City Council   12/4/2017

REPORT/ PUBLIC HEARING: Independent Review of 2017 Protest Events

• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:00:28
    I'm
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    B.B.
• • 00:02:55
    Music playing
• • SPEAKER_08
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    Music
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 00:08:23
    Okay.
  • 00:08:23
    Welcome everyone to this.
  • 00:08:28
    Welcome.
  • 00:08:30
    Uh, we are, we've already begun our meeting this evening with an earlier session where we went through our regular business.
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    So this is a new part of the meeting after recess focused exclusively on the, on the HAFE report, um, questions that the, the parts of the evening that are going to unfold from here.
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    So we're going to have Mr. HAFE do a presentation to us.
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    Uh, council will then have a period to,
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    ask questions and make statements.
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    After that we're going to do a public hearing, an open public hearing which has had a sign up sheet which is still up here where anybody can sign up for this.
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    We have, my council decision, which we've done many times in the past, there are two minute slots here because we have two hours for this.
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    So we're at 60 folks should be able to speak.
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    And we will then have a presentation from Mr. Jones on
  • 00:09:19
    the action plan that is proposed which will have the benefit of the public hearing, of the discussion from council of questions and of the report and then at the end of our meeting we always have a public hearing also so there are several which is open so there are several times to hear from folks this evening we've really tried to set this meeting up to to hear from everybody and we have some we have some rules which everyone's heard who's been to our meetings before Ms. Szakos agreed to give an overview of kind of the purpose of these
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 00:09:50
    So I just really I think everybody kind of knows what the format is today.
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    I think we also know that there are a lot of people who are watching either on TV or on the computer and will be watching in the future.
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    This report is something that affects everyone in this community and I think a lot of people are really interested in hearing the report.
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    It is also available online for people who haven't read it.
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    I know that there are a lot of people who have strong opinions about what they've read in this report or what they have about the events from the spring and summer, but I urge you to please not interrupt the report itself.
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    We've given an hour for Mr. Heafey and his folks to make this presentation.
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    And I would urge you to let them finish their presentation.
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    At that point, there will be a chance for the public to speak and to come up to the microphone.
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    Also, if you speak out, people at home can't understand what you say.
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    So it's a lot more effective from the microphone.
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    So with that, I will turn it back over to you, sir.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 00:10:54
    OK.
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    Thank you.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 00:10:55
    And just, you know, we really are going to try to enforce civility.
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    We're going to try to get through everything.
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    We've tried to set it up so that we can run it as best as we can.
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    The rules that we generally read are that, you know, if there is a disruption or somebody does interrupt,
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    you know there will be a lot of noise tonight coming from the crowd generally but if whoever's chairing the part of the meeting actually calls someone to order then that's the one chance and then if there's a second then you can be asked to be escorted to leave which we really don't want to do with anybody we'd like to get this through and hear from everybody tonight and have it be as civil as we can although there's a lot of emotion in the room
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    but there's a lot of information that will be here tonight and a lot of discussion and a lot of questions so this is this is the opportunity we've tried to craft.
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    I've been asked by the by the fire chief and the marshals to please we do need to keep the aisles open and they may they may raise a question about some bags that are in the aisles at their own discretion but they may not I don't know and then we have overflow seating for anybody who if you have friends who are coming in the
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    NDS conference room at the end of this room and in the downstairs conference room?
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    Yes, and then also in the Parks and Recreation conference room as well.
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    The Parks and Recreation conference room and staff can direct you to any of those and all those have live feeds.
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    So, all right, I believe we're ready to hear from Mr. Hafey.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 00:12:29
    So this is going to include a PowerPoint, am I right?
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    Usually we go down into the seats but there isn't room for us so I think we're just going to try to wedge ourselves over the sides.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:13:01
    All right, are you, everybody situated?
  • 00:13:03
    So thank you very much for having me.
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    I'm Tim Hafe.
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    I'm a partner at Hunt and Williams.
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    And as you know, our team prepared the report that we were hired to do by the city of Charlottesville about the summer protest events.
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    Let me just talk for a minute about our scope and our methodology before getting into some of the core findings.
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    We were hired back in August by the city manager and the city attorney to look at three separate
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    Summer demonstration events, the May 13th and 14th unpermitted events, then the July 8th KKK rally, and then finally the Unite the Right rally on August 12th.
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    And the task that we were given was to evaluate the city's response to those events, hired by the city to look critically at how the city prepared for and then handled those events.
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    And I wanted to start by sort of making clear that there are certain things that are outside of our scope.
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    We were not asked, for instance, to look at whether or not the city has liability.
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    We explicitly are not counsel to the city of Charlottesville for purposes of any litigation.
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    We have not evaluated whether statutes were violated by the city.
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    We haven't looked at the legality of any arrests that were made or of police conduct when it comes to arrests, legality.
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    We haven't been asked to weigh in on any personnel decisions, and I don't intend to give any opinion about personnel.
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    And we also have not been asked to sort of forecast what should be done with new permit applications, whether they should be granted or rejected.
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    Again, our task was to look critically at the three events, create a summary of what occurred, and then make some recommendations.
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    Now, in the process of doing that work,
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    in three months time.
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    We essentially did this in 90 days from late August until just right after Thanksgiving.
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    We interviewed 150 people, a little bit more.
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    We gave everyone the opportunity to speak without attribution.
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    People, particularly some members of the police department, wanted to provide information but were frankly afraid of being named, being potentially subject to retaliation.
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    So we took information, what we called off the record,
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    and that was true for every witness we spoke to.
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    We talked to a wide array of people.
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    We tried hard not to exclude any stakeholder or relevant group.
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    We wanted to talk to the permit holders, we wanted to talk to counter protesters, regular people in the community that attended, office holders, police officers, state officials, really anyone that had a perspective, we wanted their feedback.
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    We did get a lot of paper.
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    We got a little over half a million documents.
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    We had about 400 hours altogether of video images that we reviewed and a lot of still photographs.
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    We also created an outlet for public contributions.
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    We felt like part of this process was cathartic and we found a lot of people that wanted to tell their story and we created a website, CharlottesvilleIndependentReview.com and a tip line
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    that was available for anyone to call, to use, to provide their perspective.
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    And that was active.
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    We got a lot of valuable information that is included in the report through those, through that, those resources, the website and the tip line.
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    Now importantly, this was not, I know it's, Mr. Signer just introduced this as the HAFE report.
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    I understand that.
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    But I am the, sort of the tip of a big pyramid of people that worked on this.
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    or about 20 at Hunt and Williams.
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    Four lawyers worked on this full time for those three months.
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    We had a team of paralegals and librarians and support staff that poured over a lot of this information and pulled from it things that were relevant.
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    We had people answering those website and tip line inquiries and significantly there were consultants and a couple of them are here actually, Kim Dine, Rachel Harmon and Eddie Reyes are here with me.
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    I reached out right at the beginning
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    to the Police Foundation.
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    The Police Foundation is a national organization headquartered in Washington that studies law enforcement.
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    They do a lot of research.
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    They compile a lot of data about police practices.
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    They do some after action reviews.
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    They provide training and technical assistance to departments.
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    They are non-partisan.
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    They're known for being objective.
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    And we reached out to them and sought their consulting expertise.
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    They gave us Kim Dine.
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    Kim was the police chief in Frederick, Maryland.
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    He was at the US Capitol Police.
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    And Eddie Reyes, who's here in the front row.
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    Eddie was the deputy chief in Alexandria and worked for the Amtrak police.
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    Both of them, through their time in the Washington area, had a fair amount of experience with major demonstration events.
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    So they were very, very useful to us over the course of the review.
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    We also asked Chief Thomas if he had someone in mind that he would offer as an expert, as a consultant.
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    The very first conversation I had with Chief Thomas, I had never met him until I was hired to do this.
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    He recommended Chris Perkins, who's the retired chief in Roanoke.
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    And I knew Chief Perkins from my time in government, and he was not a consultant previously.
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    He'd never done this before, but we asked him if he would be interested in serving as a law enforcement expert, and he agreed.
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    And he was now added to the Police Foundation team as a consultant.
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    And then finally, Rachel Harmon.
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    Rachel's at the law school here at UVA.
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    She is a law enforcement expert.
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    She does a lot of writing, a lot of research and writing about police practices.
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    She's a former Department of Justice civil rights prosecutor, a very accomplished lawyer and law professor.
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    And she too agreed to work with us.
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    So they were present for interviews.
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    They pored over a lot of the information that
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    we obtained.
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    They informed very directly what went right and what went wrong portions of our report and ultimately the recommendations.
  • 00:19:02
    So I understand the easy shorthand of calling this the HAFE report, but I wanted to stress at the beginning that it's really the product of a really fulsome process and the role of the consultants I can't understate.
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    They were absolutely invaluable.
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    I had worked in
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    in the world of law enforcement, but I've never been a police officer.
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    So we really needed people that had been in these situations themselves, and we got that.
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    And the four consultants we had were absolutely invaluable to the process.
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    So the focus of the report, as I said, was what the facts first.
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    We felt strongly that we needed to start with just a common set of objectifiably verifiable facts.
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    When we started there was just a lot of uncertainty and confusion about what may or may not have happened so we wanted to just start with a spine of fact then looking at those facts we wanted to ask what went right and what went wrong at each of those three events and then finally make some hopefully constructive recommendations to you and to the city for ways to go forward.
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    We delivered our report to the city manager and the city attorney
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    on November the 24th.
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    Importantly, we did not deliver that to council and I wanted to stress, you all know this, but to the world that council really had no involvement in this.
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    They received the report when everyone else did last week.
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    And then finally, with respect to scope, I'll just say that when we were hired, Mr. Jones said to me,
  • 00:20:30
    I really want this to be independent, be objective, find out those facts, tell us the truth about what occurred.
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    And he never wavered from that direction in any way.
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    I mean, he, to his credit, essentially stayed out of our way, gave us access to things that we asked for, but he never guided this, pushed this in any direction, never said, hey, look at this or don't look at that.
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    Quite the opposite.
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    He really was.
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    hands off.
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    And I can say that the full report that we prepared has been posted.
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    There's been nothing redacted, nothing taken out of it.
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    The full report that we prepared is now made public.
  • 00:21:07
    So let me start with some sort of guiding principles.
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    As we look at each of the three events, we thought it was important to start with sort of what are the guideposts by which we evaluate success or failure.
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    And it's sort of fundamental, but it
  • 00:21:21
    I think it's important to start with in managing a large demonstration, city governments have to safeguard two fundamental rights which often directly conflict.
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    They're very hard sometimes to reconcile.
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    They're tasked with protecting free expression, however hateful that expression may be, the Constitution enshrines that people have a right to say things in public.
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    At the same time, while protecting free expression, and free expression by the way is for those who
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    apply for permits for it and people that oppose it.
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    Both sides have free speech rights that need to be protected and facilitated in the public square.
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    At the same time, protecting public safety and that's the hard part.
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    A lot of times, speech creates strong emotion.
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    We saw that here all summer and that creates challenges for planners, for cities to balance public safety with free expression.
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    But those are the guideposts and we'll come back to this again and again.
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    How do you simultaneously protect free expression?
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    and public safety.
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    The planning for the events really have to be guided by those values.
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    So let's just march through them.
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    The first event is really the shortest one because there wasn't much preparation.
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    There was really no preparation.
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    On Saturday, May the 13th, Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler, who had only met relatively recently before that at an event in Washington,
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    came together to plan a spontaneous, unpermitted march from McGuffey Park to then Jackson Park, the name had not yet been changed, on that Saturday afternoon.
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    They had about a hundred, a little bit more than a hundred people, flags and chants, they marched and then talked about white nationalism and the protection of the statues, but a broader, identitarian message that they have been
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    preaching at various venues.
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    They did that for about an hour at 1230 that afternoon.
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    It was the same time as the Festival of Cultures was going on in Lee Park and there actually was interaction between some of the Spencer Kessler
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    and some of the attendees at the Festival of Cultures.
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    They went to the table for Germany at the Festival of Cultures and actually engaged with the people there and created some fear on the part of the attendees at the Festival of Cultures.
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    We can't tell if that was purposeful, if it was meant to coincide with that, but there certainly was interaction between the Spencer-Kessler group, some of them, and the attendees at the Festival of Cultures.
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    Later that night, again, unpermanent, unannounced, that same group now goes to the Lee statue, and this time they're carrying torches and chanting various things, and they have a short but vociferous rally at the Lee statue.
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    Neither of these have been planned.
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    There's no law enforcement preparation.
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    There's very little counter protest at both events.
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    People hear about this kind of in real time and appear, and there's some sort of arguing at the end, but no organized kind of counter speech at either event, and that was purposeful.
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    They did this quickly without preparation so as not to draw the organized counter protest.
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    That all happens on Saturday, May 13th, Sunday, May 14th, an organic
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    movement comes together sort of online to that very night have a much larger event, a candlelit vigil where people, faith community and lots of other local sort of anti-racist activists come together and have a spontaneously planned event where the message is about inclusion and diversity and that happens on Sunday night, May the 14th.
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    And there is a scuffle or some disturbance there.
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    I think Mr. Kessler actually comes to that event.
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    and there's some fights and a couple of arrests at that event, May the 14th, but only because of spontaneous response by police.
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    There had been no planning.
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    Now, no permits for any of those.
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    In terms of what went right or what went wrong, it's not much to say other than these events, all three of them, were covered by the existing statutes that govern demonstrations and special events and open flames.
  • 00:25:23
    Right?
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    Charlottesville, as you know, has a regulation.
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    that defines demonstrations and special events and it requires the demonstrations and special events be permitted.
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    They allow planners to provide adequate protection.
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    Those values that we talked about, it helps if the city has notice and is able to create a system by which those values can be protected.
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    So because they were demonstrations, there were more than 50 people, they took place in a public right of way, they could have been stopped by law enforcement.
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    The regulation provides that, that if it is not permitted, then the event could be stopped by law enforcement.
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    But we found that the past practice here had been to
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    really not enforce the permit regulation.
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    There have been lots and lots of events, some frankly organized by members of city council where there have been over 50 people in a public right-of-way, no permit and no interruption.
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    So there's been a very permissive practice to these so-called free speech events and it would have been a double standard of sorts to enforce it against some people but not others.
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    The same thing with respect to the open flame ordinance.
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    There is a currently existing
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    Charlottesville Ordinance which says that you can't use open flames but for some limited circumstances like a backyard barbecue or bonfire without going to the fire marshal and getting a fire safety approved permit.
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    These uses of the torch, uses even of the candles technically violated that open flame ordinance.
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    But again, there's been a tradition of we don't really pay attention to the open flame ordinance and it wasn't something that was enforced here.
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    So with respect to recommendations, our strong advice is that you modify and enforce the permit regulation and the open flame ordinance.
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    If it's going to be there, then it ought to be enforced.
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    We recommend that it should be enforced, particularly for open flames.
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    Because again, we've seen that sometimes these events create very strong emotion and having no notice to city planners creates a dangerous situation.
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    We don't go as far as to say ban open flames.
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    There's a time when particularly those candlelit vigils can be very powerful.
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    And there ought to be an expedited process to get them approved, maybe even as quickly as a day.
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    But they need to be noticed to the city.
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    That is, in our view, what will protect everyone's free speech and safety whenever there's an open flame used or whenever there's a large gathering of over 50 people in the public right of way, a demonstration as defined by statute.
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    And then the last thing we recommend is that the Charlottesville Police Department could use enhanced resources to monitor electronically social media.
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    One of the things we heard was that the department really doesn't have aggregating software or the ability to routinely monitor the kind of chatter that could have picked up these events.
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    While they were spontaneous, they weren't completely unnoticed.
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    There was some electronic communication that led to particularly the Spencer Kessler rally.
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    And at Charlottesville Police,
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    had the capacity to monitor places where those events are discussed, then they could have had notice even without a permit.
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    They didn't have that and that's why they were surprised.
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    So moving on to the July 8th rally, permit was obtained.
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    This one was back in May, the middle of May.
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    Permit was submitted by these residents of North Carolina who were representatives of a Ku Klux Klan group.
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    It led to about a month or so long
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    series of planning by the city, by the city police department, by city manager, by lots of different agencies, and ultimately a multi-agency response.
  • 00:29:04
    There was a strategy, you know, I know this because you were part of it, where city leaders, the city manager, the police chief, and members of council came together and actually had a very coordinated approach to public communications with this event.
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    There were meetings with community groups or partnerships with some other outside entities, particularly the clergy, to create counter-programming, to provide alternatives for people that did not necessarily want to go and face KKK.
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    This consistent message that came through that communications plan was, stay away.
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    Chief Thomas described it to us as, don't take the bait.
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    It was to discourage attendance and plan and promote attendance at these
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    to the public about their options.
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    Here's what's going to happen at Justice Park.
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    Here are the streets that will be closed.
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    Here are the numbers that we expect.
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    Here's how we are preparing for those events.
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    And then here are these other events that we're planning that
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    if you are so inclined, like we, we the officials, city officials, to not go to their other things that you can do.
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    And that gave people in the community options, a chance to decide for themselves, do I want to go and confront or do I want to stay away?
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    It very clearly came together at the United Methodist Church right before the event.
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    There was an interfaith service.
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    A lot of people came together from different perspectives and then from that service,
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    Some people marched directly to Justice Park.
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    They felt strongly that they wanted to confront the hate speech and others marched down the downtown mall to the pavilion where there was concert and other things.
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    But the key is that there was information with which people could sort of choose which side of the fork they were on.
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    Now we did hear over the course of our review that a lot of people felt like that message was somewhat patronizing.
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    They didn't like being told, stay away.
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    They felt strongly that they wanted to go and confront, not stay away, and that the city shouldn't tell them to stay away.
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    I understand that, but the key is that both the event, information about the event and information about the counter events was put forth so that people could make that decision.
  • 00:31:19
    Now the operational plan that was devised by law enforcement
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    created a barricaded area in orange there.
  • 00:31:26
    Let me see if I can, yeah.
  • 00:31:28
    In this area here was where they planned to have the rally itself.
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    They were in communication with the permit holders, this group from North Carolina, and they expected 50, 60 people.
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    And they planned to put them in that central area and surrounded by bike rack barricades.
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    And you see two orange lines because there were two barricades with a buffer zone.
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    in between.
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    We're only about five or six feet between the two barricades, and the other orange lines are single bike rack barriers.
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    The four boxes that you see are four zones in which law enforcement was assigned, one, two, three, and four.
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    There are no barricades there.
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    Those are just areas generally where these officers who were assigned to each zone were to stay.
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    There was one CPD squad of eight, a sergeant and seven officers,
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    and one Virginia State Police squad of eight sergeant and seven troopers.
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    And then each zone had a lieutenant, Charlottesville Police lieutenant, who was assigned to supervise all of the personnel, the CPD and state police.
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    Now, the plan makes a lot of sense, but for one issue, and that is ingress and egress of the rally attendees, the Klansmen.
  • 00:32:45
    The plan was to put them in a surface parking lot
  • 00:32:49
    right here at the top of the screen where they would park their vehicles.
  • 00:32:53
    They were gonna meet at an off-site location and then drive together and park right out there in the open and then just walk in through here, right?
  • 00:33:02
    No plan for any kind of barricades or separation.
  • 00:33:05
    They were just gonna walk down in through this little alleyway and then there was a gate here where they were gonna get in to do the rally.
  • 00:33:12
    Now, predictably, that doesn't work out quite that simply.
  • 00:33:15
    The gate where they were designed to come in quickly was identified, not hard, and it was blocked.
  • 00:33:23
    There were people there, counter protesters, that were kneeling arm in arm to block the entrance to the Klan.
  • 00:33:30
    And they were told they'd be arrested if they didn't move.
  • 00:33:33
    If they didn't move, then they were arrested.
  • 00:33:35
    And there was a large crowd of people out on High Street who were, again, figuring out that this was the area through which the rally
  • 00:33:44
    participants were going to come and they crowded that area.
  • 00:33:47
    So it was necessary for the state police to coming out of the juvenile domestic relations court here to bring their field force out into the street to create a bit of a sort of a gauntlet of riot geared officers to clear a path through which the Klan members could walk.
  • 00:34:06
    That was the first introduction of
  • 00:34:08
    kind of riot suit officers.
  • 00:34:10
    The city police made the decision early to not put their people in riot gear.
  • 00:34:16
    And there's good reason for that.
  • 00:34:17
    The reason for that is that it sort of discourages interaction.
  • 00:34:21
    The theory is that if you put officers in regular uniforms, then they can mill around with the crowd, they can have interaction, they can de-escalate.
  • 00:34:28
    they can prevent problems before they happen and that's actually what happens all through the zones there's a lot of interaction where officers are out and about they're not behind barricades they're out in the crowd and they are watching and they're there in the event something happens riot gear is different that's for the first time a path needs to be cleared here kind of on either side of High Street and then the service parking lot is also kind of overrun there are a lot of people that are down here
  • 00:34:59
    waiting for the Klan.
  • 00:35:01
    So they can't park safely without any interruption on the surface lot.
  • 00:35:05
    So a decision is made kind of last minute for them to go into the garage behind the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
  • 00:35:12
    You can't really see it on this map, but it's up here next to the surface parking lot.
  • 00:35:16
    So the vehicles go into the garage and they're escorted this way through this gauntlet of riot-geared officers.
  • 00:35:24
    They do their
  • 00:35:25
    Rally, the police chief gave them a little bit of extra time because it took a little time to clear the entry point.
  • 00:35:32
    So they went 20 minutes over their allotted time.
  • 00:35:36
    They still had less than the full hour for which they were permitted.
  • 00:35:38
    And then they have to go back.
  • 00:35:40
    And they go back the same way, through the same gauntlet of suited up riot geared officers, back through this courtyard and into the garage.
  • 00:35:50
    Now at this point, the crowd streams around to Fourth Street.
  • 00:35:55
    Lieutenant Hatter on the radio says, I need everybody that you got down here because the large crowd of people flows from Justice Park, it's now Justice Park, it's been renamed and it goes down 4th Street and these are images taken from a surveillance pole camera that was mounted right across the street.
  • 00:36:12
    You can see that large numbers of people as the Klan is leaving are moving around down here.
  • 00:36:18
    This is from the state police helicopter which shows that soon after the event there's a large crowd that is literally blocking the exit of the garage.
  • 00:36:28
    This building here is the door to the parking garage into which the Klan vehicles have gone and from which they'll emerge.
  • 00:36:36
    So that same riot gear squad has to now come down to the parking garage and you can see it's now the state police riot squad, it's the Albemarle County
  • 00:36:47
    Field Force and it's Charlottesville officers who with Lieutenant Hatter's call have all gone and created a sort of a makeshift line of a field force to push the crowd back and clear the entrance.
  • 00:37:02
    This is where the first unlawful assembly is declared and it is successful.
  • 00:37:08
    As you can see this is a picture taken from the roof of the garage.
