A report prepared by Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia whose law firm, Hunton & Williams, was hired by Charlottesville to assess the city’s response to Unite the Right rally held to oppose the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue from Emancipation Park, concluded that the Charlottesville Police Department was “ill-prepared, lacked proper training and devised a flawed plan for responding to the rally in August. These factors lead to “disastrous results,” including the death of a counterprotester and many injuries. The report also criticized actions by the Charlottesville City Council, attorneys from the city and state, the University of Virginia and the Virginia State Police.
While this level of incompetence is something most Virginians are familiar with, on this day, almost everything that could have been mishandled was, the report concluded.
According to the text, Charlottesville City Council totally failed when it attempted to have the rally moved, even as the city’s lawyers told the council that the move would not survive a court challenge. This forced police to plan for rallies at two locations. “Their decision to take this important and difficult decision away from the arms of city government most equipped to evaluate and manage this event was a dangerous overreach with lasting consequences,” the report stated.
Other breakdowns, according to the report, included a failure by the city to keep the public informed and a misjudgment by city planners that they could not prohibit the carrying of sticks, shields and clubs by marchers and counterprotesters. It also pointed to a failure by law enforcement to ensure separation between protesters and counterprotesters, and a reluctance by police to intervene in violent incidents.
“People were injured in violent confrontations that could have been but were not prevented by police,” the report stated. “Some of the individuals who committed those violent acts escaped detection due to police inability or unwillingness to pursue them.” [Read more…]