McAuliffe writes book on Charlottesville violence

Former Governor Terry McAuliffe has written a book, “Beyond Charlottesville: Taking a Stand Against White Nationalism”. The book is due out July 16.

As Ralph Northam embarks on his racism apology and listening tour, this book appears to be McAulliffe’s attempt to shift the blame of his own incompetence and dishonesty onto other players such as President Trump and the ACLU.

The Charlottesville event started as a reasonable civic demonstration by Southern traditionalists who were hoping to defend the legacy of Robert E. Lee.

There were no efforts made locally to pull in the Ku Klux Klan, or the American Nazis, skin heads or the racist thugs who appeared in strength flaunting KKK and other racist symbols.

On the other side, Antifa, and other far-left groups with a propensity to violence, made there way east also.

As violence unfolded, the police appeared to stand down, and did nothing to disperse the armed groups on each side. In some cases, it seemed they were forcing the groups into each other, creating more opportunities for ultr-violence. The stand down orders and lax law enforcement engagement ultimately falls at the feet of the governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe. His attempts to immediately blame Trump for what happened on his turf should be suspect.

McAuliffe has defended the police response, saying that while many of the white supremacists were armed, the only death directly related to the protest occurred when a Dodge Challenger rammed into a crowd, killing an innocent woman.

However, an independent report exposed a flawed law enforcement plan that failed to maintain order and prevent injuries and death.

Among the report’s findings:

• Charlottesville police didn’t ensure separation between counter-protesters and so called alt-right protesters upset with the city council’s decision to remove the Robert E. Lee statue from Emancipation Park.

• Officers weren’t stationed along routes to the park, but instead remained behind barricades in relatively empty zones.

• City police didn’t adequately coordinate with Virginia State Police, and authorities were unable to communicate via radio.

• State police didn’t share a formal planning document with city police, “a crucial failure.”

• Officers were inadequately equipped to respond to the clashes between the two groups, and tactical gear was not accessible to officers.

“This represents a failure of one of government’s core functions — the protection of fundamental rights,” reads the 220-page report from Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney who reviewed the protest for the town’s city council. “Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and protect citizens from harm, injury and death.”

The breakdowns in planning and coordination between agencies ahead of the protests “produced disastrous results,” according to the report from Heaphy’s team at Hunton & Williams, LLP. “Neither agency deployed available field forces or other units to protect public safety at the locations where violence took place.”

McAuliffe has also placed some responsibility on the American Civil Liberties Union, for helping rally organizers defeat the city’s effort to move the protest to a larger park where authorities would have had greater crowd control.

The executive director of the Virginia ACLU turned the blame back on authorities, saying she warned state officials that police were not doing enough to physically separate the white supremacists from counterprotesters and should never have allowed sticks, poles and other tools that were turned into weapons.

But Jim Gilmore, a Republican who was governor during the 9/11 Pentagon attack, called the response to Charlottesville inadequate and faulted McAuliffe. Gilmore called for an independent review instead of the in-house audit McAuliffe ordered.

“When you’re the chief executive either of the country or the state, then you have to be prepared to meet a crisis or a challenge as it develops,” he said. “There seems to be an effort to shift the blame.”

Of course, it was Trump’s fault.