  • 00:37:11
    The crowd is pushed back to the other side of the street
  • 00:37:15
    and there's enough room for the vehicles to leave the garage and to travel out of the area back in the direction from which they came.
  • 00:37:25
    But that has created a great deal of tension and animosity and our first finding here is that that should not have been necessary.
  • 00:37:34
    that any research about how these events go, any effort to thoroughly prepare to talk to other communities would have shown that they needed a better plan of ingress and egress for these protesters.
  • 00:37:50
    What happened, as you see, was that they parked in the garage, had to walk down this alley and into Justice Park.
  • 00:37:56
    That's a fair amount of space that was open and without protection or separation between
  • 00:38:02
    protesters, counter protesters, it was a dangerous situation and it requires that sort of audible of let's get the field force, let's clear the park, let's declare an unlawful assembly and that ramps up the tension and leads to subsequent problems.
  • 00:38:19
    This is the actual path that the Klan took and it eventually leads to an unlawful assembly.
  • 00:38:26
    What happens up here
  • 00:38:28
    is that after the Klan leaves, the crowd comes back.
  • 00:38:31
    And then right here, right in front of the J&DR Court on High Street, there are disturbances.
  • 00:38:36
    There's some assaults on police officers.
  • 00:38:38
    There's people arrested.
  • 00:38:40
    There's resistance to arrests.
  • 00:38:42
    There's some physical scuffles.
  • 00:38:44
    Police are there.
  • 00:38:45
    People are angry.
  • 00:38:47
    And Gary Pleasance comes down from the command center and declares an unlawful assembly and authorizes the state police to use two canisters of tear gas.
  • 00:38:59
    Now, let me get back to the tear gas, because that's in the what went wrong section.
  • 00:39:03
    But what went right, city officials provided comprehensive information to the community.
  • 00:39:07
    We've talked about that.
  • 00:39:08
    Law enforcement did protect the free speech of all participants.
  • 00:39:11
    The Klan had their rally and so did counter protesters.
  • 00:39:15
    There was active speech on both sides.
  • 00:39:18
    That value is protected and there's no significant injuries or property damage.
  • 00:39:25
    Public safety was protected but I qualify that because it was very difficult to achieve and it left a lot of people injured and certainly emotionally scarred by what happened.
  • 00:39:35
    What went wrong on July 8th, law enforcement failed to operate within a unified command.
  • 00:39:39
    This is going to be a theme that you'll hear me come back to.
  • 00:39:43
    They did have a great deal of assistance from the State Police, from the Albemarle County Police, but they were really operating independently.
  • 00:39:50
    State Police had a separate operational plan, never shared with Charlottesville.
  • 00:39:55
    Charlottesville had an operational plan, didn't include a fulsome description of all the officers.
  • 00:40:01
    There was no joint training of any kind.
  • 00:40:03
    The Charlottesville officers met the troopers that were in those zones with them right then, that very day.
  • 00:40:10
    They also told us that some of the troopers met each other for the first time at that event, that they were from different VSP precincts and had never even met each other.
  • 00:40:21
    So you have all these men and women who were there, supposed to work as part of the same zone as a unit, who'd never even met each other.
  • 00:40:27
    They certainly didn't do any training together.
  • 00:40:29
    And they had an inconsistent understanding of who was in charge.
  • 00:40:32
    State police, Col. Flaherty told us that state police were in charge, that their people have to listen to a sergeant before acting.
  • 00:40:40
    our folks believe, the CPD folks believe, that they were in charge of the unified command.
  • 00:40:45
    So there's inconsistent understanding of authority.
  • 00:40:48
    So while the support of the other agencies is substantial, their lack of coordination makes it a difficult situation.
  • 00:40:57
    Significantly now, there is law enforcement allows media inside of this zone and there's inadequate separation.
  • 00:41:05
    Talked before about the two double barricades.
  • 00:41:07
    That's only about five or six feet.
  • 00:41:10
    Press people end up in the middle here.
  • 00:41:12
    There's a law in Virginia that says that police, excuse me, that reporters have a right to go inside of a police line.
  • 00:41:19
    And that was interpreted by the lieutenants on the ground that they're allowed to go into the barricaded area if they want.
  • 00:41:26
    That was a big mistake because they are literally in between the Klan rally and the very emotional counter protesters.
  • 00:41:33
    They're kind of right in between.
  • 00:41:34
    And they're in the officer's way.
  • 00:41:35
    They're literally in here interspersed with officers who are also
  • 00:41:39
    between that barricade.
  • 00:41:41
    And the separation itself was inadequate.
  • 00:41:43
    Most of the other places where these rallies have occurred have 20, 30 feet or across a full thoroughfare of buffer between.
  • 00:41:52
    The Charlottesville Police Plan was five or six feet.
  • 00:41:54
    That's insufficient.
  • 00:41:56
    And then the big issue, as we said, there was no plan for separation here in the
  • 00:42:01
    Courtyard or the walkway from the garage to the rally.
  • 00:42:06
    That's why the field force was required and that's when the tension escalates.
  • 00:42:10
    They should have seen that.
  • 00:42:11
    They should have created more separation from all the way from a secure garage or parking area into the event and back again.
  • 00:42:20
    and then finally the tear gas.
  • 00:42:21
    The use of tear gas should not have been necessary.
  • 00:42:25
    As I said, the problems arose only after the rally was over.
  • 00:42:30
    This was a relatively peaceful, emotional but relatively peaceful event.
  • 00:42:34
    When the speeches were done, it was over.
  • 00:42:36
    Everyone was leaving.
  • 00:42:37
    That's when it got more dangerous and that could have been prevented with better separation, better planning,
  • 00:42:44
    never would have needed to have an unlawful assembly or tear gas.
  • 00:42:48
    Now the decision to use tear gas was also done in a very haphazard way.
  • 00:42:52
    Chief Thomas actually directed that he would be the one to make the decision.
  • 00:42:56
    State police believed that they would be the ones to make the decision.
  • 00:43:00
    Neither VSP nor Major Pleasance asked for authorization.
  • 00:43:04
    They
  • 00:43:04
    worked it out among themselves on the ground.
  • 00:43:07
    Pleasance told us that he made the decision when the state police said, are we ready to use gas, he said absolutely and fired or ordered the state police to fire the canisters.
  • 00:43:17
    A decision of that magnitude should not be done by the seat of the pants in the middle of a conflict situation.
  • 00:43:25
    And it was, it was not one that was made methodically, carefully with a unified command.
  • 00:43:32
    The city leadership, in our view, after this event failed to respond to community criticism.
  • 00:43:36
    There's a lot of angst about this, a lot of concern about the police use of tear gas.
  • 00:43:43
    And there was very little information that came forth about why that occurred.
  • 00:43:47
    There was some comments here.
  • 00:43:49
    I know Mr. Jones talked about it at a council meeting, and I know that Chief Thomas did briefly talk about it in the press.
  • 00:43:54
    But there was no effort, kind of in a more broad, fulsome way, to describe
  • 00:43:59
    the conditions that led to the field force, the use of the gas, any broader explanation of the forces that were deployed at that event.
  • 00:44:10
    And people came away from this upset with decreased faith in law enforcement and the ability of city government to manage these events.
  • 00:44:18
    Silence leads to fear.
  • 00:44:20
    Silence leads to anger.
  • 00:44:22
    And the relative silence was a big problem that then informs what happens
  • 00:44:29
    on August 12th.
  • 00:44:30
    So going back to the two guiding principles, Charlottesville protected core values on July 8th, well certainly protected free expression, the Klan were permitted to exercise their rights, again they had their rally, and counter protesters also were able
  • 00:44:45
    to show up and shout them down and exercise their free speech.
  • 00:44:50
    Public safety, yes, was protected, but I have to put qualified there because while there were no significant injuries or property damage, 22 people were arrested.
  • 00:44:58
    Two unlawful assemblies were declared.
  • 00:45:00
    Tear gas on the streets of our community was deployed, and that is a problem.
  • 00:45:06
    Yes, public safety is protected.
  • 00:45:08
    You don't have looting.
  • 00:45:09
    You don't have a riot, but it comes at a great cost.
  • 00:45:12
    The real cost, decreased confidence.
  • 00:45:14
    and law enforcement.
  • 00:45:17
    Now, going on to the Unite the Right rally on August 12th.
  • 00:45:20
    Permit filed in May, a little bit after the KKK permit.
  • 00:45:23
    Planning begins in earnest right after July 8th.
  • 00:45:26
    The police department immediately jumped into plans for the event a little over a month in advance.
  • 00:45:33
    Much like KKK, there's a multi-agency response.
  • 00:45:35
    The state police, the National Guard, the Department of Emergency Management, other law enforcement agencies are all brought into the discussion
  • 00:45:44
    This one is attracting national attention and attendance.
  • 00:45:47
    There are a lot of people explicitly invited from far away as part of this Unite the Right rally.
  • 00:45:53
    It was explicitly designed to draw members of different groups, and there was sometimes very little in common between these groups, but it was billed as something that they would hope would attract people from far away.
  • 00:46:07
    Same thing with the counter protesters.
  • 00:46:08
    There was a very organized kind of resistance to Unite the Right that drew a lot of people here from lots of other places that had been involved in similar events in other places.
  • 00:46:19
    And then the intelligence suggested pretty early on and certainly all the way up through August the 12th that this was going to be a very, very volatile event, very strong potential for violence.
  • 00:46:29
    There's a lot of information in open source, a lot of information that people are coming
  • 00:46:34
    armed are coming to provoke, are coming looking for conflict.
  • 00:46:38
    So it was not a surprise that we saw conflict and we saw violence on August 12th.
  • 00:46:44
    That was clearly forecasted in the events.
  • 00:46:48
    Now the operations plan that CPD arrives at for this has five zones.
  • 00:46:53
    I have to point out that this
  • 00:46:56
    diagram actually is switched because the night before the public area became over here next to the library and the Unite the Right area came over here next to Hill and Wood.
  • 00:47:08
    But the zones remain the same.
  • 00:47:09
    There are five law enforcement zones.
  • 00:47:11
    Zone one is here on the street.
  • 00:47:14
    I think that's First Street between, excuse me, Second Street between the library and the park.
  • 00:47:19
    Barricades here, the red, double bike rack barricades.
  • 00:47:23
    Zone two is between the barricades.
  • 00:47:26
    Officers are not in the zones, not out here in the open areas, but in between the bike racks here in the middle and then along the front.
  • 00:47:36
    Zone 3 is over here on the street, again, not in the crowd but in the street behind barricades in front of Hill and Wood.
  • 00:47:43
    Zone four is a completely blocked off public safety area.
  • 00:47:48
    You've got EMS and fire.
  • 00:47:49
    You've got police riot gear on a van up here.
  • 00:47:54
    This is all just law enforcement.
  • 00:47:56
    And then zone five is down here.
  • 00:48:00
    Zone five is the one that's supposed to be on Market Street South.
  • 00:48:04
    Now on the morning of August 12th, the state police say, man, this is dangerous.
  • 00:48:08
    We've got to put a barricade up.
  • 00:48:10
    and they put directed that we put bike racks along around the parking lot and all those officers in zone five are back here in the parking lot.
  • 00:48:20
    All officers then in all five zones as part of a plan
  • 00:48:24
    are behind barricades.
  • 00:48:27
    This is important, very different from July 8th, where you had officers milling around in the crowd, in soft uniforms, de-escalating, talking to people.
  • 00:48:35
    On August 12th, the plan called for all of them to be behind barricades.
  • 00:48:41
    In soft shirts, the same theory being that helps de-escalate, but the problem is that they're not interacting with people, they're standing back behind barricades.
  • 00:48:50
    and that was the plan.
  • 00:48:51
    That was explicitly what was expected to happen.
  • 00:48:57
    Now let's talk about what went wrong.
  • 00:49:00
    A lot went wrong.
  • 00:49:01
    The Charlottesville Police Department did not seek input from law enforcement personnel experienced in handling similar events.
  • 00:49:08
    We knew that this was going to be unprecedented, certainly for Charlottesville.
  • 00:49:14
    and we knew that a lot of these same groups had been in Pikeville, Kentucky in April, had been in Berkeley, California, had been fighting in the street in Berkeley, had been in Portland, Oregon.
  • 00:49:24
    There had been other instances where these right wing groups had clashed with counter protesters and we didn't call, we didn't reach out.
  • 00:49:35
    Now there was some contact where they actually reached out to Charlottesville police officers and there was some communication
  • 00:49:41
    But Captain Mitchell, the incident commander said none of that mattered, didn't make it into our operational plan.
  • 00:49:47
    So they do not identify their own lack of experience and reach out and gather intel from other police departments.
  • 00:49:57
    They do spend a lot of time talking to the state police.
  • 00:49:59
    The state police are involved in their weekly meetings every Tuesday morning.
  • 00:50:03
    Virginia State Police and Charlottesville Police and some other agencies, the fire folks would meet and they would talk about plans.
  • 00:50:10
    But Colonel Flaherty, the superintendent of the state police told us that state police is deferential to local control.
  • 00:50:16
    They feel strongly that when it comes to events of this magnitude, local police know the community better than they.
  • 00:50:22
    And they're there to provide advice or certainly there to provide resources, but they're deferential to plans made by the local police.
  • 00:50:30
    And I think that creates kind of a false sense of security.
  • 00:50:33
    As we heard from Chief Thomas and Captain Mitchell, the state police was involved all the way through and they never voiced
  • 00:50:40
    Any issue with our plan, state police said, well, this is Charlottesville's plan and we're going to do, we're going to plug in as they direct.
  • 00:50:47
    Charlottesville police command staff told us that they felt prepared.
  • 00:50:51
    Captain Mitchell was the incident commander for this.
  • 00:50:53
    He was the person in charge of the plan and I said to him, what experience had you had in this, planning this kind of event?
  • 00:51:00
    He said, well, we'd had the Wortland Street block party.
  • 00:51:02
    We'd done that many times where we had thousands of people out on the street.
  • 00:51:08
    And yes, this is a fundamentally different, fundamentally different kind of event than a lot of college students who are drinking in public.
  • 00:51:17
    It told us that they'd had dignitary visits, that there had been presidential visits, that there had been, you know, the Dalai Lama had been here.
  • 00:51:26
    And again, those are events where the Secret Service comes in with their own vehicles and their own plan.
  • 00:51:32
    And there was a sense in our interviews from the leadership of the department
  • 00:51:37
    that they had this.
  • 00:51:38
    They were prepared because of the things that had happened here before.
  • 00:51:43
    And I want to stress that in this, what went wrong, failure to plan, this is not an intelligence failure.
  • 00:51:49
    We did not identify.
  • 00:51:50
    Now, they didn't know everything and they didn't have every person, you know, a dossier on every person who was coming, but they knew generally that this was going to be a volatile, dangerous event with people coming to fight.
  • 00:52:01
    That was not a surprise.
  • 00:52:05
    Now, not only did they not reach out and plan effectively, but they did not provide adequate training or information to officers in advance of the event.
  • 00:52:13
    There is no all-hands meeting where all officers, even within the Charlottesville Police Department, come together to get general, we're all on the same page, instructions.
  • 00:52:23
    There's no training on de-escalation or arrest procedures.
  • 00:52:27
    There's no field force preparation.
  • 00:52:30
    and a field force is an unusual event.
  • 00:52:32
    It's when officers in those riot gears actually disperse a crowd and typically the field force is something that's trained like out in a field and everybody marches in line and it's very militarized.
  • 00:52:45
    They never did that.
  • 00:52:46
    The only time the officers had field force training was in the academy.
  • 00:52:51
    Some of them it was 10, 12 years ago.
  • 00:52:54
    They had never even, some of them had never even worn the field force
  • 00:52:58
    equipment, the ballistic helmet or the shield or the body armor, never put it on.
  • 00:53:04
    Putting it on for the first time the morning of August 12th.
  • 00:53:08
    I never even knew how to put a gas mask underneath a ballistic helmet.
  • 00:53:13
    Figuring it out literally in Emancipation Park that morning.
  • 00:53:17
    Now there is some training but it's in roll call.
  • 00:53:20
    Every officer when he or she starts the shift meets with the lieutenant or sergeant and there's some information presented
  • 00:53:27
    at Roll Call.
  • 00:53:28
    And there's some Roll Call training with some policies, some statutes that might be implicated.
  • 00:53:33
    And then there's an email sent to the entire department on Tuesday, August 8th, I think it was, with three policies, the use of force policy, protection of the First Amendment.
  • 00:53:44
    It's 30 pages and it's sent by email to every officer.
  • 00:53:48
    It's not even made mandatory.
  • 00:53:49
    It says, look at this before Saturday.
  • 00:53:51
    That's the extent of the substantive training, the roll call, direction, and the email that goes out on Tuesday.
  • 00:53:58
    We talked to a lot of police officers who said, I had no idea what to expect.
  • 00:54:02
    I wish I knew what we're supposed to do.
  • 00:54:04
    Their body camera footage where you have officers turn to each other and say, you know what we're supposed to do?
  • 00:54:10
    I don't know what we're supposed to do.
  • 00:54:11
    That happened repeatedly.
  • 00:54:15
    And it's a product of this.
  • 00:54:16
    It's a product of the lack of
  • 00:54:18
    adequate training and information that was provided to officers in advance of the event.
  • 00:54:25
    Another significant shortcoming in our view is that the city waits way too long to request the specialized assistance of the Department of Emergency Management.
  • 00:54:34
    Now the VDEM, the Department of Emergency Management, has something called the Incident Management Teams.
  • 00:54:41
    These are police and fire and EMS people in departments around the state
  • 00:54:48
    who get special training on emergency management.
  • 00:54:51
    And when an IMT, an Incident Management Team, is staffed up, they go to the potential area of the emergency and they do planning.
  • 00:55:01
    They provide unified plans.
  • 00:55:03
    They coordinate between agencies.
  • 00:55:04
    They bring resources.
  • 00:55:06
    They have GPS trackers, for instance, that they put on officers who then the command staff can see where they are in the midst of a large crowd.
  • 00:55:15
    They have radio communication equipment.
  • 00:55:17
    they can bring in department personnel from far away.
  • 00:55:22
    They provide expertise in emergency management.
  • 00:55:26
    We'd had one actually here for the search for Hannah Graham years ago.
  • 00:55:30
    We had used an incident management team in Charlottesville for that and there had been, they'd been used for big storms before.
  • 00:55:36
    They're often used when it comes to hurricanes or snow storms but they're
  • 00:55:41
    Chief Baxter, or Fire Chief, several times, beginning in late July, recommends an IMT in preparation for the Unite the Right event.
  • 00:55:52
    And Chief Thomas is resistant.
  • 00:55:54
    Now, to be fair, Chief Thomas told us that the State Police told him that they were also opposed to an IMT.
  • 00:56:02
    Chief Thomas and Captain Mitchell said that the State Police said, if you get too many people, too many planners in here, it's going to confuse things.
  • 00:56:08
    So they are resistant to calling in these emergency management professionals.
  • 00:56:13
    Finally, on Wednesday, August 9th, when there's a move to have the permit shifted to McIntyre Park, and it now looks like there's planning for two separate sites, that's when Chief Thomas agrees, let's ask for an incident management team.
  • 00:56:28
    And it does come in on Wednesday, August 9th.
  • 00:56:30
    They do gather the CPD and the CFD operations plans, notably not the state police plan,
  • 00:56:38
    consolidate those plans.
  • 00:56:39
    They do bring resources, communications equipment, those GPS trackers.
  • 00:56:43
    They do bring resources and they add value.
  • 00:56:45
    But the problem is that it's very, very late in the game.
  • 00:56:48
    If they'd had two weeks or three weeks before to provide their expertise and their resources, we say that would have been much better.
  • 00:56:57
    Now this one we talked about in my individual meetings with you.
  • 00:57:02
    The council, in our view, unduly interfered with operational planning
  • 00:57:06
    by directing that the event be moved to McIntyre Park just days in advance.
  • 00:57:11
    And I don't have to tell you about this because you were right in the center of it, but there's a lack of deference to city staff.
  • 00:57:17
    We heard from the city manager, from the police chief that they were resistant to this, that they believed that it was going to be very difficult as a matter of law to move the event because of the lack of intelligence about an actionable, specific and credible threat of violence.
  • 00:57:34
    that it was going to be complicated in terms of planning because there had been a great deal of effort already put into the plan for Emancipation Park and they were very concerned about the timing.
  • 00:57:43
    This comes up at a closed meeting of council just 10 days before and there's a concern that if we try to do this now, then it is complicated because we're right on the doorstep of the event.
  • 00:57:54
    To be fair, that there was a great deal of public pressure.
  • 00:57:57
    There were a lot of people hounding you about the fact that this needs to be canceled, this needs to be moved,
  • 00:58:03
    merchants in the downtown mall, you have a lot of people saying, the public sentiment clearly was, we don't want this in our community.
  • 00:58:11
    And in response to that, the answer is, okay, well, we're going to move it to McIntyre Park.
  • 00:58:16
    We're going to try to move it to McIntyre Park.
  • 00:58:19
    But there's little going back to the community about how hard that is, what the legal standards are, and why the planning is complicated when you late in the game move it.
  • 00:58:29
    And the result is uncertainty.
  • 00:58:30
    There's confusion in the public and there's confusion in the planning.
  • 00:58:35
    And it leads to this.
  • 00:58:36
    The city of Charlottesville does not provide adequate information to the public about plans for this event.
  • 00:58:41
    There's very limited communication about plans, whether it's road closures or what to expect at the event or nothing really, very little about alternative programming.
  • 00:58:51
    There's a failure to educate the public about what's going to happen with law enforcement.
  • 00:58:55
    This is what you might see.
  • 00:58:57
    This is the plan to keep everyone safe.
  • 00:59:00
    Communications are handicapped by the uncertainty about the location.
  • 00:59:04
    How can the city manager put out a traffic plan?
  • 00:59:07
    that shows blockage around Emancipation Park when the city's position in litigation is the event's going to happen at McIntyre Park.
  • 00:59:14
    There's also a missed opportunity for intel gathering and community support.
  • 00:59:17
    We talked to a lot of people in the community that not only wanted information, they wanted help.
  • 00:59:22
    They wanted to say, hey, these houses on this block are available for officers to rest or use the bathroom or we want to provide food and drink.
  • 00:59:30
    And they had no place to go because of this lack of communication.
  • 00:59:34
    This is a huge contrast with July 8th.
  • 00:59:36
    On July 8th there really was complete communication that helps people make informed decisions.
  • 00:59:42
    On August 12th there is not the same level of communication so there's more uncertainty and more fear.
  • 00:59:50
    Another mistake in our view is that the planners mistakenly believed that they could not limit the possession of certain items used as weapons at the Unite the Right rally.
  • 00:59:59
    Now the Commonwealth's Attorney does suggest in some email communication with Captain Mitchell and Captain Lewis that you can't prohibit sticks, shields, flag poles unless there's a pre-existing prohibition on those items.
