to 1967, the Racial Integrity Act categorized all non-whites as “colored,” a legacy that still prevents many Virginia tribes from obtaining federal recognition.

Today, white nationalists like Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler declare white Europeans to be the “indigenous” people of America, while Native Americans face many of the same structural inequalities as African-Americans.

Native Americans have the highest rates of poverty of any ethnic group in the commonwealth and are most likely to be the victim of a violent crime. In 2014, the Center for Disease Control found Native Americans are just as likely as African-Americans to be killed by police.

Even when it comes to statues, Native Americans have a shared cause with demonstrators.

The city’s central statue of explorers Lewis and Clark has been criticized for depicting Sacagawea, their guide, in a crouching, submissive pose. Another, at the Corner, depicts George Rogers Clark and soldiers with rifles threatening retreating Native Americans. Its inscription reads “Conqueror of the Northwest.”

“I do a little grimace every time I walk by that statue,” says Ben Walters, vice president of UVA’s Native American Student Union. “It’s even more of a reminder…than a statue of Lee of how this country embraces its prejudiced past.”

Both monuments are contemporaries of the statue of Lee at the center of the August protest, erected at the height of racial segregation.

According to Wood, Walters and other activists, Native Americans are badly underrepresented in local anti-racist groups. Wood believes it’s one reason they were not considered when organizers sought allies for the demonstration.

“We’re still that invisible in the American narrative,” says Wood. “That’s what it really boils down to.”

“There’s a lack of awareness of Native American issues in the activist community,” says Evan Knappenburger, the media liaison for the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, which helped support events August 12 in McGuffey Park. “It’s a very systemic-level issue.”

Showing Up for Racial Justice and Solidarity Cville, two of the main organizing groups, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Other organizers say Native American groups were not contacted because many of the organizations involved were formed only months ago.

Community activist Walt Heinecke, who secured the permits for events in McGuffey and Justice parks on the day of the rally, says the participants came down to “who contacted me once it was public knowledge that I had the permits and who didn’t.”

Heinecke did invite native activist Guy Lopez, a member of the Dakota Nation and a graduate of UVA. Though announced as a speaker, he did not speak at the event.

“I wish other Native American organizations would have reached out,” says Heinecke.

With scant resources of their own, Walters and Wood say partnering with other organizations is essential to having their issues heard.

For the student group, the events of the summer are seen as a reason to break the ice with other activists and bring Native American issues into the discussion.

“Natives have been overlooked for a really long time, so it’s time to change that attitude,” says Native American Student Union president Halle Buckles. “It’s not about who’s had it worse, it’s not about which statue has caused more hurt…it’s about [making] other people feel safe here.”

But Wood is more cautious. She says the legacy of mistreatment means many Native Americans may still not be ready to participate in activism.

“Monacan people still feel racially distinct and they don’t want to attract more problems,” she says. “Their parents lived through horrific oppression. …They’re not ready to stand up unless they have to.”

 Correction September 21: Ben Walters was misidentified in the original version.

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Haves and have nots: Unity concert divides Charlottesville

Dave Matthews. Photo: Publicity photo

Dave Matthews Band wanted to help the healing in its hometown with a free concert following the hate fest here in August, and called upon fellow musicians Pharrell Williams, Justin Timberlake, Chris Stapleton, Ariana Grande and others to join the show at Scott Stadium, a rarity in the middle of UVA football season.

Instead, the benefit concert has opened new wounds among those who did not get tickets from the online lottery.

During the bloody Unite the Right rally August 12, Lisa Moore was working as a medic on the streets of downtown. Her husband, Nathan, was one of the McGuffey Park safe space permit holders.

“As someone who was extremely involved and fairly traumatized from that day, it did feel like a slap in the face to be denied tickets when first-year UVA students, out-of-state residents and people who chastised everyone there for not ignoring the issue received them,” Moore says. “I do feel that the process was unfair, given that the entire promotion for the event was to be healing.”

Ann Kingston—a representative of Coran Capshaw’s Red Light, which manages a diverse roster of artists including the Dave Matthews Band—says her team has a comprehensive outreach plan to make sure first responders, medical teams and some underserved members of the community get tickets to the event.

“We’re really, in my opinion, making huge efforts to cover people,” she says, adding that Scott Stadium can hold about 40,000 people for this show, her group distributed 35,000 tickets through the online lottery and made 3,000 available at the John Paul Jones Arena box office Friday morning. She says there’s also the potential that they could hand out more tickets.

Adds Moore, “It was hurtful to see so many others online criticize those of us who expressed disappointment for not being selected for acting entitled. Of course, seeing the tickets already on Craigslist for hundreds of dollars adds insult to injury.”

Almost immediately after those who were selected for tickets were notified, people selling and requesting tickets took to Craigslist. One bundle of four tickets, which no longer appears on the site, was listed at $1,750. StubHub banned resale of the tickets.

