*UPDATE*
President Trump has issued a statement via Twitter:
We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2017
The already-violent rally took a turn for the worse as a car plowed through a crowd of pedestrians.
Police are saying it was ‘intentional’.
The driver is now in custody.
Here is footage:
#BREAKING : Video of the car running over protestors at the counter rally in #Charlottesville
Many reported injured ! pic.twitter.com/dbLvROZFra— Zain Khan (@ZKhanOfficial) August 12, 2017
Here is an angle with the car coming at the crowd. It looks like a couple of cars were trying to slowly make their way through as #Resistance protesters filled the streets. One car plows through the crowd and rams into the back of one car wreaking havoc.
VIDEO: Car slams into group of people during protests in Charlottesville, Virginia; reports of serious injuries (Vid: Rebelutionary_Z) pic.twitter.com/Gf5qMf64u9
— BNO News (@BNONews) August 12, 2017
https://twitter.com/realKDilan/status/896430913013153792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fheavy.com%2Fnews%2F2017%2F08%2Fcharlottesville-car-ramming-video-protests-deaths-dead-nazis-white-unite-the-right%2F
This likely intentional car crash is VERY serious. Woman being brought to ambulance seemed unresponsive #Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/Uld1Na6z8a
— ChuckModi (@ChuckModi1) August 12, 2017
Folks said counter protesters were hit by a vehicle as they turned the corner. Medics are here. #Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/qQAIRy7YSN
— ACLU of Virginia (@ACLUVA) August 12, 2017
The crowd that was driven through have been described as the ‘counterprotesters’ (ie: on the BLM/Antifa side of the disagreement.)
We are careful to clarify that we have no official word yet on whether this was intended as a ‘terrorist’ type attack, whether the driver was just pissed off, or whether the driver would claim to have been in fear of the crowd itself (as drivers in some other instances who press through protesters blocking the streets may have done).
*end update*
Police are now calling this an ‘unlawful assembly’ and are calling for dispersal.
It was triggered over a controversy over a removing a Civil War Statue. The rally has been ‘planned for months’.
The Pro-Confederate statue rally brought people of very different kinds together in support.
Even the ACLU agreed that they should have that right. It was they who defended the groups right to assemble peaceably.
It has since become a lot more than a march about a statue.
A federal judge’s ruling has cleared the way for the alt-right group “Unite the Right” and white nationalists to hold a rally in downtown Charlottesville, Va., Saturday near the endangered statue of Robert E. Lee over the objections of wary city authorities. —USA Today
Counterprotesters showed up.
Violence has erupted, to nobody’s surprise.
Pepper spray was used against the original small group of protesters.
Both sides have been provocative.
People on both sides came prepared for violence.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency shortly before 11 a.m.
Using megaphones, police declared an unlawful assembly at about 11:40 a.m., and gave a five-minute warning to leave Emancipation Park, where hundreds of neoNazis, Ku Klux Klans members and other white nationalists had gathered to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. They were met by equal numbers of counterprotesters, including clergy, Black Lives Matter activists and Princeton professor Cornel West.
But fighting broke out way before the noon rally, starting Friday night and then again Saturday morning.
Men in combat gear, some wearing bicycle and motorcycle helmets and carrying clubs and sticks and makeshift shields fought each other in the downtown streets, with little apparent police interference. Both sides sprayed each other with chemical irritants and plastic bottles were hurled through the air. — Washington Post
Chants of ‘show them what democracy looks like’ are being yelled through bullhorns, even now.
The two groups have been separated by a couple of blocks.
Fox is reporting that the actual white supremacist groups only number ’40 or so’ in number, and are much outnumbered by other groups.
The whole point of peaceful protests is to let voices be heard without violence.
Share if you think every group should have a right to assemble without a threat of violence, no matter what ideas they hold.