  • 01:00:13
    And his concern is it can't be tied to the content of the speech.
  • 01:00:18
    It has to be content neutral.
  • 01:00:19
    If it's preexisting and uniformly enforced, then it's content neutral.
  • 01:00:23
    But if you do it in response to this event, it might appear to a judge as if it's targeting this one particular kind of speech.
  • 01:00:30
    He does a little bit of research and provides that information.
  • 01:00:33
    In our view, that was a mistake, that that's not accurate.
  • 01:00:37
    That you can't, localities can limit the possession of items that threaten public safety, except for guns.
  • 01:00:45
    Absolutely clear.
  • 01:00:49
    Our General Assembly, our enlightened leadership in Richmond, has indicated that it is against the law in Virginia for a locality
  • 01:01:00
    to restrict the open carrying of firearms under any circumstance.
  • 01:01:04
    That's a state law.
  • 01:01:05
    So there's no way that Charlottesville's police, Charlottesville's city planners could have precluded the possession of guns because of 152915.
  • 01:01:15
    But that statute is limited to guns.
  • 01:01:18
    You can limit possession of other items.
  • 01:01:19
    Now that would be difficult because you've got to find a way
  • 01:01:23
    to search people or to pass them through a checkpoint.
  • 01:01:25
    We'll come back to this in our recommendations.
  • 01:01:27
    It would have been hard, but it would have been possible to ban those other items.
  • 01:01:32
    In the police department, this is not their mistake because they were told that you can't do it.
  • 01:01:35
    It was the lawyers that said that they couldn't do it.
  • 01:01:39
    Now the owners of private property adjacent to the park refused access to their facilities, which hampered law enforcement response.
  • 01:01:48
    Captain Mitchell who's the incident commander early in the planning process reaches out to the property owners right around Emancipation Park and he needs their help.
  • 01:01:57
    He needs access to their buildings.
  • 01:01:59
    Hill and Wood Funeral Home says yes, we will turn over our facility to you.
  • 01:02:03
    You can use it for a staging area for law enforcement.
  • 01:02:07
    Christ Episcopal Church initially says, yes, you can use our parish hall to stage a field force.
  • 01:02:12
    The Jefferson Madison Library originally says, yes, you can use our facility for however you want to use it operationally.
  • 01:02:21
    As the event gets closer, both of these two buildings are withdrawn.
  • 01:02:25
    The offer to use those facilities for law enforcement staging is withdrawn.
  • 01:02:30
    Christ Church says, no, we're not going to let you use
  • 01:02:34
    Now, what happens there is that a state police field force comes unannounced, traipses through the facility, starts talking about snipers on the roof, well beyond what the parish hall for the field force, which the rector had agreed to,
  • 01:02:50
    and there's a real disconnect between their sort of expectation and what the church thought they were agreeing to and that's what causes them to say, wait a minute, we're not sure that this is safe for our facility or a good use of our resources.
  • 01:03:03
    Jefferson Madison Library, I don't know frankly the story, we don't know the story of why they withdrew
  • 01:03:09
    I think the director initially said yes but they're bored and then pulled that back and said no.
  • 01:03:14
    And that's a huge problem because then two buildings right on either side of the park where officers initially thought that they would have access, they're no longer available so they've got to find other places farther away for people to stage.
  • 01:03:28
    And what happens is that instead of the library and Christ Church, the Virginia State Police field forces are staged all the way over here at Jessup House
  • 01:03:39
    7th and Jefferson.
  • 01:03:41
    And then I think the second, instead of Christ Church, they end up at the Omni.
  • 01:03:48
    So now you have four full state police field forces.
  • 01:03:51
    There's 52 officers who are waiting in these locations to be called in.
  • 01:03:57
    They're the ones, just like we talked about on July 8th, whose job it is to wade into crowds and to quell disturbance or react to an unlawful assembly.
  • 01:04:07
    So instead of being right here,
  • 01:04:09
    Now, one's here and one's here.
  • 01:04:13
    So when the unlawful assembly is declared, this field force has to march in their riot gear all the way here.
  • 01:04:20
    And that ends up taking a long time, as we'll see.
  • 01:04:23
    So they could have come from here, boom, right into the park.
  • 01:04:25
    Instead, they come from here.
  • 01:04:27
    And it takes a long, long time.
  • 01:04:29
    Hill and Wood is next door and they come right out.
  • 01:04:33
    The two come from the Omni and city space to block the downtown mall.
  • 01:04:40
    Now, we wrestled a little bit with whether to include this in the report, but we felt like it was important because it bears upon August 12th.
  • 01:04:47
    That's the night of Friday night, August 11th.
  • 01:04:51
    University of Virginia Police Department refused multiple offers of mutual aid assistance from CPD, resulting in violent encounters that emboldened protesters at the Unite the Right rally.
  • 01:05:02
    There's a lot of information.
  • 01:05:03
    Even now, we've learned some days in advance
  • 01:05:07
    that there's going to be some sort of torchlit event, some kind of march at the university.
  • 01:05:13
    Definitely by 3 o'clock that afternoon there's very specific intelligence that there's going to be a torchlit event at Nameless Field going to the Rotunda.
  • 01:05:22
    The University of Virginia Police Department, again, kind of like the Wortland Street Block Party says, we got this.
  • 01:05:29
    And their response is, we'll monitor it, we'll watch it, we'll sort of follow along and see what happens.
  • 01:05:35
    Three times Charlottesville officers offer assistance.
  • 01:05:38
    Both in advance, Chief Thomas and Chief Lance from the county say, hey, do you need us?
  • 01:05:43
    We can invoke mutual aid and be there with you.
  • 01:05:46
    and they're told no, we'll let you know if we need it.
  • 01:05:48
    And during the march itself, three times, Charlottesville officers, now we see the numbers, you see the threat and the torches, offer to help, to step in and they're told no.
  • 01:05:59
    It isn't until violence ensues where there's the use of the torch to strike and there are fights right around that statue.
  • 01:06:05
    Finally, the Charlottesville police officers who are standing right across the street are brought in, they declare an unlawful assembly and the crowd is dispersed.
  • 01:06:14
    So there's a horrible lack of preparation to anticipate that this was going to be a violent event.
  • 01:06:19
    This was not a free speech event where people were just going to come and talk for a few minutes and go home.
  • 01:06:24
    This was an event where people were here to intimidate, were bent on provocation and violence.
  • 01:06:30
    And the fact that the university did not see that, did not separate, did not have officers there to keep the disturbance from occurring,
  • 01:06:39
    Easy for us to say now, but very disappointing.
  • 01:06:42
    And it is relevant to August 12th because what happens is that it increases attendance and anxiety for the next day.
  • 01:06:48
    We talked to a lot of people who said, I wasn't going to go necessarily down to
  • 01:06:54
    to the Unite the Right rally.
  • 01:06:55
    But when I saw what happened on that Friday night, I knew I needed to be there.
  • 01:06:59
    I needed to be there to show up against this.
  • 01:07:03
    And we heard, frankly, from some of the marchers that the lack of law enforcement response actually sort of emboldened them, made them think, this is passive, they're gonna let us do this.
  • 01:07:14
    And that emboldened them in their conduct the next day.
  • 01:07:18
    So the lack of law enforcement response set a tone, increased attendance and anxiety,
  • 01:07:23
    informs the next morning and that's why we included this section in the report.
  • 01:07:29
    Now, getting to the day and sort of one of the significant findings, law enforcement did not adequately ensure separation between the Unite the Right demonstrators and the counter protesters.
  • 01:07:41
    Officers were behind barricades unable to engage the crowd, right?
  • 01:07:46
    The plan called for a lot of officers.
  • 01:07:50
    Each zone had 32 people.
  • 01:07:52
    So that's what, 150, 160 officers.
  • 01:07:55
    But all of them were back behind fences.
  • 01:07:58
    Nobody out here milling around with the crowd.
  • 01:08:03
    The plan called for them.
  • 01:08:05
    This was not an accident.
  • 01:08:06
    The purposeful plan was to put them behind barricades.
  • 01:08:11
    and there's insufficient attention to ensuring ingress and egress, right?
  • 01:08:16
    Officers knew that the marchers were going to be coming up Market Street, right?
  • 01:08:21
    They knew that they were going to be dropped off down at the bottom of the hill from these vans that were going to take them to the Commonwealth Center and they were going to walk up the street and go into the park.
  • 01:08:30
    That's why Unite the Right became this side and the public area became this side.
  • 01:08:34
    They also knew that they were going to park in the Market Street garage.
  • 01:08:37
    They left
  • 01:08:38
    the Market Street Garage outside of the traffic perimeter because they knew that people were going to park there and then walk up the street into the park.
  • 01:08:47
    Yet the plan does not provide for any officers there.
  • 01:08:51
    There is one officer between the Market Street Garage and this corner.
  • 01:08:56
    So you have people, right, lots of people, again very emotional, who are out here
  • 01:09:01
    and you have these columns of Confederate flag-waving protesters coming here for this event through this crowd.
  • 01:09:09
    Same thing over here.
  • 01:09:11
    Completely predictable.
  • 01:09:13
    And the fact that there are no officers assigned other than behind these barricades is a horrible misalignment of resources.
  • 01:09:21
    We actually found that prior versions of the plan actually did call for officers to be out on Market Street, right?
  • 01:09:29
    an earlier version of the plan that's dated July 20th.
  • 01:09:33
    And look, we've got 20 officers that are going to be down here on Market Street.
  • 01:09:39
    Another 20 officers are going to be down here at the corner.
  • 01:09:41
    These are the hot spots.
  • 01:09:42
    This is where the violence ultimately occurs.
  • 01:09:45
    And one earlier version of the plan had officers there as well as in Zone 5 here in the parking lot.
  • 01:09:52
    Actually, they had officers up here along High Street as well.
  • 01:09:55
    Now you'll notice that this also has a field force in the library, which was later withdrawn, and a field force up here, which was also withdrawn.
  • 01:10:07
    So as the field forces are withdrawn and those buildings aren't available, these officers end up getting withdrawn back into
  • 01:10:14
    the Zones instead of being out here.
  • 01:10:17
    So, again, horrible misalignment of people in places where there's really nobody, nobody's protesting or fighting on the street next to the library or on the street next to Helen Hewitt.
  • 01:10:29
    They're out on the street and the officers aren't there.
  • 01:10:33
    Now, not only are they not there, but their explicit instructions are that they not intervene in violent disorders, not respond to calls for assistance.
  • 01:10:41
    And we talked about this in the report.
  • 01:10:44
    and the zone commanders for the Charlottesville Police Department told us that their instructions were to officers only respond to serious violence.
  • 01:10:52
    Unless someone's getting killed, we're not going out there.
  • 01:10:55
    Similarly, the state police say, we're going off plan.
  • 01:11:00
    We're not going to wade into that mess on Market Street.
  • 01:11:02
    As I said, early in the morning on August 12th, when the state police get here, they say, let's put some bike racks up here.
  • 01:11:11
    And then their ground commander
  • 01:11:13
    tells Captain Shifflett, who's the ground commander for the Charlottesville Police, we're going off plan.
  • 01:11:18
    We're not going to wade into the mess on Market Street.
  • 01:11:22
    So they're explicitly saying that they're there for park security, not to interrupt disturbances.
  • 01:11:27
    And that becomes true.
  • 01:11:29
    We talked to lots of people who went to the state police and said, hey, look what's going on.
  • 01:11:34
    There are people fighting.
  • 01:11:35
    Or that guy has a gun.
  • 01:11:36
    And they're told, not our job.
  • 01:11:43
    So the instructions to officers and the misalignment
  • 01:11:46
    are huge problems.
  • 01:11:47
    Now, the reasons we were told why this is, first the misalignment, too many in the park, not enough on Market Street.
  • 01:11:53
    The other issue is the protective gear.
  • 01:11:55
    The reason that the state police told us they weren't going out there was because they weren't protected.
  • 01:11:59
    They were in soft uniforms.
  • 01:12:00
    Their riot gear was inaccessible.
  • 01:12:02
    They made a decision, and I don't criticize the decision to stay in soft uniforms.
  • 01:12:06
    Our experts have said that that makes a lot of sense if the officers are engaging.
  • 01:12:12
    The reason, again, you're doing it,
  • 01:12:15
    is that that creates interaction.
  • 01:12:16
    The problem is that they don't get the benefit of the soft uniforms because they're standing back behind the barricades.
  • 01:12:22
    And then the other issue is that it's very quickly evident to the Charlottesville police officers that they can't rely on the state police for support.
  • 01:12:29
    And we talked to officers who said that the trooper next to them, who they had just met that day, never trained together, never met, said, hey, just so you know, we're not, you know, our instructions are we're not going over those barricades.
  • 01:12:41
    So they quickly get the message that they're kind of alone.
  • 01:12:44
    and even with serious violence, which is their instruction, state police aren't necessarily going to be there for them.
  • 01:12:51
    Now there are times when officers actually do engage.
  • 01:12:55
    This is from a body camera of Lieutenant Hatter.
  • 01:12:58
    He is the zone commander for Zone 5 and at about 1030 he actually leaps the barricade and you see a state police officer goes with him and he confronts this flag carrier who's had a dispute over that green flag.
  • 01:13:10
    The militia, who you can see over here, actually have been the first to respond and kind of created
  • 01:13:16
    a separation between him and this other guy and then Hatter comes in with a state police officer and says, back off.
  • 01:13:22
    He doesn't arrest anybody, he just disrupts it.
  • 01:13:25
    So there are times when, Chief Thomas has said this, this is accurate, there was at least one time where a police officer comes out over the barricade and does do a de-escalation.
  • 01:13:38
    Well, it actually happens again up at second and high.
  • 01:13:41
    There's a disturbance at second and high where they go and respond to a disorder.
  • 01:13:47
    But that's at 1030.
  • 01:13:49
    Significantly, by 1055, the crowd is much, much bigger and there are people fighting out here
  • 01:13:58
    at the intersection of Second and Market.
  • 01:13:59
    And this is a shot from a body camera that shows the perspective of the officers.
  • 01:14:03
    This is zone one, the zone that's right there on the street between the library and the park.
  • 01:14:08
    and you can see the officers standing and watching and you can see the state police standing and watching.
  • 01:14:12
    There are times when people come over to this barricade and say, hey, look, people are fighting.
  • 01:14:18
    Do your job.
  • 01:14:19
    And the response is essentially silence.
  • 01:14:22
    And they're following orders.
  • 01:14:23
    They're doing what they were told to do, standing back guarding the park but not responding to the violence that occurs here.
  • 01:14:31
    As you all know from what we saw on television, this is the area
  • 01:14:35
    where there's violence occurring, and they're back behind barricades, not engaging.
  • 01:14:41
    Now, not only are they not engaging, but they're not deploying available resources to respond.
  • 01:14:47
    Instead of moving toward the violence, what happens at 1055, at 11, when the conflict speeds up, is they're sent back.
  • 01:14:57
    They're sent to get their riot gear, and they're sent back to zone four.
  • 01:15:02
    Instead of going toward the violence, what they do is they're all sent back here to Zone 4.
  • 01:15:07
    This is where their riot gear is.
  • 01:15:09
    Except for Zone 5.
  • 01:15:10
    This is in the Wells Fargo building.
  • 01:15:11
    So Zone 5 goes into the lobby of the Wells Fargo building.
  • 01:15:14
    One, two, and three all end up back here.
  • 01:15:18
    So when there's fighting going on, the plan calls for all the officers to go back to Zone 4, get your riot gear on, and prepare for an unlawful assembly.
  • 01:15:26
    Nobody is left, even at the barricades at this point, nobody is sent into the crowd.
  • 01:15:33
    And there are units available.
  • 01:15:36
    There were three Virginia State Police SWAT units staged nearby.
  • 01:15:40
    The Charlottesville Police SWAT unit was nearby.
  • 01:15:43
    The Albemarle County field force and their SWAT team, that's 12 and 8, are down at the county office building waiting to be called.
  • 01:15:51
    They're not called, they're not sent into the crowd.
  • 01:15:55
    Instead, everybody's preparing for an unlawful assembly, which is clear the area with the field force and try to send everybody home.
  • 01:16:03
    So there's insufficient flexibility.
  • 01:16:05
    This is the point.
  • 01:16:06
    On July 8th, they adjusted to changing conditions.
  • 01:16:09
    They called those audibles and got the group into the garage and had the field force clear a path.
  • 01:16:16
    On August 12th, they stuck to the plan.
  • 01:16:18
    The plan all along was, when there's a disorder, we're going to declare an unlawful assembly.
  • 01:16:22
    CPD becomes rear guard to the state police field force who clears the park.
  • 01:16:27
    And that's what happens.
  • 01:16:28
    1043, the officers in Zone 5 are pulled to Wells Fargo to put on the right gear.
  • 01:16:33
    They never go back to the zone.
  • 01:16:35
    At 11 o'clock, Captain Shifflett, who's the ground commander, says, request permission to call an unlawful assembly.
  • 01:16:41
    at 11, all officers are sent back to Zone 4 to gear up.
  • 01:16:45
    Nobody left even at the barricades.
  • 01:16:47
    And this is a point where we've got two different people, Chief Thomas' own assistant and Captain Lewis who told us that his response to this is let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.
  • 01:17:01
    And the state police
  • 01:17:03
    The state police say we have to extract our undercover officers.
  • 01:17:07
    Now the plan is before the unlawful assembly is declared, the state police have 20 officers who are in plain clothes who are out in the crowd.
  • 01:17:16
    and the plan is before you can declare an unlawful assembly and move the crowd, they need to be extracted and that takes a while.
  • 01:17:22
    So there's a gap where they're being extracted, everybody's going back to get geared up and you have to get that tactical field force from the Jessup building which is at 7th and Jefferson all the way to Emancipation Park.
  • 01:17:34
    So it takes a long time, it's not until 1130
  • 01:17:38
    from when Captain Shifflett requested it, even from 1045 when it's contemplated because the officers in Zone 5 are getting geared up that it's declared.
  • 01:17:45
    And all this time is when people are fighting on Market Street without any interruption from law enforcement.
  • 01:17:54
    Now then, when the unlawful assembly is declared, they actually push the protesters, the alt-right folks, back into Market Street.
  • 01:18:03
    The crowd is pushed directly from the park straight south.
  • 01:18:06
    No movement of officers to the ingress or egress point.
  • 01:18:10
    We knew by now that everybody had come in along Market Street, that they'd walked up the hill from Commonwealth Center, that they'd walked down from the Market Street garage.
  • 01:18:18
    So instead of putting officers there, anticipating that that's the path that they'll travel out to protect separation,
  • 01:18:26
    Nobody is there.
  • 01:18:27
    They're still not sticking to the plan of just clearing the park.
  • 01:18:30
    So predictably, it's in the egress, it's as the push happens that you see more violence.
  • 01:18:35
    You see the flame thrower in the gunshot, you see the punches in the face, you see the DeAndre Harris beating in the garage.
  • 01:18:42
    That's all after the Unawful Assembly because people are leaving through the same direction and there's no law enforcement presence on those paths whatsoever.
  • 01:18:52
    Two CPD squads actually stay in the park for hours, guarding the park after the unlawful assembly has been declared.
  • 01:19:00
    Two other squads are sent to chase disorders.
  • 01:19:04
    They're deployed to go to the Water Street parking lot, to go over to Justice Park, but they consistently get there after everything has occurred.
  • 01:19:15
    Now, the traffic plan.
  • 01:19:17
    Another big issue with respect to the planning
  • 01:19:20
    is that the traffic plan placed insufficient resources at particular intersections and left the downtown mall vulnerable to a vehicle used as a weapon.
  • 01:19:29
    The traffic plan, which is here, had various points at which unsworn personnel were located.
  • 01:19:38
    At first and high, you had Diane Houchin, who's a lab tech, she's not a police officer, by herself.
  • 01:19:45
    You had an officer who's an animal control officer.
  • 01:19:48
    at Second and High.
  • 01:19:49
    They don't have weapons.
  • 01:19:50
    They're not police officers.
  • 01:19:51
    They're alone at these intersections.
  • 01:19:54
    They treated this like they treated a football game at Scott Stadium.
  • 01:19:58
    The same people, literally, who do traffic for football games were assigned to do perimeter security, right?
  • 01:20:04
    These are barriers preventing vehicle traffic into this protest area, and they're not even staffed by sworn police officers.
  • 01:20:14
    They also didn't use harder barricades as suggested by Public Works.
  • 01:20:18
    We found evidence of a meeting that's convened where the director of Public Works, Paul Oberdorf, actually says, well, we have these plastic barricades that you can fill with water and they can block a street.
  • 01:20:32
    And there's a concern expressed, a legitimate concern, about what about emergency vehicles?
  • 01:20:36
    How can we use barricades if you need to get a fire truck in
  • 01:20:39
    and his response is the fire trucks push right through these.
  • 01:20:42
    They're heavy enough that they can move them and he recommends that they be used and everybody comes out of that meeting thinking that they will be used but it never gets into the plan.
  • 01:20:50
    It's an oversight.
  • 01:20:51
    No one makes a decision not to but it doesn't make it in to the traffic plan.
  • 01:20:56
    What makes it in are just these jersey, these saw horses, these plastic or wooden saw horses, not dump trucks, not jersey barriers.
  • 01:21:06
    And now significantly, 4th and Market is the intersection we'll talk about.
  • 01:21:10
    There's a squad car that is placed in Market Street that blocks travel down toward the park.
  • 01:21:16
    And then there's a barricade, a single sawhorse here, and there's a police officer who's assigned there.
  • 01:21:23
    And then these boxes are also places where you have cars and officers.
  • 01:21:29
    Now, what goes wrong is that the officer who's there is a school resource officer.
  • 01:21:33
    She's been on
  • 01:21:34
    Lee for elbow surgery for a couple of months.
  • 01:21:37
    This is her first day back from light duty, and she doesn't receive any intelligence.
  • 01:21:43
    She has no guidance about what the plan is, about what the plan is for crowd dispersal.
  • 01:21:49
    After the unlawful assembly is declared at 12 14, she comes on the radio and says, They're pushing the crowd my way, and I have nobody here to help me.
  • 01:21:55
    And this is this is an emotional
  • 01:21:57
    plea because people are streaming by her angry at the police, angry at each other.
  • 01:22:02
    It's a dangerous and volatile situation.
  • 01:22:05
    So rather than send reinforcements, Charlottesville planners in the command center leave the intersection uncovered.
  • 01:22:11
    The command center directs officers from the mall to respond.
  • 01:22:14
    They do.
  • 01:22:15
    The officer moves up to the Market Street garage and then her vehicle is moved and there's no reassignment of personnel.
  • 01:22:22
    Here's a photo at 1030 and there's the officer in the
  • 01:22:25
    intersection, there's the plastic barricade and there's the squad car and as you know you can see these are people streaming in from the garage heading, this is still before the unlawful assembly is declared, toward the park.
