Charlottesville Residents Slam City’s Report On Response To Neo-Nazi March
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By Aiden Pink December 5, 2017
Residents of Charlottesville, Virginia slammed the city’s official report on its response to the white supremacist rally in August, saying that the report does not address the issue of racism.
“It falls woefully short,” local activist Don Gathers told a City Council meeting on Monday, according to The Washington Post. “You don’t address the specific issue that brought the Nazis here in the first place.”
The 207-page independent report, compiled by former U.S. attorney Timothy Heaphy, found that the Charlottesville Police Department failed to properly train its officers or prepare them to respond to the rally and the clashes between protesters and counter-protesters, and that they didn’t reach out to other cities that had experience in dealing with similar events.
Body camera footage showed one officer asking, “Do you know what we’re supposed to do?” Another responded, “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”
Residents at the meeting called for the resignation of mayor Mike Signer and other city officials.
“I’m sorry,” Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy said. “We let you all down.”
A city council member asked Heaphy why issues of race weren’t included in the report. Heaphy responded that race had nothing to do with how the city prepared for the rally, and thus was “beyond” his mandate.
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink
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