The Washington Post had an article this weekend on the rally in Charlottesville that erupted into violence, chaos, arrests and one woman murdered.
Their Graphics tell an interesting tale, of how police pushed the right-wing protestors out of the park, and into the waiting arms of the violent alt-left who were waiting to engage them. Definitely click the links to see those graphics.
The police tactics on the ground and approach mystified some law enforcement veterans and experts, including former Charlottesville police chief Timothy J. Longo, now a lecturer at the University of Virginia who teaches about the use of force by police.
“How do you allow two completely divergent and armed groups to come in contact with one another, knowing full well for weeks in advance that there were warnings of violence?” Longo asked. “In the current climate, this has all the earmarks of something that will happen again, and certainly every city should be looking at what happened to learn a lesson.”
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As the rally date approached, however, confusion grew about the details.
The final location was not determined until Friday evening, when a federal judge ruled that it could proceed at Emancipation Park. The rally’s organizers say they were given conflicting information from law enforcement about which routes to take to the park and what time they could arrive.
Thomas has said police attempted to keep the two sides separate but that rallygoers “decided to change their plan and enter the park in different locations.”
The rally was scheduled to start at noon Saturday. But organizers said in court records that police instead decided to open the grounds at 6 a.m. and reversed an earlier pledge to escort them into the park, a claim the city did not dispute in court documents.
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By 11:15 a.m., commanders watching from the bank decided the only safe way to address the melee was to declare an unlawful assembly. At 11:22, they gave the white nationalists and counterprotesters 11 minutes to disperse.
Police forced rallygoers into the street filled with protesters. At one exit, a protester stood waiting with an aerosol can and a lighter that he ignited in a makeshift flame thrower
Matthew Heimbach, the leader of the white-nationalist Traditionalist Workers Party, said he asked an officer whether police were going to clear the street. “The cop said, ‘It’s not my job,’ ” Heimbach said. “It was really unclear what the rules were. Or if there even were rules. We had no idea.”