  • 01:22:38
    This is her by herself.
  • 01:22:41
    Now 1215 is just, she at 1214 requests the assistance so at this point she has just been relieved.
  • 01:22:47
    I think this is actually the body camera footage of one of the officers that comes to retrieve her.
  • 01:22:52
    and you see your car is where it's been all morning and you see the barricade.
  • 01:22:58
    And then the barricade still, same thing, 1216, but you can see how easy it is, right?
  • 01:23:04
    It's kind of easy to get around it and that's all that's there.
  • 01:23:07
    There's no other barricade whatsoever.
  • 01:23:12
    And 1222, the officer's here inside.
  • 01:23:15
    This is the Channel 29 vestibule where DeAndre Harris has gone after he's injured and she's here
  • 01:23:22
    and Enforcing the Perimeter.
  • 01:23:24
    Now this is taken from the state police helicopter at 123.
  • 01:23:26
    It's hard to see but right here is the barricade.
  • 01:23:31
    No car, just the barricade.
  • 01:23:33
    And this is, these are people that are walking.
  • 01:23:36
    This is right when people were walking from Justice Park down toward Friendship Court.
  • 01:23:40
    There's a rumor that there's something happening at Friendship Court so people are walking through and there's just a barricade.
  • 01:23:46
    That's it.
  • 01:23:47
    They're easily walking around it.
  • 01:23:50
    Now this is drone footage.
  • 01:23:52
    It's taken at 1.41pm and this is actually the moment when the Challenger is going by.
  • 01:23:59
    This is a pullout, it's blurry, but that's the vehicle as it's speeding by.
  • 01:24:02
    And that very same minute, you can see that the barricade is still there.
  • 01:24:07
    So it's not moved, just easily driven around.
  • 01:24:10
    It's still in the middle of the street, but there's plenty of space, it's right here, same minute, 1.41, after the vehicle has gone by.
  • 01:24:19
    We think it actually is dislodged upon the
  • 01:24:21
    the vehicle backing up and driving away on Market Street.
  • 01:24:26
    So now this isn't intentional.
  • 01:24:27
    Nobody says, hey, to hell with Fourth and Market.
  • 01:24:30
    It's an oversight.
  • 01:24:31
    That happens a lot.
  • 01:24:33
    I want to stress here that we never found evidence that Chief Thomas or Captain Mitchell or anybody said, ever, we don't care or we're going to let people get injured.
  • 01:24:43
    It's not that at all.
  • 01:24:47
    We found that they wanted very much to protect public safety.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:24:51
    They just didn't do a sufficient job.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:24:56
    They did not execute a plan that was consistent with that goal.
  • 01:25:05
    CPD and VSP failed to operate under a unified command.
  • 01:25:09
    This is another huge, huge problem resulting in delayed and ineffective responses to critical events.
  • 01:25:15
    Virginia State Police had 600 troopers here.
  • 01:25:18
    Anytime that Charlottesville City asked them for something, they said yes.
  • 01:25:23
    The problem was
  • 01:25:24
    They didn't share their plan with Charlottesville Police.
  • 01:25:28
    They had a 35 page operational plan that listed every trooper who was here, what he or she was supposed to do.
  • 01:25:36
    We have it because it was left on a chair at city space.
  • 01:25:39
    We found it Monday morning.
  • 01:25:41
    Captain Shiflett found it Monday morning, August 14th, on a chair.
  • 01:25:45
    It was never given to the Charlottesville Police Department.
  • 01:25:48
    The operational plan of the state police
  • 01:25:51
    There was no joint trainings, right?
  • 01:25:52
    There was never an attempt to do field force or other training together given how many officers were going to be here.
  • 01:25:59
    There was no all-hands meeting.
  • 01:26:00
    On July 8th, there had been.
  • 01:26:02
    All the troopers and the officers actually sat together in the same room and had a briefing.
  • 01:26:07
    That didn't happen on August 12th.
  • 01:26:09
    Significantly, there was a lack of interoperable communications.
  • 01:26:14
    This was flagged as an issue on July 8th.
  • 01:26:17
    On July 8th, they couldn't communicate by radio, and officers on the ground said, on August 12th, we want to make sure that our communications are connected.
  • 01:26:28
    That was flagged as an issue, yet it didn't happen.
  • 01:26:30
    On August 12th, the same problem.
  • 01:26:32
    State Police is on one set of radio channels.
  • 01:26:35
    Charlottesville officers are on another set of channels.
  • 01:26:38
    Even though the IMT plan, the one that's supposed to be coordinated, had them linked.
  • 01:26:44
    We were told, Captain Mitchell, Captain Lewis, Chief Thomas all believed that they were going to be linked.
  • 01:26:49
    They discovered that it's not that morning and they just work around it.
  • 01:26:53
    It was their explanation.
  • 01:26:55
    The State Police told us, Colonel Flaherty told us, that it could have been
  • 01:26:59
    connected easily with the flip of a switch, but that it was never requested was his explanation.
  • 01:27:04
    And it's curious because, again, the Charlottesville police officers believed that it was always going to be linked.
  • 01:27:09
    They didn't need to request it.
  • 01:27:11
    And that means that Charlottesville police never made a request because they expected that it would be interoperable, that the plan called for it to be.
  • 01:27:22
    So their state police said they're waiting for requests.
  • 01:27:24
    Charlottesville police never made a request because they thought it was going to be interoperable.
  • 01:27:28
    and the chief told us that by the time he realized this it's a very fast moving situation and he works around it because it's sort of an urgent situation.
  • 01:27:38
    What that means though is that there's no unified decision making.
  • 01:27:42
    If a CPD officer in his own needed something from a trooper, a sergeant, they had to go find each other in the crowd to communicate.
  • 01:27:51
    They couldn't communicate electronically.
  • 01:27:52
    So if Joe Hatter wanted to leave the barricade and wanted a state police trooper to help him, he had to go find somebody and bring him with him.
  • 01:28:00
    Horribly inefficient without the ability to communicate electronically.
  • 01:28:04
    Now in the command center, state police were talking to
  • 01:28:08
    Chief Thomas and Captain Mitchell and Captain Lewis, they were in the command center.
  • 01:28:12
    But Chief Thomas told us that he didn't believe he could deploy state police units without explicit consent or permission.
  • 01:28:18
    So he had to find and ask them and make sure before using, making a decision to use a state police resource face to face.
  • 01:28:28
    Again, these are such fast moving fluid situations that they require instantaneous decision making informed by accurate information.
  • 01:28:36
    That's why communications is so important.
  • 01:28:39
    And when that doesn't happen, it delays things, it's inefficient.
  • 01:28:43
    So despite the substantial commitment, and I want to stress that Chief Thomas and Captain Mitchell and everybody routinely went out of their way to praise the resource commitment of the state police.
  • 01:28:52
    But they operated largely independently.
  • 01:28:55
    They were here, but they were kind of doing their own thing.
  • 01:28:59
    Not the same thing that city police were doing.
  • 01:29:04
    Now finally, we found that the failure to protect public safety erodes trust in law enforcement.
  • 01:29:10
    There's no question.
  • 01:29:14
    The violence, now there's violence that causes physical injuries, but even those that weren't physically injured come away from this event with lost faith in the ability of the city to keep them safe.
  • 01:29:25
    We heard repeatedly real antipathy at the failure of the city to manage this event.
  • 01:29:31
    There's a huge simmering emotion.
  • 01:29:33
    Now a lot of that goes back a lot deeper than these events.
  • 01:29:36
    These events have sort of pulled the lid off of a lot of that, but the key here is that there is a
  • 01:29:41
    a public concern that is broader than those injured.
  • 01:29:45
    The injury extends beyond people that were punched to everybody that watched this occur.
  • 01:29:50
    It's broader than deeper than we anticipated and it's a longer term issue.
  • 01:29:55
    Now, what went right, there are a few things we have to mention.
  • 01:29:59
    Despite the presence of firearms and angry confrontations, no person was shot, no significant property damage occurred.
  • 01:30:07
    We believe we've only found evidence of one gunshot.
  • 01:30:10
    It's now the subject of a criminal case.
  • 01:30:13
    And they've spent a lot of time focused on the downtown mall, right?
  • 01:30:16
    The state police field forces, go back really quickly, when the unlawful assembly is declared,
  • 01:30:27
    The field forces are deployed here.
  • 01:30:30
    This is the downtown mall.
  • 01:30:32
    So from city space and from the Omni, there are lines of state police officers that are literally funneling people across the mall down to this area.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 01:30:43
    People are getting beat up in the street, but we cover it all.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:30:55
    This occurred, Mr. Bellamy, this occurred after the unlawful assembly was declared and they're pushing people out of the park.
  • 01:31:01
    So the people are being pushed out of the park down this direction and they're being funneled through little tunnels here.
  • 01:31:09
    They can't go onto the mall.
  • 01:31:11
    The field forces, the state police field forces are kind of doing what they did on July 8th, creating these little gauntlets of corridor for people to stream across.
  • 01:31:22
    So they're really focused, and look, they were focused on preventing a larger scale disorder and rioting.
  • 01:31:28
    So they protect them all, but they don't protect people on Market Street.
  • 01:31:42
    So the final thing I'll say about this is that this could have been worse.
  • 01:31:46
    There's no question that the fact of
  • 01:31:52
    It's an awful tragedy that Heather Heyer was killed, that the troopers were killed.
  • 01:31:56
    Unquestionably, this is an awful tragedy.
  • 01:31:59
    But it could have been worse.
  • 01:32:02
    One other success is that the fire department, the rescue squad, and the University of Virginia Health System did an effective job in getting people out of the Fourth and Water Street area and to the hospital.
  • 01:32:15
    I want to mention the rescue squad, which I didn't sufficiently highlight in the report, and this was pointed out to me since, that the rescue squad and their people were a big part of this response, and that's accurate.
  • 01:32:26
    But in the midst of a crisis situation with a huge crowd, they are able to get 17 patients removed to two hospitals within 30 minutes.
  • 01:32:35
    Chief Baxter says justifiably no department could hope to achieve that in a drill on your best day.
  • 01:32:41
    It's a product of effective emergency management.
  • 01:32:43
    The fire department, the rescue squad, the health systems are steeped in emergency management and they had integrated emergency plans and those plans are tested.
  • 01:32:53
    The hospital, for example, had canceled all elective surgeries.
  • 01:32:56
    They used their lobby as the triage area.
  • 01:32:59
    Their planning paid off in a big way and a successful way.
  • 01:33:04
    in the response to the Heather Heyer incident.
  • 01:33:06
    And then finally, law enforcement planning and response was informed by thorough accurate intelligence.
  • 01:33:13
    And I want to stress, this doesn't mean that they knew about every person who was coming.
  • 01:33:17
    They did have gaps, but they knew overall that this was going to be a large, potentially violent event.
  • 01:33:24
    That was clear.
  • 01:33:26
    The numbers and the tactics were consistent with advanced intelligence.
  • 01:33:31
    And then in real time,
  • 01:33:34
    What's also important is that as these events are going on, the command center has up-to-the-minute information.
  • 01:33:41
    They're watching out the window.
  • 01:33:43
    First of all, the command center literally faced the park.
  • 01:33:46
    It had pole cameras stationed to give them a real-time view of the park.
  • 01:33:52
    They had the helicopter hovering, and the helicopter could actually, upon direction, focus on particular incidents from the air.
  • 01:33:59
    So they knew in real time what was going on.
  • 01:34:03
    What you see sometimes in these emergency situations is this thing called fog of war, like commanders are making decisions uncertain.
  • 01:34:09
    That was not a problem here.
  • 01:34:11
    They knew in real time, as it happened, what was going on on the ground.
  • 01:34:16
    And that went right.
  • 01:34:18
    Now, in terms of
  • 01:34:21
    Going all the way back to core values.
  • 01:34:24
    Our bottom line here is that the city did not protect either of those core values on August 12th.
  • 01:34:30
    Free expression, the rally didn't happen.
  • 01:34:32
    So neither of the protesters, as odious as that speech is, they had a right to it and they weren't able to do it.
  • 01:34:38
    Neither were the counter protesters able to exercise their free speech.
  • 01:34:42
    And public safety was not protected.
  • 01:34:44
    Violence on the streets, three deaths, and a tremendous emotional impact, a failure to protect public safety.
  • 01:34:55
    Now let me, if I can, move on to the last part of my presentation in our report, which is recommendations.
  • 01:35:05
    In addition to laying out the facts, we've tried to put forth some suggestions for how these events should be handled here and elsewhere in the future.
  • 01:35:14
    And we kind of break them into five categories, preparation, management, state support, changes in law, and then restoring faith.
  • 01:35:23
    Some of these are fairly technical,
  • 01:35:24
    In terms of preparation, Charlottesville should follow the incident command system procedures implemented by the National Incident Management System.
  • 01:35:32
    There is a nationwide platform, the NIMS platform, that is there as a template for communities to follow.
  • 01:35:40
    It's got nomenclature, it's got checklists of things to follow.
  • 01:35:44
    That needs to be explicitly trained here, and we need a person in charge of it.
  • 01:35:49
    And the fire chief, I think, would be, we think, would be
  • 01:35:52
    An excellent choice to be the Emergency Management Coordinator to ensure that the ICS NIMS system is the standard starting point going forward.
  • 01:36:01
    Intelligence gathering.
  • 01:36:03
    Charlottesville Police Department needs the capacity to gather intel with technology.
  • 01:36:07
    There are these
  • 01:36:07
    aggregators, these programs which allow them to monitor open sources and get information about the kind of chatter that sometimes predates these events.
  • 01:36:16
    They need that capacity.
  • 01:36:18
    They need to try to develop lines of communication, not just before an event, but generally with protest organizers and counter protesters, as challenging as that may be.
  • 01:36:27
    They need to gather information from law enforcement agencies elsewhere where large protest events have occurred.
  • 01:36:34
    And they ought to have help.
  • 01:36:35
    There needs to be a place, a national clearinghouse, for sharing information about responses to mass unrest.
  • 01:36:41
    Why is it that the city manager should have to call his counterpart in Portland?
  • 01:36:46
    Why isn't there a place where this event, this information, is captured?
  • 01:36:51
    Whether it's the Department of Justice or some national organization that could serve as that national clearinghouse.
  • 01:36:56
    There really needs to be better coordination.
  • 01:36:59
    Training.
  • 01:37:00
    We've got to train Charlottesville police officers on incident management, field force tactics, de-escalation, use of force.
  • 01:37:07
    I want to emphasize that word de-escalation because it's not always necessary, it's not always productive to go into these events and just arrest a bunch of people.
  • 01:37:15
    That's not wise.
  • 01:37:16
    What you want to do is prevent arrests by interacting and de-escalating before an arrest is necessary.
  • 01:37:22
    Arrest should be a last resort.
  • 01:37:24
    Because an arrest actually takes that officer away and diminishes the presence.
  • 01:37:29
    So it's better, before you get to that point, to spend time de-escalating.
  • 01:37:34
    And officers need help.
  • 01:37:35
    understanding that and training for that.
  • 01:37:38
    They also need to create event specific training.
  • 01:37:40
    When these events are coming, they ought to be told more about the event and what the expectations are and then there need to be thorough after actions after the fact.
  • 01:37:48
    Communications, right?
  • 01:37:49
    We need to improve the city's communications capacity with increased staff, increased technology and equipment.
  • 01:37:55
    We're no longer in the world where a press release can be sufficient.
  • 01:38:00
    You got to have more use of social media.
  • 01:38:01
    There have to be increased tools to communicate information
  • 01:38:05
    from the council, from the staff, from law enforcement, regularly to people, not just posting something on the website or putting out a press release.
  • 01:38:13
    We still have kind of an old school approach to city communications.
  • 01:38:17
    We have to communicate public safety goals, potential threats, crowd control strategies, overall expectations, well in advance of protest events.
  • 01:38:27
    Captain Lewis told us that she actually proposed
  • 01:38:30
    a public safety communication strategy where there would be press conferences and information put out to the community about the kinds of threats, about the potential use of riot gear.
  • 01:38:40
    She also wanted to actually send a letter to all participating organizations asking them to commit to non-violence.
  • 01:38:47
    If they didn't, then that would be part of the communications.
  • 01:38:50
    And that was rejected as Wendy's propaganda campaign.
  • 01:38:53
    That was the response that she got.
  • 01:38:56
    and that would have been a more effective, more comprehensive way to get information to the public.
  • 01:39:03
    And finally, for communications, you have to engage to sending voices and open channels of communication outside times of crisis.
  • 01:39:10
    You can't just wait and talk when an event's coming up, you have to be talking all the time.
  • 01:39:15
    Now, as we said, all along there are these twin values.
  • 01:39:20
    The police department has to demonstrate clear commitment to both, to facilitating free expression and protecting public safety.
  • 01:39:27
    Rather than planning to declare an unlawful assembly, the plan ought to be, let's attempt to create conditions that ensure that we don't have to declare the event unlawful.
  • 01:39:36
    In our view, they were too quick to go to unlawful, shut it down.
  • 01:39:42
    Insufficient attempt to ensure
  • 01:39:44
    Lawful behavior, separation, de-escalation, they went too quickly to declare the event unlawful and that's inconsistent with the twin goals of public safety and free speech.
  • 01:39:54
    They have to inform plans with timely accurate legal advice about permissible time, place and manner restrictions and they have to amass experience on First Amendment public safety issues at the state level and advise localities on legal issues.
  • 01:40:07
    This is really hard.
  • 01:40:09
    These rules about what is a permissible restriction on speech
  • 01:40:13
    are complicated and really fact specific.
  • 01:40:16
    So instead of having the Commonwealth's attorney or the city attorney doing some research, you know, days before an event, they ought to have help.
  • 01:40:23
    There ought to be a place at the state level where they're experts on the First Amendment, on public safety and how these twin goals are reconciled.
  • 01:40:32
    Can we do this?
  • 01:40:33
    Can we do that?
  • 01:40:34
    Would this be constitutional?
  • 01:40:35
    It's unfair to place on top of a commonwealth's attorney who's running a busy office and a city attorney who's got a thousand things to do.
  • 01:40:42
    This level of expertise, it needs to be amassed and it wouldn't be hard to create a place where this is available at the state level.
  • 01:40:51
    Now, let me move to what we recommend operationally be the default approach to these events.
  • 01:40:57
    We call it the stadium approach.
  • 01:40:59
    This may not be possible in every event, but here we think it would have been possible and should be the default for any future planning for a mass demonstration.
  • 01:41:09
    If large events raise the potential for violence, planners should create a secure perimeter using law enforcement personnel, hard barricades, buildings, and natural boundaries.
  • 01:41:18
    Essentially create a stadium of several blocks in size.
  • 01:41:23
    Assign officers equipped to respond to disorders to areas outside the perimeter
  • 01:41:27
    because there are always going to be people that before they come are going to want to fight so you have to not just put all the officers inside the stadium, they have to be outside as well and along likely routes of ingress, the paths into which people will enter the stadium.
  • 01:41:41
    Designate secure points of entry for protestors and counter-protesters
  • 01:41:46
    at which attendees are screened for prohibited items, right, essentially except guns unless the General Assembly changes the law.
  • 01:41:53
    There ought to be a metal detector or a place where people are searched and if you have a club or if you have a shield and that's been prohibited then it's taken from you so that everybody comes in to that secure several block stadium having been screened.
  • 01:42:08
    direct attendees from the secure points of entry into zones within the event that are dedicated to particular groups using barricades and buffer zones inside the stadium to enforce separation and deploy officers inside those zones in soft uniforms to engage the crowd, strategically respond to actual and potential threats.
  • 01:42:28
    Now if the stadium approach isn't possible, we need to incorporate these principles, screening for weapons, soft uniforms to interact, and a broader perimeter if possible.
  • 01:42:36
    Now what we came up with was a proposed approach to this that could have been used for the Unite the Right rally.
  • 01:42:44
    If you were going to do a secure perimeter, a stadium approach on August 12th, then our advice would be that this red dashed line be the secure perimeter.
  • 01:42:52
    That no one be allowed into this area but four through two entrances.
  • 01:42:58
    One
  • 01:42:59
    on West Market Street and one on East Market Street.
  • 01:43:02
    And they'd be designated as, okay, this is where we're going to recommend that the Unite the Right group enter, and this is going to be where we recommend that the counter protesters or the public enter.
  • 01:43:14
    And there'd be a screen right here.
  • 01:43:16
    There'd be a metal detector, law enforcement, making sure that people aren't bringing into the area prohibited items.
  • 01:43:22
    And then the public would be on one side of the park,
  • 01:43:25
    White Nationalists would be on the other side and the statue would be in the middle and then all of this green would be public safety.
  • 01:43:32
    It would be vehicles and officers and you could put emergency equipment, you could put lots of officers in the green areas.
  • 01:43:41
    Now officers would also be inside the zones, the protest zones.
  • 01:43:45
    They'd also have to be all the way around here.
  • 01:43:48
    because there would be people coming in from this direction.
  • 01:43:52
    Now this would be hard, right?
  • 01:43:53
    How do you block off a block where you have private property and you have lots of different alleyways?
  • 01:43:58
    It's difficult, and we don't mean to suggest it would be easy, but to the extent possible if you could create through fencing, through vehicles, or through officers literally standing here,
  • 01:44:08
    A secure perimeter and only let people come in through these two zones, that enforces separation.
  • 01:44:15
    That allows you to have the benefit of the soft uniforms and the de-escalation.
  • 01:44:19
    That allows you to keep out weapons so that it's harder for people to fight and cause injury.
  • 01:44:24
    That, in our view, should be the default approach to planning for large events going forward.
  • 01:44:30
    Stadium, secure perimeter, designated points of entry.
  • 01:44:34
    There also needs to be unified command, right?
  • 01:44:36
    Command structure that clearly identifies who makes decisions across agencies.
  • 01:44:40
    We cannot have agencies making decisions based on separate understandings of who's in charge and what the marching orders are.
  • 01:44:48
    Create and distribute a unified operational plan, ensure total transparency between the agencies, connect the communications equipment so that all personnel can directly interact, and joint trainings, joint briefings, make sure that they all get together and hear the same
  • 01:45:03
    Instructions that assures alignment of mission and tactics.
  • 01:45:07
    Use of force policies ought to be clear and communicated to all agencies.
  • 01:45:11
    Educate law enforcement on relevant statutes and regulations.
  • 01:45:15
    Encourage de-escalation and intervention before violations occur.
  • 01:45:18
    Again, we don't recommend that these events are handled well by having dozens of people arrested.
  • 01:45:24
    That shouldn't be necessary if you're interacting and de-escalating and intervening and preventing those conflicts from occurring.
  • 01:45:32
    and provide officers with sufficient personnel and equipment to safely prevent and interrupt disorders when they do occur.
