The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Staff Reports
Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 11:22 AM
Three Deaths, 35 Injures From Charlottesville Riots, Clashes Over Neo-Nazi March
A helicopter crash that killed the pilot and a passenger later in the afternoon outside the university town also was linked to the rally by State Police, though officials did not elaborate on how the crash was connected.
At a late afternoon news conference, Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said that 35 people had been injured in various confrontations during the rally and made a point of saying that none of those involved his officers. Thomas also said that the car crash was being treated as an act of "criminal homicide."
The chaos boiled over at what is believed to be the largest group of white nationalists to come together in a decade: the governor declared a state of emergency, police dressed in riot gear ordered people out and helicopters circled overhead. The group had gathered to protest plans to remove a statue of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Matt Korbon, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, told the Associated Press several hundred counter-protesters were marching when "suddenly there was just this tire screeching sound." A silver Dodge Challenger smashed into another car, then backed up, barreling through "a sea of people."
The impact hurled people into the air.
Those left standing scattered, screaming and running for safety in
different directions.
Virginia Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran told the Associated
Press that the driver of the car, a man, was in custody. Moran did not
provide the driver's name.
The crash occurred approximately two hours after clashes in which
hundreds of people scramed, chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles
and unleashed chemical sprays on each other ahead of the scheduled noon
demonstration.
Adressing those who he called "the white supremacists and the Nazis who
came into Charlottesvillle today," Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe told
them to "go home."
"There is no place for you here," McAuliffe said. "There is no place for
you in America ... Go home and never come back."
Hours earlier, President Donald Trump condemned "in the strongest
possible terms" what he called an "egregious display of hatred, bigotry
and violence on many sides" after the clashes. He called for "a swift
restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives."
Hours later, Trump tweeted condolences to the families of the victims of
the helicopter crash — who he identified as Virginia state troopers —
and the unidentified woman who was killed by the car.
Right-wing blogger Jason Kessler had
planned what he called a "pro-white" rally to protest Charlottesville's
decision to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a
city park.
Oren Segal, who directs the Anti-Defamation League's Center on
Extremism, said multiple white power groups had gathered in
Charlottesville, including members of neo-Nazi organizations, racist
skinhead groups and Ku Klux Klan factions.
"We anticipated this event being the largest white supremacist gathering
in over a decade," Segal said. "Unfortunately, it appears to have become
the most violent as well."