Elise Weber, who is a Charlottesville resident and works in the University of Virginia Health System’s department of physician relations, says she’s undecided about whether she should purchase tickets for the event.

“If I was going to do that, I think I’d rather make a donation, and I had planned to do that anyway with the purchase of my tickets,” she says. She was surprised to receive her rejection email from Ticketstoday, since the Concert For Charlottesville website made it appear as though city residents and the UVA community would have first dibs.

Kingston, with Red Light, says they did.

Some community members are encouraging people who won the ticket lottery to donate them to the racial justice committee of the Unitarian Universalist church, which will distribute them to members of the groups targeted by the white supremacists, including African Americans and other people of color, Jews, Muslims and people who organized and actively confronted the haters.

While it’s unclear whether anyone will stream the concert for those who didn’t get tickets, the Tin Whistle Irish Pub has announced a “reject party” on Facebook, in which staff will blast the hits from artists scheduled to perform at Scott Stadium and 10 percent of proceeds will go to local charities.

Updated September 15 at 10am with comments from Red Light Management.

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Do Robert’s Rules of Order mask white supremacism?

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy says he has to “stand with the people,” and not let politeness mask white supremacy. Photo Eze Amos

After City Council’s chaotic August 21 meeting where outraged attendees commandeered the meeting to vent about the deadly Unite the Right hate fest, many have suggested that trying to immediately conduct business as usual probably wasn’t the best idea, and that a wounded citizenry needed a chance to vent its hurt, anger and frustration.

At its September 5 meeting, council conducted a town hall on the events of August 11-12. Even with opening the meeting to extended public comment, Councilor Kristin Szakos struggled to maintain order, and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy declared that “white supremacy masks itself through politeness.”

Are Robert’s Rules of Order out the door at City Council?

Bellamy says politeness encourages people “to get over it” and tries to “shut people up” when they’re trying to express themselves. And he disagrees that people were shouting out their feelings at the council meetings.

“People were expressing themselves civilly,” he insists. “We have to empathize with people who are hurt over this.”

One speaker urged compromise on the Confederate statue issue. As he walked away from the podium, Bellamy said, “You left your hat, and when you get your hat, take that compromise with you.”

Szakos chastised her colleague, whom she had  joined in calling for the removal of the monuments last year. “We are here to hear all voices, whether we agree with them or not,” she said, an admonishment that drew jeers from some of those in attendance.

Two days after the meeting, Bellamy is unabashed at his dismissal of a speaker.

“My question is why the oppressed always have to compromise,” he says. “Why is it they can’t express themselves?”

On Facebook, he posted a photo of himself making the black power salute at council, with the comment, “It’s OUR turn now. I’m tired of ‘compromising,’ I’m tired of ‘meeting in the middle,’ and I’m tired of other people who know very little about us trying to tell us how we should be or act or conduct ourselves.”

As for whether Robert’s Rules should be pitched for future City Council meetings, says Bellamy, “There are no norms. I don’t get why people are in a rush to get back to convention in an unconventional time.”

And while he reiterates that he is “embarrassed and ashamed to be part of a system that masks white supremacy,” he doesn’t intend to leave council before his term is up in two more years. “I don’t quit on anything,” he says.

After the meeting, Szakos declined to comment on Bellamy’s remarks. “It’s going to be awhile before we can know what a new normal is,” she says. “People are still reeling.”

One of those interjecting comments during the meeting was Rosia Parker, who ended up being escorted out of the meeting by activist Don Gathers, rather than being hauled out by police, which happened to three people August 21.

That, says Szakos, was not something she asked Gathers to do, and that police removing citizens “is the last thing we want.” Gathers and Parker did not immediately return phone calls from C-VILLE.

Others, however, are not denouncing civility or justifying the outbreaks that have plagued council meetings over the past two years, and say it’s a small group that doesn’t like the way the things are and have targeted City Council.

Former mayor Kay Slaughter attended both the August 21 and September 5 meetings. She came to the most recent meeting “because I felt there should be average citizens who weren’t raging.” Others, including former mayors Virginia Daugherty, David Brown and Bitsy Waters, came to support City Council, she says.

“There are thousands of people who may be upset who do not behave that way,” she continues. “It becomes a show. We need civility.”

Slaughter says the country as a whole needs civil discourse and should be able to discuss issues—and disagree.

“We should be able to stand up to white supremacy but not demonize everyone who believes they should not remove the statues,” she says. To those who conflate the hatred of the KKK and white nationalists with anyone who has a differing opinion, she says, “We should be better than that.”

Slaughter says she attended other post-August 12 forums, such as one at the Jefferson Center, where people were angry, but didn’t attack others there.

“It is troublesome that people feel they’re empowered to not let other people express their views,” she says. ”We are a democracy.”