  • 01:45:38
    And then finally, there's got to be flexibility.
  • 01:45:41
    We saw where there was some flexibility on July 8th and insufficient flexibility on August 12th.
  • 01:45:46
    Ensure that the plans are sufficiently flexible to allow for the rapid deployment of specialized units and power the commanders with sufficient authority to give orders to all available personnel
  • 01:45:57
    and then train for contingencies, right?
  • 01:45:59
    Use tabletop exercises that anticipate complex and volatile events.
  • 01:46:03
    The IMT before August 12th actually did this.
  • 01:46:06
    Captain Mitchell and Captain Lewis actually went to a tabletop with the IMT.
  • 01:46:11
    State police didn't go, right?
  • 01:46:13
    So they're training for how to react to complex events without the agency that had a broader commitment of people and wasn't there during the exercise.
  • 01:46:22
    Again, kind of worthless.
  • 01:46:25
    Now the state has a vital role in this.
  • 01:46:27
    We're a small city and it's hard for Charlottesville alone to figure all this out and to know the rules and to implement all of these policies.
  • 01:46:35
    That's why we recommend that the
  • 01:46:37
    at the State Government.
  • 01:46:38
    The Department of Criminal Justice Services should develop model policies and in-service training standards for managing these events.
  • 01:46:44
    There ought to be a roadmap that is implemented at the state level so that cities can plug in and can get guidance, not figuring it out ad hoc, but actually getting guidance from the state government.
  • 01:46:56
    The state police needs to be really clear about what they do and what they don't do.
  • 01:47:01
    They may continue to decide that this is a local control issue, but they need to be explicit about what that means and what their agencies expect to do and what the locals will do.
  • 01:47:13
    And they weren't in this case.
  • 01:47:15
    They need to develop written procedures for working with local agencies, ensuring institutional responsibilities are clearly defined.
  • 01:47:22
    And then we say that the AG's office or the Secretary of Public Safety should monitor the legal developments, advise local governments on these
  • 01:47:29
    time, place, and manner restrictions.
  • 01:47:30
    We've talked about that.
  • 01:47:31
    This is a specialized and complex area, and there ought to be lawyers at the state level that are monitoring that.
  • 01:47:37
    We've got to give our planners better laws, better tools.
  • 01:47:43
    We recommend some specific changes in law, both at the local and the state level.
  • 01:47:47
    At the local level, you ought to write into the permitting statute
  • 01:47:51
    the ability to prohibit certain items that may be used as weapons.
  • 01:47:54
    We found that it could have happened anyway, that it was possible, there's no prohibition on it, but in order to be sure that it is content neutral, that it's not directed just at one particular group or another, write it into the permitting rule.
  • 01:48:07
    Just say, from now on, we're going to give you a permit, but we reserve the right to ban from that event certain items that are dangerous.
  • 01:48:16
    Now, firearms you can't do right now and that gets down here.
  • 01:48:19
    Repeal, we recommend that statute and allow municipalities to ban firearms at demonstrations.
  • 01:48:26
    But even absent that, in your permitting regulation, you ought to write into it the explicit ability to restrict the possession of certain items.
  • 01:48:35
    You also should create a more robust review of the permit applications.
  • 01:48:38
    Right now, there's an email that goes around to the Special Events Committee
  • 01:48:41
    and these things are routinely granted.
  • 01:48:43
    There really isn't enough of a robust process to consider things like restrictions on items.
  • 01:48:49
    and then at the local level we recommend that you enforce the open flame ordinance and actually require a permit anytime that a group is going to use fire of any kind, a torch or a candle, require a permit and a fire safety plan.
  • 01:49:03
    Candlelit vigils are wonderful and if we can have them, but they ought to be noticed in advance and that this will prevent the last minute torch lit kinds of things that we've seen here recently.
  • 01:49:14
    It should not be a surprise, it should be noticed so that the city can get ready
  • 01:49:19
    for those events.
  • 01:49:21
    And then finally at the state level, I talked about the guns.
  • 01:49:24
    It's crazy that cities cannot on their own ban firearms from these events.
  • 01:49:29
    We also recommend that the criminal statute that punishes the use of fire to intimidate be amended.
  • 01:49:36
    Right now, it is only a crime if you use fire to put someone in fear of bodily injury or death.
  • 01:49:44
    There needs to be an actual physical threat in order for it to be criminal.
  • 01:49:49
    That should be broader.
  • 01:49:50
    The use of fire to intimidate, broadly, to create an emotional impact, ought to be enough.
  • 01:49:56
    Broaden the intent standard beyond intimidate and fear of bodily injury to more broadly intimidate.
  • 01:50:02
    There's actually examples of this with cross burning and the use of a swastika.
  • 01:50:06
    The criminal code says you can't burn a cross or have it display a swastika to intimidate.
  • 01:50:11
    It doesn't have to require bodily injury.
  • 01:50:13
    We ought to put all fire in that category and broaden the intent standard.
  • 01:50:16
    That'll give our commonwealth's attorney
  • 01:50:18
    the ability more broadly to punish is use of fire to intimidate.
  • 01:50:24
    And then finally, this is going to sound preachy and I don't mean it to, but there's this broad division here in our community.
  • 01:50:30
    We talk to people here who have very serious antipathy toward the police and toward city government.
  • 01:50:36
    We also talk to a lot of people who believe very strongly in the efficacy of law enforcement and the integrity of our officers.
  • 01:50:42
    Those people live in this community side by side.
  • 01:50:47
    We see the manifestations of a lot of this frustration at these public meetings and we saw it in resistance to our review.
  • 01:50:53
    There are a lot of people that didn't want to talk to us because our client was the city or because I had worked in law enforcement.
  • 01:50:58
    I don't trust law enforcement.
  • 01:50:59
    That is a very real thing that this is just one of the latest example of.
  • 01:51:07
    We've been dealing with that in this community for a long time and it needs to be addressed.
  • 01:51:11
    The police department should regularly and effectively solicit and address community concerns.
  • 01:51:16
    They need
  • 01:51:16
    to listen.
  • 01:51:17
    They need to reach out and hear from the community.
  • 01:51:20
    The police department should train all personnel on community engagement tactics.
  • 01:51:24
    They need to be out in communities listening to and developing relationships with people.
  • 01:51:30
    The council should identify opportunities for citizen feedback beyond council meetings.
  • 01:51:34
    There needs to be ways for people to participate besides in this room every two weeks.
  • 01:51:40
    And city government should encourage broader participation in government, including the formation of diverse working groups to advise council and staff on policies and solutions to particular issues.
  • 01:51:49
    I would start with law enforcement and community relations.
  • 01:51:52
    I think that is a good one.
  • 01:51:54
    Let's take that first.
  • 01:51:56
    Let's engage some of these people who have very diverse perspectives, some real critics of law enforcement and some real supporters and find a way to not just vent but to actually talk to each other about what might work, what might change and have the police department at the table being a part of that discussion.
  • 01:52:13
    That is, we suggest, the way forward.
  • 01:52:17
    Thank you.
• • 01:52:28
    OK.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 01:52:46
    Thank you, Mr. Heafey.
  • 01:52:50
    All right, folks.
  • 01:52:50
    So we have a few things ahead now.
  • 01:52:56
    City Councilors are going to have an opportunity to say things and to ask questions.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:53:02
    Do you want me to stay or sit?
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 01:53:03
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:53:08
    It was an or question.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 01:53:10
    Then what we're going to do is after that which could take, depends on how much time council wants to take, it's
  • 01:53:36
    It's almost 9 o'clock right now.
  • 01:53:37
    It could be an hour.
  • 01:53:39
    Then we will do, we'll see, then we will do the public hearing which we are very committed to and we want to hear
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 01:53:57
    We're going to be talking about this.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 01:54:01
    We've got another meeting in two weeks and that meeting we will be working on the items and the suggestions that come up here including the permitting review which we just got a draft of and this goes, we're going to be working on that in December.
  • 01:54:14
    and working on that and I hope taking action on that next item.
  • 01:54:18
    So anyway, the public hearing for you all and the sign up sheet is up here will start after this Q&A period comes up and then after that, because we wanted to have the public be able to talk, there will then be a presentation by Mr. Jones about
  • 01:54:32
    an action plan and timeline and hopefully that can actually include some of the feedback that you all have shared during the public hearing.
  • 01:54:39
    So it's a lot of pieces to put together.
  • 01:54:41
    We feel like this is as good as any of a way to do it.
  • 01:54:45
    We wanted to give the breadth of a lot of information here so let's get started if we can.
  • 01:54:51
    Alright, so questions from my colleagues.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 01:55:01
    I'll start partly because I really although I think it's important that council have a chance to speak I think we have a lot of members of public here who want to speak as well and and I would like us to have going forward you know for the next couple of months a bunch of chances for people to speak so I will just I have a couple of quick questions but then I'll stop there so
  • 01:55:32
    One of the questions I have about your stadium approach idea, and this is a little technical, and if you don't feel that this is in your wheelhouse to answer, that's fine.
  • 01:55:42
    I have a couple others, but how do you avoid this if you are suggesting that one side come in at one end and one side come in at the other end?
  • 01:55:50
    How do you prevent the very thing that happened here, which was that everybody goes to the same entrance to stop one another from going in?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:55:59
    The answer is you can't totally prevent that.
  • 01:56:02
    The state police told us, the court of clarity told us, that in their experience, when you designate points of entry, most people self-select appropriately.
  • 01:56:09
    Most people will go into the side that identifies their particular perspective.
  • 01:56:15
    But not everyone.
  • 01:56:15
    There unquestionably will be people that want to provoke and want to start a fight.
  • 01:56:20
    That's why you need officers inside the zones, so that if someone who's a white nationalist goes into the public side and wants to start a fight,
  • 01:56:29
    then there need to be someone in there to engage and disrupt.
  • 01:56:34
    Okay, thanks.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 01:56:36
    Another question that we've gotten from several other folks via email in various ways today is that you have been pretty, you've criticized a lot of things that the Virginia State Police did, that they blew the chance to use Christchurch, they arrived late, they went off plan, they didn't react to fights and police, they didn't react to reports of gunfire.
  • 01:56:59
    and yet in your recommendations you don't address those.
  • 01:57:01
    Is there any way that, you know, I know that we asked you to look at our things and that's really important and I appreciate what you've done on those.
  • 01:57:10
    But I do feel like there is a lot of valuable information here in how the state reacted and how the state contributed to some of the things that happened here.
  • 01:57:20
    Do you plan to go any further with that or have any recommendations for us?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:57:24
    You know, I wanted very much to have a more fulsome dialogue with them.
  • 01:57:29
    I asked to interview a lot more people.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 01:57:30
    And they didn't participate in the review.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:57:32
    They didn't participate.
  • 01:57:33
    They gave me one document and that was the July 8th operational plan.
  • 01:57:37
    They gave me one person, Colonel Flaherty.
  • 01:57:40
    I would love to have more of an opportunity to talk with them, to have our experts go engage with them, to give them the same feedback.
  • 01:57:47
    I don't know if they want that sort of feedback.
  • 01:57:50
    They are doing their own review.
  • 01:57:51
    They have a Governor's Task Force.
  • 01:57:54
    I think there's a lot in here that should inform their reassessment of their approach to these events.
  • 01:57:59
    I would hope that I would get more of an opportunity to talk to them about that.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 01:58:03
    And my only other kind of general question, because I'm sure that my other more specific questions are going to come up through the public, is that after July 8th, when there were several attacks on police after the Ku Klux Klan event was over,
  • 01:58:22
    I am, one concern I have is that in the planning, in the planning for August 12th at various levels in the city there seemed to be this sort of sense that people who were counter protests were sort of considered as combatants in mutual combat rather than as our citizens and I really am concerned that that is something that we need to make sure doesn't ever happen again and
  • 01:58:50
    because that's, you know, this is people who were coming in and talking about everything we don't believe in in this community, even though we don't always live up to what we believe in, we do have, you know, things that we do share as core values and these folks were coming in and attacking everything about that and talking about the annihilation, frankly, of a third of our population in some of their rhetoric and the people who were coming to protest that, it seemed that in a lot of this planning were considered as, oh, that's the other side, as if somehow that was
  • 01:59:20
    to equally bad forces and I'm concerned about that.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 01:59:26
    So I just conferred with Mr. Bellamy.
  • 01:59:29
    We thought that maybe, just for my colleagues to consider, that because the report went about an hour long than we planned, and that maybe we could limit ourselves in this period to about five minutes in our Q&A if we can all try that.
  • 01:59:45
    And then, Mr. Rice, if you could keep that.
  • 01:59:47
    And then that will give us about half an hour to get through this period.
  • 01:59:49
    And then we will get to the public hearing if that would be OK.
  • 01:59:52
    So we will have a limit for our questions of five minutes.
  • 01:59:56
    and including, hopefully, responses too, so we'll try and keep this at a good clip.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 02:00:00
    But was it your sense that that was part of the dynamic that was going on here?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:00:04
    I'm sorry, I'm not sure I followed your question.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 02:00:08
    So, that after July 8th, when police may have felt that they were, well, I haven't used five other than that, when people were, when the police did feel, I think, under attack,
  • 02:00:24
    after the event was over, not during it.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:00:26
    Yeah.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 02:00:27
    Did that, do you believe, color the response that police had in planning for August 12th of considering the counter protesters to be enemy forces?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:00:35
    Yeah, I do think that we heard from individual officers that the response to the use of tear gas and their actions on July 8th did make them more hesitant on August 12th, that they did believe that there was going to be criticism if they were overly aggressive, if they did
  • 02:00:51
    It informed the discussion very directly about use of riot gear, accessibility of riot gear.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 02:00:56
    That's kind of not my question.
  • 02:00:59
    My question is more were they considered to be a hostile element, not that they felt that they would react later, but that that would be
  • 02:01:08
    that they were part of the piece that needed to be subdued.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:01:11
    Yeah, the law enforcement planning, and this is informed by intelligence, is that there were counter-protesters, not necessarily from here, but some people that came, some that were coming from elsewhere that were there to disrupt law enforcement and that created potential threat to law enforcement.
  • 02:01:26
    They were definitely focused on that and were concerned about that in the planning.
  • 02:01:31
    Thank you.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:01:32
    So I just have two quick questions.
  • 02:01:37
    to say to the public, I'm sorry.
  • 02:01:39
    We just let you all down.
  • 02:01:41
    I think it's important that we acknowledge that.
  • 02:01:43
    We apologize.
  • 02:01:46
    I'm sorry.
  • 02:01:48
    We're just really unfortunate.
  • 02:01:52
    So for $350,000, I got two questions.
  • 02:01:57
    One, how do we stop the Nazis from coming back?
  • 02:01:59
    And I need specifically to know, how do we stop that?
  • 02:02:02
    Hold on, hold on.
  • 02:02:05
    And then secondly, the second question, just really quick, how do we protect our citizens?
  • 02:02:10
    So two questions.
  • 02:02:12
    How do we stop the Nazis from coming back?
  • 02:02:14
    And how do we specifically protect our citizens?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:02:17
    I don't know that you can stop the Nazis from coming back.
  • 02:02:21
    I really don't have an answer legally as to how you can... Let's let them finish and then we'll get to public hearing.
  • 02:02:27
    I don't know, Mr. Bellamy, if based on what we know right now you can deny a permit in a year.
  • 02:02:34
    I don't know.
  • 02:02:35
    I think you protect the public by doing a much better job anticipating conflict and protecting
  • 02:02:40
    the core values that we've identified to not have this false sense of this is another Saturday afternoon, but prepare in a more hardened way for the threat that comes.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:02:50
    So when your legal and your legal background with your legal experience from a federal level, state level, local level, there's no way that we can... No, I'm not saying that.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:03:00
    I'm saying I don't know what that is.
  • 02:03:01
    I don't, I am not an expert on these time, place, and manner First Amendment restrictions.
  • 02:03:06
    I looked at whether or not these events were effective or not.
  • 02:03:11
    I really don't know, to be honest, whether or not the First Amendment would allow now or will allow in the future the cancellation of a permit.
  • 02:03:19
    I don't have that answer.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:03:21
    So I know I still have two questions, only because I have three more minutes.
  • 02:03:27
    Really quickly, so we've heard from a lot of our community members if these have been street gangs, for example, which they are indeed in the eyes of many, they're gangs, they just may not be nationally classified as such, but these white supremacists are gangs.
  • 02:03:43
    If this had been a traditionally known gang, whether that is
  • 02:03:47
    specifically people of color, I'm just going to be honest, if this was a group of black people and they came, can you let me talk, if these were black people who came, right, and they said, well we want to do the exact same thing, we want to be in the park, we want to host this huge rally and festival, would this have went down the same way?
  • 02:04:07
    Or would there have been differences?
  • 02:04:09
    And you're an expert.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:04:10
    Yeah, no, I do have some experience with the definition of a gang.
  • 02:04:14
    A gang is a group of people
  • 02:04:15
    We can't have interruptions.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:04:24
    We have to go through.
  • 02:04:25
    There's a public hearing coming up.
  • 02:04:26
    We don't want to call people to order.
  • 02:04:27
    We really don't.
  • 02:04:28
    We want to keep on going.
  • 02:04:30
    There's no need.
  • 02:04:31
    We've got a public hearing coming up, so please don't interrupt.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:04:34
    If there's evidence that the same group of people in a hierarchy commit a pattern of acts that are criminal, then that, yes, absolutely could be classified as a gang and legally prosecuted as such.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:04:43
    Right.
  • 02:04:44
    I just want you to understand why so many people feel differently.
  • 02:04:48
    Today is the day in which Fred Hampton was killed, right?
  • 02:04:51
    Leader or one of the chairmen of the Black Panther Party.
  • 02:04:54
    He was literally killed for trying to mobilize and do things.
  • 02:04:57
    There was a whole
  • 02:04:58
    COINTELPRO investigation on the Panthers and then people literally feel as if these other groups were just able to come in here willy-nilly and then when we ask for different ways in which well how do we specifically stop this what we get back is I don't know that makes me even as an elected official just feel like damn like
  • 02:05:19
    Can we begin to cancel permits or can we blatantly say, listen, you're not welcome here, you're a group of people killed someone, and like, what grounds, I mean is there anything that we can do?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:05:33
    There very well may be, Mr. Bellamy, but again, we were not asked to forecast what will be required to grant or deny a permit going forward, so I'm sorry it's not more satisfying, but that's beyond the scope of what we looked at.
• • Kathy GalvinMember, City Council
  • 02:05:47
    Mr. Mayor, I have a question.
  • 02:05:49
    Again, my apologies to the community.
  • 02:05:53
    This report does illustrate, in my view, serious breakdowns in coordination, communication, chain of command, and that is a core function of government is to protect you, the public, and to protect your free speech.
  • 02:06:09
    So, moving forward, we must do everything we can to prevent,
  • 02:06:16
    another occurrence like August 12th.
  • 02:06:19
    Now having said that, I'm extremely concerned by the fact that lessons weren't learned from July 11.
  • 02:06:28
    There really doesn't, I mean from July 8, excuse me, July 8.
  • 02:06:34
    So I just want to understand what in your estimation contributed to the fact that there did not seem to be
  • 02:06:42
    any lessons learned by our police department and in coordination in general from from July 8 and I will remind my colleagues on July 17 this body did request strongly an after-action report of July 8 which was never received
  • 02:07:03
    So was one done by the police?
  • 02:07:05
    Did they follow it?
  • 02:07:07
    What happened there?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:07:08
    No, I mean I do think that after July 8th they solicited internally feedback from the lieutenants and the zone commanders and they were told things like we want a ground commander who can be the coordinator and that was implemented on August 12th.
  • 02:07:23
    They were told we needed
  • 02:07:24
    Earpiece Communications because you couldn't hear from their shoulder mounted radios.
  • 02:07:29
    That was implemented.
  • 02:07:31
    But a lot of the things that they recommended were not implemented.
  • 02:07:33
    They said, most of them said, we want our riot gear right with us because if there is a disorder we want to be protected and go in and August 12th is going to be a lot more difficult.
  • 02:07:43
    That was not
  • 02:07:44
    The interoperability of communications was something that they all said.
  • 02:07:49
    They all said we had no idea what our state police counterparts were doing and really didn't feel like we could direct them.
  • 02:07:55
    We want the opportunity in advance to have more of a relationship, not accommodated.
  • 02:07:59
    So while there are little things that they did do differently on August 12th based on some of the feedback that they got on July 8th, a lot of the things
  • 02:08:07
    They did not and I don't have an answer for why that is.
  • 02:08:10
    I don't know why that wasn't.
  • 02:08:11
    There was feedback provided directly from folks inside about preparations and we were told by a lot of those people that the command staff really wasn't interested in hearing from them.
  • 02:08:22
    That there was a very small group of people responsible for developing the plans without much involvement from lieutenants or some of the people that really wanted to be involved.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 02:08:40
    part of the problem in this review was we have all these attorneys sitting here for three months they've been in a room probably deconstructing the worst day the city has ever had
  • 02:09:12
    One of the words, yeah.
  • 02:09:15
    So I would like people to remember that the decisions that Chief Thomas made were spur-of-the-moment and Maurice Jones.
  • 02:09:28
    The Charlottesville Police Department was very well aware of what was going to happen.
  • 02:09:34
    Some of the officers wrote letters to their children the night before.
  • 02:09:40
    to be given to their children if they didn't come home.
  • 02:09:44
    That's the danger that we saw in the city.
  • 02:09:50
    Now earlier this evening, earlier this evening we talked about a budget surplus.
  • 02:09:58
    So what has been presented to the community is we need a lot of assets that we don't have now.
  • 02:10:05
    And I would suggest setting aside a substantial sum of money
  • 02:10:10
    to start taking care of these things.
  • 02:10:13
    Because we want answers.
  • 02:10:16
    The biggest question is, how can we keep this from happening again?
  • 02:10:20
    All right, all right.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:10:28
    Come on, everybody, please.
  • 02:10:30
    We have a long public hearing.
  • 02:10:31
    Everyone will be heard.
  • 02:10:32
    Everyone will be heard.
  • 02:10:33
    But we need to get through this.
  • 02:10:34
    We need to get through this with civility.
  • 02:10:36
    Please.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 02:10:37
    So let me slip over to the moral equivalency
  • 02:10:40
    part of this situation where the alt-right comes up here, heavily armed, semi-automatic rifles, pistols, batons, knives, everything.
  • 02:10:54
    So they're one side of the equation.
  • 02:10:55
    They're armed.
  • 02:10:56
    And what we hear is a young man had what I thought was a can of hairspray, which he lit.
  • 02:11:03
    And they call it a flamethrower.
  • 02:11:05
    This is the kind of moral equivalency that I object to.
  • 02:11:09
    These were not two equal forces.
  • 02:11:12
    This was an invading force that came into our city and we were protecting our city.
  • 02:11:19
    Now, so let me ask a question about James Baker and what he characterized the Antifa or the Antifa in Black Lives Matter.
  • 02:11:29
    He said they were agitators.
  • 02:11:32
    They are citizens.
  • 02:11:33
    I heard too many stories and I saw too many instances of people protecting our neighbors and friends.
  • 02:11:42
    And you seemed to agree with that term, agitators, when you did your press conference.
  • 02:11:49
    So how does the perception of citizens who are protecting their city in the way that they did, how do we change the perception
  • 02:12:03
    on your side of the bench actually are the judges, federal judge.
  • 02:12:08
    Everybody said it was obvious what was going to happen.
  • 02:12:11
    The federal judge didn't.
  • 02:12:14
    So I think that's kind of an open-ended question.
  • 02:12:17
    How do we deal with that?
  • 02:12:19
    That's a problem that I think would go a long way towards solving how do we keep this from happening again.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:12:29
    The question is are Antifa agitators?
  • 02:12:33
    I don't believe I said that and don't believe that.
  • 02:12:36
    There were most of the people, the vast majority of the people that came to Charlottesville with whom we spoke and who we saw on video came here to peacefully protest.
  • 02:12:46
    That said, there were some people that came to Charlottesville
  • 02:12:49
    from Antifa that came to fight, that came to provoke.
  • 02:12:52
    There were people in the crowd who wanted to do that.
  • 02:12:54
    That doesn't mean Antifa are agitators.
  • 02:12:56
    The vast majority of people who came on August 12th to show presence against the racism that came from the Unite the Right were peaceful.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 02:13:05
    If you say fight, I would say defend.
  • 02:13:08
    People who came here to defend our people.
  • 02:13:15
    And I wouldn't want anybody to lose sight of that fact.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:13:23
    OK. All right.
  • 02:13:29
    I want to join my colleagues in also just saying we're sorry for letting you down.
  • 02:13:38
    The government, well, if I can get through it, everyone's going to have your say.
  • 02:13:49
    OK.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:13:52
    I do have... Ma'am, ma'am, we're gonna have to...
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:14:10
    Okay, you've been called to order.
  • 02:14:12
    You've been called to order.
  • 02:14:13
    I'm sorry.
  • 02:14:14
    You've been called to order.
  • 02:14:15
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:14:19
    Let's try to avoid religious slurs while we can, I appreciate that.
  • 02:14:35
    Let's try to just move on.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:14:39
    I'm not doing anything of the sort.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:14:41
    That's not true.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:14:43
    Mr. Hafee
  • 02:15:04
    And there is a specific apology, if everybody let me get through it, that I do want to express that I learned from this report, which is, and I'm getting started, when I was in the command center on July 8th, and I want to apologize to some Antifa members for this and Black Lives Matter, when I was at the conference room table after the tear gas was let out, there was a statement at the table
  • 02:15:28
    that it was the release of a pepper gel container that provoked the use of tear gas by the police.
  • 02:15:35
    I then repeated that in a Facebook post that I wrote that night which I shared and got okayed with Mr. Jones and Mr. Thomas and Ms. Dickler
  • 02:15:45
    and a lot of people, the protesters rightly afterwards said that made it seem like the protesters were to blame for the use of tear gas.
  • 02:15:52
    I learned from this report that that was not the case and I am sorry for creating the impression that protesters were to blame for the release of tear gas.
  • 02:16:01
    I am, I apologize to that and I learned that.
  • 02:16:04
    Ma'am you're gonna be, I do, I do not want to have you taken up.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:16:09
    You cannot apologize to me!
  • 02:16:11
    I was hit with the third 10th bomb!
  • 02:16:13
    It ain't you know, Mike!
  • 02:16:16
    There's no such thing as you know!
  • 02:16:19
    For you to say you apologize!
  • 02:16:21
    You had every opportunity to apologize!
  • 02:16:24
    You could apologize before the report came out!
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:16:27
    You could have done it if you weren't for killing me!
  • 02:16:36
    All right, there is one question that I have for you, sir.
  • 02:16:40
    On page 103, your report states, when it became clear that City Council was seriously considering attempting to move the event to McIntyre Park,
  • 02:16:55
    The large layout reduced most of the complications posed by having a rally in the congested downtown area.
  • 02:17:03
    Duret was able to quickly determine that two baseball fields that sat next to each other created convenient areas to corral the Unite the Right demonstrators and opposing counter-producers.
  • 02:17:11
    He staged a law enforcement safety zone nearby and drew up a map showing where additional barriers would need to be placed.
  • 02:17:17
    He submitted the plan to Captain Mitchell on July 31st.
  • 02:17:19
    Now I understand your critique of City Council's role in this and the timing, but I just want to make clear that it makes it seem, because if this design of having the two baseball fields
  • 02:17:30
    If it had happened at MacIntyre Park, it would have been safer.
  • 02:17:36
    Sure, absolutely.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:17:38
    But it should have happened a month ago.
  • 02:17:40
    But yes, MacIntyre Park, to be clear, was a better venue and would have been safer to create separation.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:17:47
    I've got two minutes left.
  • 02:17:48
    One other question is, I sent out a bunch of emails asking people questions I should ask.
  • 02:17:52
    A smart one was, a lot in this report, 200 pages, what is the single largest problem you identified?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:17:58
    If you were to just boil it all down.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:18:02
    The largest problem I think was they didn't know what they didn't know.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:18:08
    That's the biggest problem.
  • 02:18:09
    They prepared for this with a false census.
  • 02:18:12
    They meeting the whole, all of the city government, particularly law enforcement.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:18:16
    Okay.
  • 02:18:17
    Didn't know what they didn't know.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:18:17
    Didn't know what they didn't know.
  • 02:18:19
    Was unprepared for this.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:18:20
    And city council.
  • 02:18:22
    Yeah.
  • 02:18:24
    Okay.
  • 02:18:24
    That's included.
  • 02:18:26
    Everybody.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:18:29
    Okay, that's all I have.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 02:18:32
    Let's get to the public.
  • 02:18:44
    Ms. Hudson, why don't you talk about this and then we'll, why don't you talk about this and then we'll get to other matters.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:18:56
    Okay.
  • 02:18:56
    All right.
  • 02:18:57
    So everybody, we're ready to start the public hearing.
  • 02:19:00
    Everyone's going to, you're out of order.
  • 02:19:05
    Ms. Hudson, you're out of order.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:19:07
    You're out of order.
  • 02:19:10
    Okay.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:19:12
    I don't want to, but this is not how we do business.
  • 02:19:16
    I will address what you do.
  • 02:19:18
    We're starting a public hearing now.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:19:31
    Officer, she's fine, she's fine, she's fine.
  • 02:19:35
    She's fine, she's fine, she's fine.
  • 02:19:40
    Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin the public hearing here.
  • 02:19:46
    Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin the public hearing soon.
  • 02:19:49
    Can we all have a seat, please?
  • 02:19:51
    So in the sake of time, because we have a long list of individuals who would like to participate, we are going to have two minutes for each individual.
  • 02:20:01
    We're going to begin that promptly right now.
  • 02:20:03
    The first individual, I'll be calling people three at a time.
  • 02:20:06
    So if we can, have the first person come up, and then we'll have two people who are on deck.
  • 02:20:11
    OK?
  • 02:20:12
    First individual, Ms. Hannah Russell-Hunter.
  • 02:20:17
    Hannah Russell-Hunter will be followed by Brian Cameron.
  • 02:20:26
    Right.
  • 02:20:27
    Right.
  • 02:20:28
    So we're going to give those individuals a chance.
  • 02:20:30
    So Hannah Russell-Hunter will be first, Brian Cameron second.
  • 02:20:36
    Evan Brown, are you here?
  • 02:20:39
    OK.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:20:43
    It's fine.
• • 02:20:47
    OK.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 02:20:48
    And this is not my regular time.
  • 02:20:55
    So I want to know, Mike, will you apologize to everybody for your unlawful assembly for your Capitol Resistance press conference?
  • 02:21:04
    Will you admit openly with all these cameras here that you're the reason why they came here 100 deep May 13th?
  • 02:21:13
    Because had you not did that press conference, guess what would have happened May 13th?
  • 02:21:18
    They would have been able to get them for not following the permit ordinance.
  • 02:21:23
    They would have been able to get them.
  • 02:21:25
    But because you said, oh, hey, you know what?
  • 02:21:27
    We don't enforce it no other time.
  • 02:21:29
    We ain't going to enforce it with me, so we can't enforce it with them.
  • 02:21:33
    So will you apologize to the people of Charlottesville?
  • 02:21:37
    Will you apologize to everybody that you kind of stirred this pot?
  • 02:21:41
    Will you do that?
  • 02:21:42
    Will you man up and do that?
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:21:44
    I'll respond to you if you want me to respond.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 02:21:46
    I want an apology.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:21:47
    Well, hold on.
  • 02:21:47
    You don't get to dictate what I say.
  • 02:21:49
    Oh, why don't I?
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 02:21:50
    You dictate what everybody else do.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:21:51
    I will respond to you.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 02:21:52
    You dictate what everybody else do.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:21:54
    I do not.
  • 02:21:55
    I will respond to you, but I kind of prefer to wait until after everybody has a chance.
  • 02:21:59
    We're not going to get into back and forth with every single person.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 02:22:01
    I just want an apology.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 02:22:02
    Okay, I will respond afterward.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 02:22:04
    So you're still not going to file a check?
  • 02:22:07
    I will respond afterwards.
  • 02:22:09
    You've got 15 more seconds.
  • 02:22:10
    That's why you look real tired, Mike.
  • 02:22:12
    You look real tired.
  • 02:22:14
    You look real tired.
  • 02:22:15
    No, you're probably not sleeping well that night.
  • 02:22:18
    You're probably not.
  • 02:22:19
    It's okay.
  • 02:22:20
    It's really okay.
  • 02:22:21
    But you just need to know that you the reason why this poster, and you know, I appreciate Mr. Hafey going in and digging up all this information.
  • 02:22:31
    Because guess what?
  • 02:22:32
    As much as they want to make Chief Thomas look bad, you look real bad, sir.
  • 02:22:37
    You look real bad.
  • 02:22:38
    And you knew you looked bad.
  • 02:22:39
    And all these shout outs, that's why you need to learn to over talk the interruptions.
  • 02:22:43
    Because you deserve them.
  • 02:22:45
    You deserve it.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:22:47
    Thank you, Ms. Hudson.
  • 02:22:49
    Next up we have Mr. Evan Brown who had agreed to concede his time to Mr. Dave.
  • 02:22:55
    Next up after him we'll have Mr. Rick Turner, excuse me, Dr. Turner.
  • 02:22:59
    So Dr. Turner, yes sir, you'll be next if you could wave right here.
  • 02:23:02
    Your time begins sir, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 02:23:03
    So this is what a world-class city looks like?
  • 02:23:06
    Right now you all couldn't run a PTA.
  • 02:23:10
    This so-called independent review is not going to wash the blood off your hands.
  • 02:23:14
    The review is full of errors and omissions and is an insult to the dead, the wounded, and the community.
  • 02:23:21
    Accountability is long overdue and as I said it earlier, Jones, Thomas, and the majors must go.
  • 02:23:26
    We need to defund the police department.
  • 02:23:33
    We need to unarmed the police department.
  • 02:23:37
    That's Sego police, UVA police, Albemarle, and state police.
  • 02:23:41
    Racism is in their DNA.
  • 02:23:45
    Young cops, young cops were held back so that they wouldn't kill anyone.
  • 02:23:50
    That's in the report.
  • 02:23:51
    Thomas encouraged innocent people to get beat up so that he can declare an unlawful assembly more easily.
  • 02:23:56
    I didn't see him volunteering to get sucker punched.
  • 02:24:00
    As long as peaceful protesters are declared an unlawful assembly, tear gassed, and criminalized, there will be no justice and there will be no peace.
  • 02:24:08
    Military equipment.
  • 02:24:09
    You all are gaslighting us.
  • 02:24:11
    We need a gaslight.
  • 02:24:12
    You all are gaslighting us.
  • 02:24:13
    That's crazy.
  • 02:24:15
    They have military equipment.
  • 02:24:17
    Why is that only used against people of color and poor people?
  • 02:24:21
    No one in Haiti accidentally revealed the true purpose of the police, to protect the rich and their property.
  • 02:24:31
    No one in their right mind can argue the police deserve more money.
  • 02:24:34
    Slash their budget and let's work towards a police-free society.
  • 02:24:41
    Heyfy, I'm just going to get started on you.
  • 02:24:43
    Heyfy, Fogel revealed you to be a fraud.
  • 02:24:46
    The blood wasn't even dry on the pavement and you volunteered for this job.
  • 02:24:49
    You're a glorified ambulance chaser.
  • 02:24:53
    You need to return the money that was given to you.
  • 02:24:55
    Pro bono, pro bono, you have no shame.
  • 02:24:58
    You have no shame.
  • 02:24:59
    You and Signer are two crony gangsters spit out by UVA Law School.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:25:10
    Next up, we have Dr. Rich Turner.
  • 02:25:14
    Dr. Turner, before you go, can we have Ms. Jeanne Peterson to come up front?
  • 02:25:22
    Jeannie?
  • 02:25:23
    Jeannie?
  • 02:25:24
    All right.
  • 02:25:24
    Dr. Turner?
• • Maurice JonesCity Manager
  • 02:25:26
    Thank you.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:25:29
    So you up.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:25:30
    She's next.
  • 02:25:32
    We love you, Starr.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:25:33
    You know, after reviewing the report, I know that I had to be here this evening.
  • 02:25:39
    because if I wasn't perhaps what I have to say wouldn't get said.
  • 02:25:45
    I agree with the report that city and state police were unprepared to deal with the chaotic events that occurred in July and August.
  • 02:25:56
    One of my colleagues commented that there is plenty of blame to go around.
  • 02:26:01
    Some of the chaos occurred because of the historic racism in this city and I doubt that chief
  • 02:26:09
    Thomas, City Manager Maurice Jones, or the City Council anticipated that racism would raise its ugly head to the extent that it did.
  • 02:26:19
    Our city officials, like so many others, tend to avoid issues of race.
  • 02:26:25
    The problem of racism in Charlottesville Police Department is an old one.
  • 02:26:31
    It was here before the last chief got here, it was here before he was here, and it was here when he left.
  • 02:26:37
    I suspect that when Chief Thomas arrived, he recognized that racism was a historic reality here, and he believed he could handle it.
  • 02:26:48
    Then the white supremacists came to the city, raising tension and testing the limits of Charlottesville's ability to handle the threat of hatred and violence.
  • 02:26:57
    From the time L. Thomas was selected as city police chief, I expected that the city was going to face some new problems.
  • 02:27:06
    In my opinion, part of the dysfunction within the city police force stemmed from officers resistant to take orders from a black police chief.
  • 02:27:16
    It indicates no one can dispute the impact of racism on this summer's tragedy event.
  • 02:27:22
    If they do, they're not accepting reality.
  • 02:27:26
    You can deal with the problem of this magnitude.
  • 02:27:29
    You can't deal with this problem of this magnitude by denying its existence.
  • 02:27:33
    Well, Mr. Efi, reports include invaluable insights and recommendations.
  • 02:27:38
    It ignored the central theme issue of racism.
  • 02:27:44
    What makes this a racial issue?
  • 02:27:47
    Perhaps most obvious is the fact that two of the major players, the police chief and the city manager, are black.
  • 02:27:56
    If the author of the report was a conscious black person, he couldn't miss the relevance of race in this context.
  • 02:28:02
    Instead, this report never mentioned it.
  • 02:28:04
    We live in a state of steadfast denial.
  • 02:28:07
    This report never mentioned the issue of race.
  • 02:28:10
    Now, race is all over this report.
  • 02:28:12
    Race is all over this city.
  • 02:28:15
    But no mention of race.
  • 02:28:17
    Even the daily progress in this editorial today avoided the issue of race altogether.
  • 02:28:22
    We slow down racial progress when we avoid asking hard questions pertaining to race.
  • 02:28:29
    Racism thrives when it is ignored or dismissed.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:28:39
    Ms. Katrina Turner, excuse me, Ms. Jeanne Peterson.
  • 02:28:43
    Excuse me, thank you, Starr.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 02:28:44
    My name is Starr Peterson, and I'm a city resident.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:28:46
    But before you go, Ms. Katrina Turner, you'll be next.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 02:28:51
    You should have told her that before she got up.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:28:54
    Thank you, Ms. Rosenbaum.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 02:28:57
    This past summer was a prime example of the police force's decision not to protect or serve the most marginalized members of our community.
  • 02:29:07
    In advance of the July KKK rally, the NAACP invited Chief Thomas to speak.
  • 02:29:13
    Chief Thomas deliberately dodged questions about officers' discrimination against people of color.
  • 02:29:18
    He joked that he was stubborn and was only going to discuss what he had planned to talk about.
  • 02:29:24
    When a woman of color asked Chief Thomas if Klan members would be armed at the rally, Chief Thomas turned her question into a joke about not being able to detect firearms beneath white robes.
  • 02:29:38
    After the NAACP meeting, Rosia Parker approached Chief Thomas.
  • 02:29:42
    She expressed fear of the white supremacists who had been following her to church.
  • 02:29:47
    Chief Thomas offered no help whatsoever and instead whines that things weren't easy for the police officers either.
  • 02:29:55
    On August 12, I watched an officer smirk and laugh as anti-racist activists were hurt defending our city.
  • 02:30:02
    Just last week in court, I watched officers laugh repeatedly at defendants as they appeared before the judge.
  • 02:30:08
    The judge did nothing to correct them.
  • 02:30:11
    On August 12th, a school resource officer abandoned her post on 4th Street and was not replaced.
  • 02:30:17
    James Field was able to attack anti-racist protesters with his car.
  • 02:30:22
    People I love were severely injured and permanently traumatized.
  • 02:30:26
    Heather Heyer became a victim of murder.
  • 02:30:29
    Her parents lost their baby.
  • 02:30:32
    The police performed their designated rule on August 12th to protect and serve themselves and the people already in power.
  • 02:30:39
    The police are not the answer.
  • 02:30:41
    The police are an integral part of the problem.
  • 02:30:45
    No comps, no KKK, no fascists in this USA.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:30:56
    Ms. Turner, before you begin, let it be known, Ms. Maria Rincon is up next.
  • 02:31:02
    Ms. Maria Rincon?
  • 02:31:07
    She's in the overflow room?
  • 02:31:09
    Okay, we'll give her a moment to come up.
  • 02:31:11
    Go ahead, Ms. Turner.
• • Katrina Turner
  • 02:31:13
    Well, on August the 15th, I left my house.
  • 02:31:21
    It was a few minutes before 8 o'clock, I was going to CVS.
  • 02:31:27
    When I got to CVS, a truck parked in front of me, but it was back behind another vehicle.
  • 02:31:36
    So I just sat in my car because it was just funny the way that truck pulled up.
  • 02:31:44
    And ever since the 12th, I've literally been vigilant of my surroundings.
  • 02:31:50
    So I sat in my car for about 10 minutes, and the person in that truck never got out that truck.
  • 02:31:58
    So I waited until an employee, until I saw an employee come out of the food line.
  • 02:32:05
    When I saw that employee, I went up to that employee and I asked that employee, did he see that truck behind me?
  • 02:32:15
    When the employee turned around to look at that truck, I asked him, could he see who was in the truck?
  • 02:32:24
    The window was down.
  • 02:32:26
    When he faced him and looked at him, the truck sped away.
  • 02:32:33
    So the employee called.
  • 02:32:34
    He begged me to call the police, but of course I said no because of he trusts the police.
  • 02:32:43
    So I had to call my son to come pick me up on that day because I was terrified of who else was following me.
  • 02:32:53
    Foodline did call the police.
  • 02:32:55
    They called the rescue squad because I was literally about to fall out that day.
  • 02:33:01
    But I never made a report.
  • 02:33:04
    And for me to have been followed after what happened on the 12th, and I couldn't call the police.
  • 02:33:14
    Y'all really need to do something about the police.
  • 02:33:17
    Y'all need to do something about what's going on in Charlottesville.
  • 02:33:21
    And if you don't believe me, it was the 15th of August called Food Line Fifth Street.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:33:27
    Thank you, Ms. Turner.
  • 02:33:32
    Next up, we'll have Mr. Don Gathers.
  • 02:33:35
    After Don, we'll have Gail Witherwill.
  • 02:33:40
    If you could come up, please.
  • 02:33:43
    So Mr. Gathers and then Ms. Witherill.
  • 02:33:46
    I'm sorry, is the other young lady that was before me?
  • 02:33:48
    She's not in.
  • 02:33:49
    We'll try to reserve time for her at the end if she can show up.
• • Don Gathers
  • 02:33:53
    Okay, thank you.
  • 02:33:56
    Council, Mr. Heafey, as I told you Friday, you presented what amounts to a very comprehensive report, but it falls woefully short.
  • 02:34:07
    You don't address the specific issue
  • 02:34:11
    that brought the Nazis here in the first place.
  • 02:34:14
    And that's racism.
  • 02:34:16
    You don't touch on that in your report.
  • 02:34:20
    You've got an impressive battery of legal minds here.
  • 02:34:25
    A murderer's role, if you will.
  • 02:34:27
    But not one person of color seated here amongst them.
  • 02:34:33
    You cannot direct or issue a report that deals specifically with racism
  • 02:34:41
    when you don't address race in the people that you're giving it to.
  • 02:34:50
    So rather than, Mr. Jones, I know that you're getting pressure, and I'm not asking a question, I just know that you're getting pressure to do something with Chief Thomas.
  • 02:35:04
    And I know that there was no finding of a stand-down.
  • 02:35:09
    So recognize that if that is the case, then each of those individual officers took it upon themselves to deny the oath that they took as an officer to keep the peace.
  • 02:35:23
    I say that to say you can't stop, merely, at Chief Thomas.
  • 02:35:26
    The report gives you a litany of folks that you need to come down the line through and address issues with them as well.
  • 02:35:35
    I may be the only one in the house right now that feels this way, but I pray that you don't succumb to that pressure because I promise you that while they might be pushing the screws for you to do that to Chief Thomas now, some of these same folks will be after you next.
  • 02:35:52
    That's just a sad reality.
  • 02:35:55
    And the thing is, the report, and I spoke to you about this on Friday, Mr. Hayfield,
  • 02:35:59
    The report was stained from the very beginning.
  • 02:36:02
    Just the cover picture that you had on there is dismissive and disgraceful.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:36:06
    Thank you, Mr. Gathers.
• • Don Gathers
  • 02:36:07
    And then the very first paragraph of that report, we start to speak about Thomas Jefferson.
  • 02:36:12
    That told me all I needed to know right then.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:36:15
    Thank you, Mr. Gathers.
  • 02:36:21
    Before you go, Ms. Gail, next up we'll have Andrea Massey after Ms. Gail.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 02:36:28
    My name's Gail Weatherill.
  • 02:36:30
    I live in Albemarle but I've worked in the city for over 30 years.
  • 02:36:34
    I went to the university here and I love this city and I love the people in it.
  • 02:36:43
    And I was at the August 12th counter protest.
  • 02:36:50
    Before I retired I was a critical care nurse for decades.
  • 02:36:56
    As such, I was often called upon to perform tasks that were extremely complicated.
  • 02:37:05
    And if I did that task well, I might help save someone's life.
  • 02:37:16
    If I did not do it properly, someone could die.
  • 02:37:24
    If I were called upon to perform a complicated task that I had never done before, I would have consulted people who were experienced, who had been successful in completing that task.
  • 02:37:51
    As I was doing that task for the first time, I would make sure that all of those experts were available to me at all times.
  • 02:38:01
    I would understand in the ICU that the situation is always fluid.
  • 02:38:11
    What was true two minutes ago may not be true now.
  • 02:38:19
    I have to say, nothing that was in this report surprised me in the least.
  • 02:38:25
    I could have told you by the end of the day on August 12th pretty much what Mr. Hafeez told me.
  • 02:38:38
    It was obvious everybody else got double the time they were told, so I'm going to take mine.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:38:44
    Okay, you're not going to take double.
  • 02:38:45
    You can have a few more seconds.
  • 02:38:47
    Thank you darling.
  • 02:38:48
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 02:38:50
    Shit, I lost my train of thought.
  • 02:38:55
    I know one thing though, if I were so arrogant as to say to myself, well you know I read about that in nursing school a few years ago, I slept at a Holiday Inn last night, I should be able to do this.
  • 02:39:17
    and I walked into that unprepared and did what I thought was the right thing to do with all good intentions and somebody died, the Board of Nursing would pull my license in a heartbeat.
  • 02:39:32
    Not only would they pull my license, but they would call into account my boss who allowed me
  • 02:39:41
    to go into a dangerous situation unprepared.
  • 02:39:46
    I swear that night I thought a group of kindergartners could have planned it better.
  • 02:39:52
    And I felt bad for law enforcement because they were following orders.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:39:57
    Thank you, Ms. Rutherford.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 02:39:58
    That's who needs to pay.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:40:00
    Next up, Ms. Massey.
  • 02:40:01
    Was Andrea Massey found?
  • 02:40:04
    No.
  • 02:40:05
    Mr. Russ Linden.
  • 02:40:09
    After Russ Linden, we will have S. Williamson.
  • 02:40:15
    Individual didn't put their first name.
• • SPEAKER_26
  • 02:40:26
    OK. Hi, I'm Russ Linden.
  • 02:40:26
    I live at 336 Parkway.
  • 02:40:28
    Leaving.
  • 02:40:28
    I want to thank Mr. Hafee and his colleagues for shining such a sharp light on so many things that went terribly wrong.
  • 02:40:34
    We needed to hear it.
  • 02:40:36
    I'd like to raise a couple of questions and then offer a modest suggestion.
  • 02:40:41
    First question has to do with communications, which was emphasized in the report.
  • 02:40:45
    It seems the communications within law enforcement and between the city and the public following the July and August rallies were terribly poor.
  • 02:40:54
    And yet we know from emergency management leaders that communications, there's nothing more important when it comes to dealing with emergencies as communications.
  • 02:41:03
    So why is it apparently that the city did so many things well before July 8th and yet communicate in terms of communications but not after?
  • 02:41:11
    That's a puzzle to me.
  • 02:41:13
    Second, there was such a lack of learning, again, mentioned, emphasized in the report.
  • 02:41:18
    Why did our police wait so long to reach out to management, emergency management experts, to other localities that have dealt with divisive rallies to learn from them?
  • 02:41:27
    Why did the police command staff not accept offers of assistance from others?
  • 02:41:31
    Why did the command staff not listen to the concerns and recommendations from a number of city police officers when those officers realized that violence was likely?
  • 02:41:42
    I know that Mr. Hafey was asked that question and I think he answered honestly, he doesn't know.
  • 02:41:46
    I think we have to find the answer to that.
  • 02:41:48
    And finally, if you will, a modest suggestion.
  • 02:41:52
    We know that many residents in the city, so many here, feel that the city's leaders haven't been listening to them.
  • 02:41:58
    and they're angry that the city has communicated so little since the summer.
  • 02:42:02
    I understand that.
  • 02:42:03
    In fairness, I think it's also important to say that many city leaders, perhaps up here, get angry and hurt when people come to council meetings and yell, sometimes using hateful speech at them.
  • 02:42:14
    We're caught in a downward spiral.
  • 02:42:17
    We're caught in a downward spiral.
  • 02:42:18
    So here's just one thought.
  • 02:42:20
    What if we try something different?
  • 02:42:22
    What if we have a series of engagement sessions led by faith leaders and nonprofit leaders
  • 02:42:27
    where people can talk together in small groups about their reactions to the report and their suggestions for how we can move forward.
  • 02:42:34
    We could capture their ideas, publicize them to the community and through the media so that there's transparency.
  • 02:42:41
    Maybe holding these kind of communication and engagement sessions, excuse me, where people can talk openly and honestly will help us and invite us to stop yelling so much and perhaps to start listening more to each other.
  • 02:42:53
    Thank you.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:42:54
    Thank you, Mr. Linden.
  • 02:42:56
    Thank you.
  • 02:42:57
    After Ms. Williamson, she'll be followed by Mark Hasey.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 02:43:03
    Hi, I'm Sally Williamson.
  • 02:43:05
    I'm a city resident.
  • 02:43:07
    I think that I would like to start by addressing you, Mr. Signer, and saying that your repeated insistence on what you term civility
  • 02:43:21
    When a large concern that's been brought again and again by the people who live here is safety is disturbing and destructive.
  • 02:43:36
    And you do get to get through it.
  • 02:43:40
    You do get to say what you want to say.
  • 02:43:42
    Every time, every time.
  • 02:43:45
    And that since you stated a little bit ago that now that you have seen some things in the report, you might be willing to believe them as opposed to when they were brought to you by people who weren't paid $350,000.
  • 02:43:59
    There are two things from the report.
  • 02:44:04
    that I would just like to bring up that weren't specifically mentioned.
  • 02:44:10
    And the first is in regard to July 8th when Major Pleasant specifically told the Chief, you're damn right I gassed them, it needed to be done.
  • 02:44:20
    I apologize for the foul language, but that is a direct quote from the report.
  • 02:44:25
    And second, in regard to August 12th, when Lieutenant Jim Mooney recalled that at the August 17th meeting, Captain Mitchell remarked that they could not have sent in their younger officers into the crowd on August 12th for the fear that they might have killed someone.
  • 02:44:41
    Captain Shifflett reiterated that sentiment when we interviewed him.
  • 02:44:44
    That's on page 148.
  • 02:44:48
    There is no reason for us to believe that we would have been protected by the police.
  • 02:44:55
    And we were not protected by the police.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:45:03
    Thank you, Ms. Williams.
  • 02:45:04
    Mr. Mark, if you may come forward, please.
  • 02:45:05
    After Mr. Mark, we'll have Sarah Tansy.
  • 02:45:10
    Is Sarah in?
  • 02:45:10
    Hold on one second, Mark.
  • 02:45:11
    I'm sorry.
  • 02:45:12
    Sarah, she in?
  • 02:45:14
    No.
  • 02:45:19
    Oh, escorting.
  • 02:45:21
    OK, so we'll save our spot.
  • 02:45:24
    Ms. Carey, you'll be after Mr. Haise.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 02:45:30
    Yeah, so my name is Mark Haise.
  • 02:45:32
    I'd just like to highlight a few things that I have in response to the report.
  • 02:45:37
    First thing that really bothered me about the report is the apparent incongruity or confusion or bewilderment on the part of Haise and his team that anti-racist activists didn't want to participate in the report.
  • 02:45:49
    The report repeatedly attributes that to a difference in ideology and stuff like that.
  • 02:45:56
    But it doesn't attribute it at all to people's experience.
  • 02:45:59
    And one need to look no further than this summer to see why experience would lead people to distrust law enforcement.
  • 02:46:06
    Repeated arrests of anti-racist activists in the middle of the night, tear-gassing peaceful protesters on July 8,
  • 02:46:13
    And then if you look further back, you have the entire history of policing in this community and in this country, which has always been meant to support and defend white supremacy.
  • 02:46:23
    So when anti-racists don't want to cooperate with police, it shouldn't cause confusion.
  • 02:46:28
    It should be apparently obvious why.
  • 02:46:31
    Secondly, all the work of pleading with Citi to prevent violence on August 12th went largely unheeded in the report, while the report
  • 02:46:41
    is supposedly frustrated with people's lack of cooperation.
  • 02:46:47
    The people who made this report were directed to Solidarity Seaville's archives, which contain a wealth of information about what happened over the course of this summer.
  • 02:46:56
    And that information was largely not incorporated into the report.
  • 02:47:01
    So I'm at a loss as to what actually going in and talking to Hafee and his team and giving us our names and being quoted in that document, which is online.
  • 02:47:10
    And finally, the three felony masking charges were people who were protecting themselves from tear gas that wasn't reported.
  • 02:47:23
    And then the recommendations of the report are largely more policing rather than less.
  • 02:47:28
    After detailing failure after failure of the police on July 8th, on August 12th, throughout the summer, the recommendations are we should have more policing.
  • 02:47:36
    Any logical conclusion would lead one to conclude that we should have less policing or no policing in this community, not more.
  • 02:47:45
    Including increased surveillance, which is deeply troubling.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:47:49
    Thank you, sir.
  • 02:47:51
    Ms. Carey.
  • 02:47:52
    And after Ms. Carey, we'll have Pat Napoleon.
  • 02:47:57
    Is Pat in?
  • 02:47:57
    Ms. Carey, I'm sorry.
  • 02:47:59
    OK, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:48:02
    Is it my turn?
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:48:03
    Yes, ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:48:06
    Mary Curry, city resident.
  • 02:48:10
    I'm sorry, y'all.
  • 02:48:11
    I didn't come at 4 o'clock.
  • 02:48:13
    But if it was like it is now, I'm glad I missed it.
  • 02:48:18
    But Mr. Hafie, I don't even know you and I don't think I like you.
  • 02:48:25
    But see, when you ask somebody for a job and they give it to you, you do the best you can.
  • 02:48:32
    You don't come out and do what you did tonight and take all of us from our homes and our time to come down here and listen to that bullshit you put out there.
  • 02:48:43
    Because you weren't there.
  • 02:48:45
    You weren't there and all your experts here, whatever they do, I don't know what they do.
  • 02:48:48
    They look like they dressed real nice.
  • 02:48:51
    But they're getting paid well.
  • 02:48:53
    That's it.
  • 02:48:54
    But you need to, you should have went out and asked some of the people that got hurt.
  • 02:48:58
    Some of the people that were injured.
  • 02:49:00
    You should have asked some of the people that actually were at the park.
  • 02:49:04
    Anytime, July 8th, August 11th, 12th, whatever, 15th, whatever.
  • 02:49:12
    But you went out and did what you wanted to do with your experts.
  • 02:49:16
    And then you put a little plug in for Captain Lewis to get Chief Thomas' job.
  • 02:49:22
    That's all you talked about was her.
  • 02:49:25
    But like Mr. Turner said, racism is all over the shit.
  • 02:49:30
    Racism is spread all over this town.
  • 02:49:33
    And I can tell you for a fact, when I grew up, KKK rolled through Charlottesville, but it didn't roll like that through the black neighborhood.
  • 02:49:42
    And it's not going to roll like that through Charlottesville anymore.
  • 02:49:48
    If you need another job, get the job of the lady that was the dog catcher.
  • 02:49:54
    Maybe you can make a better report.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:50:00
    After Ms. Napoleon, she will be followed by Richard Lloyd.
  • 02:50:07
    Mr. Lloyd, if you could come up please.
  • 02:50:09
    Ms. Napoleon, the floor is yours.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:50:12
    I'm Pat Napoleon and I have to say this is all unbelievable.
  • 02:50:17
    Why are taxpayers and citizens forced in paying for a study wherein the corruption reported was discovered at the city level?
  • 02:50:26
    The details are already within sight while the city knew about it.
  • 02:50:31
    Why must you hire another for finding out your own answers?
  • 02:50:35
    Each and every one of the five of the current councils should resign.
  • 02:50:40
    Each and every one of you participated in some shape, way, or form and manner for creating a perfect storm with the result of violence and death on August 12th.
  • 02:50:55
    Eligibly going forth for the removal of statues, a mayor connected with a leash
  • 02:51:04
    for disciplinary reasons, and he brought those people in when he labeled this the capital of the resistance.
  • 02:51:15
    Yet you remain in denial for your properly
  • 02:51:22
    for not properly admitting your own roles for a result of the kiss of death descending upon Charlottesville.
  • 02:51:29
    Where is your conscience?
  • 02:51:31
    Where is your compassion for a result of chaos?
  • 02:51:34
    I'm with RISE Charlottesville and we are leading the charge for recall for the entire city council.
  • 02:51:40
    By the way, Miss Dreyfus, with regard to your comment for Rise being about the statues, such characterization is not the mission of Rise Charlottesville.
  • 02:51:50
    Lastly, and once again, this is, there is absence of accountability as well as credibility for maintaining effective leadership.
  • 02:52:01
    In the normal world, you would have been fired.
  • 02:52:05
    Resign or recall.
  • 02:52:07
    It's your choice.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:52:09
    Thank you.
  • 02:52:14
    Next up, we'll have Mr. Richard Lloyd.
  • 02:52:17
    Mr. Lloyd, before you go, you will be followed by Mason Pickett.
  • 02:52:22
    Is Mr. Pickett here?
  • 02:52:25
    Mr. Pickett was removed.
  • 02:52:27
    After Mr. Pickett on the list, we had Ms. Nancy Carpenter.
  • 02:52:31
    Ms. Carpenter, if you don't mind, if you could come up next.
  • 02:52:35
    Mr. Lloyd, the floor is yours, sir.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 02:52:38
    My name is Richard Lloyd and I'm with the Prize in Charlottesville.
  • 02:52:41
    We are here to recall all of you.
  • 02:52:44
    So that decided, what was the governor's position?
  • 02:52:50
    What was his role?
  • 02:52:51
    I mean, we heard rumors that the governor was in communication with you.
  • 02:52:57
    And yet now I understand that he's resisting all the foyers, that he didn't participate in this report.
  • 02:53:02
    Is that true?
  • 02:53:05
    We don't know.
  • 02:53:05
    That's the point.
  • 02:53:06
    We don't know.
  • 02:53:12
    You know, and I have children.
  • 02:53:14
    I have two children.
  • 02:53:15
    And as they were growing up, they did things that weren't right.
  • 02:53:17
    And they always said, I'm so sorry.
  • 02:53:20
    I apologize.
  • 02:53:22
    I'm so sorry.
  • 02:53:23
    You think I let them off the hook?
  • 02:53:26
    You're sorry.
  • 02:53:27
    You're sorry.
  • 02:53:27
    You're all sorry.
  • 02:53:29
    What you need to do is fall to your knees and pray to God.
  • 02:53:34
    You need to mean it.
  • 02:53:35
    Saying you're sorry doesn't get you anywhere.
  • 02:53:37
    It doesn't get you anywhere with these people or me.
  • 02:53:44
    You're so sorry.
  • 02:53:48
    What are you going to do about it?
  • 02:53:51
    You really need to mean it.
  • 02:53:53
    You need to fall to your knees.
  • 02:53:55
    You remember calling Pat Napoleon a xenophobe?
  • 02:53:59
    You remember that.
  • 02:54:00
    Did you ever say you're sorry?
  • 02:54:02
    No.
  • 02:54:03
    You're not sorry.
  • 02:54:04
    You just say the words.
  • 02:54:07
    You just say the words.
  • 02:54:10
    Now let's take the rest of my time, 32 seconds.
  • 02:54:14
    and give it for silent prayer.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:54:44
    Thank you, sir.
  • 02:54:47
    Ms. Carpenter.
  • 02:54:47
    Ms. Carpenter, after Ms. Carpenter, she'll be followed by Bradford Sloane.
  • 02:54:58
    Sloane, excuse me.
  • 02:55:02
    I'm sorry, Ms. Carpenter, the floor is yours.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:55:11
    I was just waiting to see this light started before I talked.
  • 02:55:14
    Boom!
  • 02:55:15
    Okay, like Mr.
  • 02:55:16
    Gather said,
  • 02:55:18
    Racism wasn't a part of this report and it certainly was from the get-go when that brave young woman stood beside a statue and talked about white supremacy and what that statue meant to her as a young Charlottesville civilian.
  • 02:55:33
    That's when it all started and it is about race.
  • 02:55:37
    It is about race and that this report did not show anything about that.
  • 02:55:42
    I can see why now.
  • 02:55:43
    I can see why.
  • 02:55:44
    Unless somebody that is a staff person or a legal assistant, somebody that has black consciousness had their fingerprints on that report, it's totally a whitewash.
  • 02:55:56
    And let's not forget that had it not been for the quick thinking of another community member, he could have died based on an injury he received out at the Thomas Jefferson statue on the UVA grounds or campus, as some uninformed people want to call it.
  • 02:56:12
    and there could have been another murder.
  • 02:56:14
    Not just Heather Heyer's murder, not just the two policemen up in the helicopter, but there could have been a second, another community member.
  • 02:56:22
    And yet Albemarle County will not prosecute those men that came over that rotunda and down to probably some of these people that are sitting here in the audience that suffered everything that went on.
  • 02:56:36
    You know, and Robert, what's his name?
  • 02:56:38
    I don't want to disrespect him.
  • 02:56:40
    Was it Tracy, Tracky, Tritchie?
  • 02:56:42
    Tracy, refuses to prosecute.
  • 02:56:45
    Now Albemarle County needs to be held accountable, just as well as you all.
  • 02:56:49
    UVA, Terry Sullivan, whoever the new president is, by Terry.
  • 02:56:54
    You know, you're leaving Charlottesville with a bad taste in our mouth and I can see why, and I am ashamed that I stood up for her several years ago when the Board of Visitors wanted to get a river.
  • 02:57:03
    They should have then.
  • 02:57:04
    Okay, so I know I've got a few seconds left.
  • 02:57:07
    But like I said, there needs to be a complete review of line officers.
  • 02:57:13
    They certainly, Gary Pleasance, he announced his retirement.
  • 02:57:16
    He needs to go retire tonight.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:57:23
    After Ms.
  • 02:57:24
    Slogan, we'll have Ms. Parker.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:57:30
    My name is Bradford Slocum.
  • 02:57:32
    I'm a Charlottesville resident, UVA alum.
  • 02:57:36
    And I came prepared with remarks based on the report, not realizing how short time would be.
  • 02:57:43
    And fortunately, a lot of those points have already been covered.
  • 02:57:46
    So I think I've been able to boil it down to two things, a couple of quotations publicly made, one by Chief Thomas.
  • 02:57:55
    It's not a time for finger pointing.
  • 02:57:57
    It's a time to come together.
  • 02:58:00
    I'd like to follow that with Mr. Heifetz's statement earlier.
  • 02:58:04
    Lack of law enforcement emboldened them, them being the neo-Nazis, fascists, and other unfortunate people that came here and many who are still here.
  • 02:58:14
    It needs to be remembered.
  • 02:58:16
    Following that, failure to protect public safety erodes trust in law enforcement and in city government.
  • 02:58:23
    So if it's a time
  • 02:58:25
    for coming together.
  • 02:58:26
    As Chief Thomas said, who are we supposed to come together with?
  • 02:58:31
    If we can't trust law enforcement, we can't trust you.
  • 02:58:35
    And I'm sorry to say that because I have a lot of faith in the democratic system, but this has failed.
  • 02:58:43
    You have failed us.
  • 02:58:44
    You failed me.
  • 02:58:45
    You failed my friends.
  • 02:58:46
    You failed our community.
  • 02:58:49
    So that brings me to the other point.
  • 02:58:51
    We've heard a lot of it already.
  • 02:58:53
    Accountability.
  • 02:58:54
    Where is the accountability going to be?
  • 02:58:56
    Is it going to be Virginia State Police, Ground Commander, Lieutenant Becky Cranis Curl?
  • 02:59:02
    Is it going to be
  • 02:59:04
    Chief Thomas, is it going to be you?
  • 02:59:06
    Where's the buck gonna stop?
  • 02:59:08
    We want accountability.
  • 02:59:11
    You need to give it to us.
  • 02:59:13
    That is your role because we elect you.
  • 02:59:17
    That is your job.
  • 02:59:18
    We need you to do your job.
  • 02:59:20
    Please do your job for us, for all of us, for our community.
  • 02:59:25
    Thank you.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 02:59:25
    Thank you.
  • 02:59:29
    Ms. Parker?
  • 02:59:31
    After Ms. Parker?
  • 02:59:33
    After Ms. Parker, she'll be followed by Ms. Hudson.
• • Rosia Parker
  • 02:59:37
    Rose Parker, aka Rose Park.
  • 02:59:48
    The day that you, you, you.
  • 02:59:57
    The day that Wes went, the day that you went, Mike.
  • 03:00:02
    and Ms. Kathy Galvin, I was asked to represent you on a ticket when I was promoting Wes.
  • 03:00:13
    If I had have known that you were on that ticket, I would have never accepted Wes's proposal to represent him for the simple fact I don't like you and I don't like you and I knew you weren't for the people.
  • 03:00:32
    So therefore, I did not choose you.
  • 03:00:34
    So instead, I represented Dee Dee Smith, and at that time, Linda Seville, and Wes.
  • 03:00:41
    So the day that I didn't go to sleep, on, no, the day I woke up, Friday, August 11th, I mean, yeah, August 11th, I wasn't prepared for the encounter that I was going to endure.
  • 03:00:57
    But I was ready.
  • 03:00:59
    And the reason I was ready is because I took heed to what was going to take place.
  • 03:01:03
    and if I'm holding myself accountable, like I'm holding you accountable, I had to be prepared for what was to come to my city.
  • 03:01:11
    I am a mother, I am a grandmother, I am a neighbor, and I am a community leader.
  • 03:01:19
    Did you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
  • 03:01:22
    Mike.
  • 03:01:25
    So therefore, I take this very seriously.
  • 03:01:30
    I could have been killed on that day, but I was woke and prepared to die for my own, not of ignorance of others.
  • 03:01:38
    And not only that, I could have been killed tonight coming back to the city council meeting, because there in the black neighborhood besides UVA, there is no lights.
  • 03:01:47
    There is no proper crossing.
  • 03:01:49
    So therefore, above an abundant hill for black folks, we're doomed.
  • 03:01:53
    So there is racism all around Charlottesville.
  • 03:01:55
    And until you learn to adapt to accept the accountability
  • 03:02:00
    of the word sorry means apology, because a sorry is, a sorry does, and that's you, Mike Signer, and your local government.
  • 03:02:08
    Hello.
  • 03:02:09
    Thank you.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:02:14
    Ms. Hudson.
  • 03:02:16
    After Ms. Hudson, she'll be followed by Dave.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 03:02:19
    Tanisha Hudson, but I'm going to be also known as tonight as Mike Signer.
  • 03:02:24
    You can't dictate what I say or do.
  • 03:02:28
    I also want to say in the report that I made a comment to the police officers in reference to
  • 03:02:38
    that they wouldn't act that way if they were in Hardy Drive, the Annex or the Waffle House.
  • 03:02:43
    You left that part out of the report and I know it was on the body camera because I was going crazy.
  • 03:02:48
    But shout out to the number 40 because I think I said that in the report and you also said that it was supposed to be 20 cops here and 20 cops there.
  • 03:02:56
    So 40 is a very special number for me.
  • 03:02:58
    Maybe I'll play the pick three tonight and win.
  • 03:03:00
    Also you failed to cover the deployment of the chemical agent on August 12th because it was a chemical agent released in the Wells Fargo parking lot as well it was shot from the police on the opposite side of the park.
  • 03:03:14
    The police were shooting the chemical agent on August the 12th.
  • 03:03:17
    I know you covered July 8th, but August the 12th chemical agent was left out.
  • 03:03:22
    And there are images that show the tear gas coming from behind the barricades where the police were.
  • 03:03:27
    And there was canisters still left out behind the Wells Fargo parking lot, and that was part of the area that was left out of the pens.
  • 03:03:34
    So you didn't quite cover that either in your report.
  • 03:03:38
    Oh, I have 42 seconds left.
  • 03:03:41
    So I was just wondering, were you ready to apologize to me?
  • 03:03:46
    I'm gonna ask for myself, not everybody else.
  • 03:03:48
    You really just don't want to get an apology, do you, Mike?
  • 03:03:53
    We gonna talk later?
  • 03:03:54
    You gonna talk later?
  • 03:03:55
    I think you should hurry up and talk, for real.
  • 03:03:59
    I just want the apology for the unlawful assembly that you did, though.
  • 03:04:03
    Because if you really, really look at the facts, and this may have been a prosecutor over here,
  • 03:04:08
    You should be in trouble too, you know that right?
  • 03:04:11
    But you acting so much like Donald Trump right now.
  • 03:04:14
    I see why you sitting up there acting like the macho man.
  • 03:04:18
    You want that red light to come on real quick, don't you?
  • 03:04:24
    I really do think that you will relieve yourself a lot of stress, a lot of anguish, a lot of anguish.
  • 03:04:34
    No, everybody else went on.
  • 03:04:35
    I'm going to go on too.
  • 03:04:36
    If you just come out and just admit your wrongdoings, because you have yet to do that, and you really do owe the city that.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:04:43
    You really do.
• • Tanesha Hudson
  • 03:04:44
    Your wrongdoings.
  • 03:04:46
    Not a sorry, but just admit what you did wrong, because you abused your power and you know it.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:04:54
    So there's been some questions in regards to why some individuals may have gone twice.
  • 03:05:06
    Initially, before these two individuals went, someone ceded their time to them, which is why, in addition to someone allowing them to speak in their place, they also signed up on the sheet, which is what you're hearing now.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 03:05:18
    And this is going to be my last time up here today.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:05:19
    Sure, two minutes begin, sir.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 03:05:21
    I want to finish on you, Hafie.
  • 03:05:23
    You profited from tragedy and death.
  • 03:05:25
    You have the gall to shake us down for more.
  • 03:05:28
    You guys too, you know, the suit and tie gangsters.
  • 03:05:31
    The million and a half dollar price tag is completely fictional.
  • 03:05:34
    You guys pulled it out of your butt.
  • 03:05:36
    I can come up here and say that I billed two million dollars for the public comments I made, but I only take half a million.
  • 03:05:41
    I mean, the million and a half is a completely fabricated price tag.
  • 03:05:45
    You don't deserve a dollar more.
  • 03:05:47
    Not a dollar more.
  • 03:05:49
    And to say that it could have been worse is to gaslight us and is an insult to Susan Breaux and Heather Heyer's family.
  • 03:05:57
    You cannot say it could have been worse if someone is dead and others are maimed and injured.
  • 03:06:02
    Question, is Maurice Jones afraid to fire Al Thomas because he'll drag Jones down with him?
  • 03:06:09
    Is it a coincidence that the review is easy on Jones, who's the one who got Hafey paid and has the money, has his hand on the money faucet?
  • 03:06:18
    That's something to think about as we read between the lines of this review.
  • 03:06:23
    Picking up on the gentleman two times before me, the election's not going to be kind if you all are even going to run for re-election in two years.
  • 03:06:31
    The election's not going to be kind until you start doing the right thing.
  • 03:06:34
    You want to have a chance at re-election.
  • 03:06:36
    You need to start doing the right thing now.
  • 03:06:38
    Mr. Signer, we remember you fleeing out that back door like a coward on August 21st.
  • 03:06:42
    And Ms. Galvin, your trickle-down economics has been outdated.
  • 03:06:47
    I mean, the closest thing you have to a housing policy is trickle-down housing, and the Thatcher Act is just not working for the city.
  • 03:06:56
    And Wes, sorry, but the Democratic Party will not save anyone.
  • 03:07:00
    You all have a real test here right now.
  • 03:07:03
    A man said effing bitch to a person of the community and you all barely flinched.
  • 03:07:09
    You threw him out.
  • 03:07:10
    Are you going to treat him as heavy-handed as you treated Donna on August 21st?
  • 03:07:17
    Are you all going to let a man use a gendered slur against someone this community cares about?
  • 03:07:20
    Is there going to be real consequences for this man who said effing bitch to someone in our community?
  • 03:07:26
    Think about that and black lives matter.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:07:29
    Ms. Megan Bloom
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 03:07:45
    I didn't realize we were already at the end.
  • 03:07:47
    Yes, ma'am.
  • 03:07:50
    I am here to read a letter that was written by the community to city council in response to the HAFE report as of a community gathering last night.
  • 03:08:04
    To Charlottesville City Council, following last Friday's release of the HAFE report on the events of August 11th and 12th, we, the undersigned, call on council to ensure
  • 03:08:14
    There is ample time for the community to digest and respond to the report's findings.
  • 03:08:20
    Before acting on any proposed action plans, the council owes all of us in this community more time to form review panels and build a community response rooted in accountability.
  • 03:08:30
    We seek structural accountability rather than quick symbolic gestures or finding one sacrificial lamb.
  • 03:08:37
    Three days between the release of the report and tonight's council meeting are not enough to ascertain, much less accomplish, real accountability.
  • 03:08:44
    While we welcome the report's discussion of the operational problems and leadership failures that led to the tragic events of August 11th and 12th, the report also raises a number of questions that should be answered in our striving for accountability.
  • 03:08:56
    For instance, one, why is there so little in the report about race, as many have said this evening?
  • 03:09:01
    The fascist and white supremacists who invaded our city had explicitly racist motivations.
  • 03:09:06
    Moreover, race is central to the tensions between the community and police forces, and yet discussions of race in its local context is largely absent from this report.
  • 03:09:16
    Again, echoing sentiments that have been spoken already this evening.
  • 03:09:21
    Number two, besides Mr. Heafey, who was responsible for assembling the data and drafting the report?
  • 03:09:26
    We know some of them.
  • 03:09:28
    It's of the imperative that we are certain that this team include any people that we know that people of color were included as this report was created.
  • 03:09:41
    And number three, finally, why is there no discussion of the substantial intelligence gathering and community defense efforts that were undertaken by citizens working to protect our community?
  • 03:09:51
    In as much as the CPD had intelligence gaps or operational failures, the people of Charlottesville worked to fill those gaps.
  • 03:09:57
    This summer, activists presented well-sourced reports which documented the threats in numerous public forums and to various city officials and the chief of police who dismissed them as noise.
  • 03:10:07
    Mr. Haffey was advised to consult these archives and these reports are not recognized in this report.
  • 03:10:13
    If this City Council is committed to developing a truly equitable and just response to the findings of the Hayfield Report, then it must allow the community more time and greater participation before forging a path of action.
  • 03:10:25
    This letter is signed by numerous groups, including many people who are in attendance tonight, Together Seville and AACP, Black Lives Matters, UVA Black Student Alliance.
  • 03:10:35
    I could go on and on and on.
  • 03:10:37
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 03:10:45
    Mr. Hafee, would you respond to any of it?
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:10:50
    Are we finished with it?
  • 03:10:54
    Take a break?
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 03:10:54
    I think we should take a break.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:10:56
    All right.
  • 03:10:56
    So that concludes the public hearing.
  • 03:10:58
    We've had literally over 27 people respond.
  • 03:11:03
    We're going to take a 10 minute break before coming back.
  • 03:11:07
    So we're asking for everyone to return.
  • 03:11:10
    at 10.20 PM.
  • 03:11:13
    Mr. Mayor, can you gather us for recess?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 03:11:16
    Thank you.
  • 03:12:33
    I don't know what to say.
• • 03:13:12
    you
  • 03:18:23
    you
  • 03:18:56
    you
  • 03:19:39
    Music Playing
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 03:20:04
    you
  • 03:20:29
    Music playing...
• • 03:21:05
    you
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 03:21:55
    and Michael
• • 03:22:35
    you
  • 03:22:57
    I'm
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 03:24:48
    I'm
  • 03:26:10
    Okay.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:26:36
    Right.
• • 03:26:38
    Okay.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 03:26:42
    Alright, so we're ready to go.
  • 03:26:50
    Alright, so we are going to move on to, we're coming back in a session, we're going to move on to
  • 03:27:02
    Mr. Jones's work plan wanted to offer the opportunity, not necessary.
  • 03:27:09
    OK, so we're going to move on to Mr. Jones's work plan, which was scheduled part of this.
  • 03:27:13
    And then we haven't, council may have questions to ask.
  • 03:27:17
    There may be items that will come over this.
  • 03:27:18
    Typically, we have, then at the end of a meeting, it's a little unusual meeting, we have other business by council.
  • 03:27:24
    And then we have an open hearing at the very end of the meeting, which you all are also free to speak at after this part concludes.
  • 03:27:32
    So Mr. Jones.
• • Maurice JonesCity Manager
  • 03:27:33
    Thank you, Mr. Signer.
  • 03:27:35
    Just wanted to touch on a number of areas that we feel that we need to move forward on as a city of Charlottesville attempts to work its way into a place in which we can, in fact, build more confidence with the folks in our community.
  • 03:27:56
    and moving forward after the aftermath of what we went through this past summer.
  • 03:28:00
    Mr. Hafey and his report outlined a series of recommendations that we are looking at.
  • 03:28:05
    The work plan I'm discussing tonight certainly doesn't include all of those items, but many of the items and we will be putting together a dashboard of those recommendations and what we are doing.
  • 03:28:17
    about those recommendations, what we've already done in fact, and things that we need to do in the future.
  • 03:28:24
    Under the area of training and planning, we've had a number of conversations within the police department about making sure that all of our, not just in the police department, but throughout the city government, that all relevant personnel will receive additional large event training so that we are prepared for an event like this again.
  • 03:28:41
    Hopefully it doesn't happen again here in the city of Charlottesville.
  • 03:28:44
    but if it does that we are more prepared next time around.
  • 03:28:47
    We are also going to ensure that our police officers are engaged in additional de-escalation training as part of that.
  • 03:28:54
    We are in the process of creating a new emergency management team within the city.
  • 03:28:59
    It's a multi-agency response to the events that occurred this summer.
  • 03:29:04
    We are working to increase our intelligence gathering technology.
  • 03:29:07
    That will be part of the discussion.
  • 03:29:09
    that we will have at the City Council as part of the budgeting process for next year.
  • 03:29:15
    So it's not just the technology but also the people to operate that technology as we move forward.
  • 03:29:21
    Additionally, we'll be developing guidelines for when to utilize an incident management team.
  • 03:29:27
    There is still some debate as to
  • 03:29:30
    how and when to implement an IMT and to have that in place to help guide folks.
  • 03:29:36
    As Mr. Hafee mentioned, traditionally they're used for weather events and things like that or large events that may be happening, but we need to find a way to develop good guidelines to when we would utilize that and utilize it sooner than we did this last time.
  • 03:29:51
    We're planning to work towards conducting joint training with our partner agencies, Virginia State Police and others in law enforcement in our area to address these types of events in the future.
  • 03:30:06
    We do a lot of training together with the police, the city police, university police, and the Albemarle County Police.
  • 03:30:12
    Rarely have we done the type of training that's necessary to address these types of large events and we need to do that.
  • 03:30:19
    increase communications capacity within the Charlottesville Police Department.
  • 03:30:23
    That will be part of the budget discussion we'll have with the city of
  • 03:30:25
    with the city council during the budgeting process for fiscal year 19.
  • 03:30:30
    On the permitting side, there are a number of things that we've been working on since August 12th, and our city attorney, Craig Brown, has been working with a group, K&L Gates out of Washington, D.C. on a number of things, including special events regulations.
  • 03:30:48
    We anticipate coming back to city council
  • 03:30:50
    on December 18th with that for your consideration and moving forward to implement.
  • 03:30:57
    The restriction of certain weapons was part of our legislative packet discussion that we had with the City Council, especially the restriction of firearms.
  • 03:31:08
    That will be part of our legislative packet for the General Assembly session coming up this January and February.
  • 03:31:17
    Open Flame laws, we are doing an internal review on the local change.
  • 03:31:21
    As Mr. Heafey mentioned in his report,
  • 03:31:24
    we have to find the right balance there because we don't want to lose the ability to have spontaneous shows of concern through candlelight vigils that we would lose if we simply said we had to go through a process in which everyone who's going to use any sort of open flame in a protest would have to go through the city for permission because we'd have to be very careful as to who we denied the ability to use an open flame.
  • 03:31:50
    We couldn't do it on the basis of the content
  • 03:31:52
    of their speech.
  • 03:31:54
    And so that's something that we're doing an eternal review on and trying to find a way to change that that would be content neutral.
  • 03:32:00
    And then as Mr. Heafey mentioned, the state code change to add torches to the cross burning code
  • 03:32:10
    that would allow us to enforce a new law that would bring criminal charges against someone who used a torch in an effort to intimidate.
  • 03:32:23
    Right now, as Mr. Haefje mentioned, that's fairly limited and we'd like to add the torches to that as well.
  • 03:32:32
    We are also looking at the issue that Mr. Hafee brought up about the restriction of certain weapons within that we already currently have, the ability to restrict poles and bats and things like that.
  • 03:32:47
    As Mr. Hafee pointed out, one of the concerns with that is the logistical effects of that.
  • 03:32:51
    How do you get that done in a way that would be effective and would, I think, cut off some of the fighting
  • 03:32:58
    that we saw in the streets of Charlottesville on August 12th.
  • 03:33:02
    So those are all issues that we're looking at right now.
  • 03:33:05
    We're also looking at a series of SOPs that we would be able to put into place without standard operating procedures for our permitting processes that would not have to come back to city council for
  • 03:33:18
    for approval as an ordinance change and Mr. Brown and I are talking about that and he's reviewing those possibilities right now and hopefully within the next few weeks we'll be able to put some of those SOPs in place without having to worry about putting it on a city council agenda and having it approved.
  • 03:33:36
    The management of protests, one of the things that we're looking at is to have a contract, to bring in a contractor with law enforcement experience with these types of large events and especially to review a stadium approach security plan
  • 03:33:54
    and its feasibility here in the city of Charlottesville.
  • 03:33:57
    It's one of the things that we talked about with Mr. Haffey and his team, the concerns that we had about how we would go about implementing a stadium approach in a place like downtown Charlottesville.
  • 03:34:10
    It's certainly difficult and there may not be easy answers to how we may be able to do that, but it's certainly something that we believe that we should bring in
  • 03:34:18
    some additional expertise to help us with that.
  • 03:34:21
    And so we hope that contract will go out in the form of an RFP in early 2018.
  • 03:34:29
    We'll also review the city's uniformed command procedures and that will take some hard discussions that we'll have with our friends in the Virginia State Police and other law enforcement agencies around who we have to work with on a regular basis to ensure
  • 03:34:46
    that we have a good, strong, understandable uniform command as we go through these types of incidents and we don't have some of the fracturing that we saw.
  • 03:34:55
    and a couple of the events this summer.
  • 03:34:58
    Balancing the soft uniform approach with the need to utilize protective gear when necessary, that's also something that I think we need to review and that's an ongoing discussion we'll have within the police department to help ensure that we find that right balance there.
  • 03:35:14
    I think we had the right balance to some degree on July 8th.
  • 03:35:18
    and less so on August 12th, so finding the right ways to do that.
  • 03:35:22
    Making sure that we have contingency plans and flexibility of our plans as we're going into these types of events so that we can be better reactive to certain incidences that are happening throughout an event to ensure that we can out off some of the violence that we saw this past summer.
  • 03:35:40
    Mr. Haefje raised issues of state support for jurisdictions.
  • 03:35:45
    We will and have already started engaging our legislators on this issue.
  • 03:35:51
    We'll continue to work with them and hopefully the new administration on developing model policies and training for large scale events, especially for cities of our size because it's not something that we do.
  • 03:36:04
    on a regular basis.
  • 03:36:05
    You see this type of thing in New York and Washington and Boston and Chicago and Los Angeles.
  • 03:36:10
    But at a city of 47,000 people, there's not, there's simply not this type of training that happens on a regular basis.
  • 03:36:16
    And it would be helpful to have some expertise at the state level that we could tap into on a regular basis to help ensure that we're getting the type of training we need for this.
  • 03:36:25
    I work for the Virginia State Police to develop procedures for how we're going to interact with one another in the future.
  • 03:36:32
    There's been a lot of discussion about some of the failures over the course of the last few months and it's time that we have an acknowledgement of that and work together on developing proper procedures for the future.
  • 03:36:44
    And then as Mr. Haffey mentioned in his report,
  • 03:36:47
    some additional legal assistance for localities such as ours and to work with the state to help develop some of those some of that type of expertise so that we can we can move forward and it's something that we have had a discussion with some of our local representatives about and hopefully that will move forward as well.
  • 03:37:07
    An important part of what Mr. Hafee spoke of in his report is restoring faith in the government and building community.
  • 03:37:15
    here in Charlottesville.
  • 03:37:17
    There is a lot of distrust right now in our community.
  • 03:37:20
    And as Mr. Heafey said, it's all around.
  • 03:37:22
    It's not just one side against another side.
  • 03:37:25
    There's a lot of folks who are really concerned about the future of our city.
  • 03:37:29
    And we do need to have conversations about it.
  • 03:37:32
    We do need to have solutions about it.
  • 03:37:34
    and we've got some ideas for moving forward on it and certainly open to hearing from our community on the best way for us to move forward on these things.
  • 03:37:43
    There's a community group that's been meeting now for several months.
  • 03:37:47
    They are meeting again this week and will be making some announcements as to their efforts, their mission and then how they would like to work with the community.
  • 03:37:58
    to do just as Mr. Linden suggested earlier, to have a series of dialogues where there would be small group activities, folks would get a chance to talk about the concerns they have here in Charlottesville, but then also, more importantly, to develop action ideas.
  • 03:38:13
    And in many ways, this would be reminiscent of some of the efforts that the city has done in the past on race relations, like the dialogue on race and the action ideas that came out of this.
  • 03:38:23
    But this would be run by that council and not run by the city.
  • 03:38:26
    That council has been working well together.
  • 03:38:29
    They are excited about these opportunities and they want to engage the community in these dialogues in moving us forward.
  • 03:38:35
    And so they will be presenting, I think, a series of community-based dialogues to have these discussions to help us move forward.
  • 03:38:43
    In addition to that, I mentioned just a moment ago the dialogue on race.
  • 03:38:46
    We started the dialogue on race
  • 03:38:48
    again this past fall.
  • 03:38:49
    There are a series of meetings that folks had to talk about these issues, especially after the summer, and they will be meeting again in the spring of 2018.
  • 03:38:58
    We had a discussion this evening about the Civilian Review Board, that the council, it looks as though you have finalized the approach to that, and we will be bringing that back to city council on December 4th, and hopefully in the summer or fall of next year, that board will bring back some ideas for how they would like to move forward.
  • 03:39:17
    and then there are a series of issues that I think we've talked a lot about this fall that will continue to have traction within our community and will continue to work on and focus on affordable housing being one of those issues.
  • 03:39:31
    That's an issue that the City Council spent a lot of time, energy and resources in in recent years and it's something that's really important to our community and we heard that loud and clear from folks as they were going through the various meetings that we've had with the City Council over the course of the last few months.
  • 03:39:47
    Equity efforts in our community, identifying areas in which we can improve on equality and equity, especially in issues like workforce development and ensuring that people have the skills that they need to do the types of jobs that pay better in our community because we know that's one of the problems that we have here.
  • 03:40:06
    And so we've done a number of things with the city, but I think there are many more things that we could be doing in partnership with our community, with nonprofits in the community, and then also with the private sector as well.
  • 03:40:19
    Disproportionate minority contact in the justice system is another area that we're working on.
  • 03:40:23
    We have a committee that's in place that's working on DMC and the adult system.
  • 03:40:28
    Back in 2011, we had a group in 2011, 2012, we had a group that worked on disproportionate minority contact
  • 03:40:34
    and the juvenile justice system and now we're focused on the adult system.
  • 03:40:38
    Those are a number of the issues that I think have been very important for us to try to address.
  • 03:40:44
    A lot of those issues cut along the lines of discrimination and race.
  • 03:40:47
    There's a lot of discussion about that tonight and I don't think that there's any way that this city government has denied that race is an important part of how things have played out in Charlottesville and continues to be today.
  • 03:41:01
    I think the city council, the city government has taken a lot of steps to try to address that and we'll keep talking about it and we'll keep doing things to help improve race relations in Charlottesville.
  • 03:41:12
    We have no choice but to do that and I think this is a city government that unlike a lot of other communities around the country have denied that race is an issue.
  • 03:41:23
    This is not what we have said here in Charlottesville.
  • 03:41:27
    We know that race is an issue in Charlottesville.
  • 03:41:29
    It has been for a long time and we're trying to do something about it and we're going to continue to do something about it.
  • 03:41:35
    and hopefully we'll be able to address a lot of the concerns that people have had over the course of the last few months about how things went this past summer.
  • 03:41:43
    And that's the pledge that we make to the city council, that's the pledge that we make to the public,
  • 03:41:48
    is to continue to work on these issues and to find action that will help improve the lives for everyone here in the city of Charlottesville and to try to live up to some of those lofty aspirations that we have about being a world-class city or a city that's a great place to live for everyone.
  • 03:42:06
    We know that's not true right now.
  • 03:42:07
    No one said that we are.
  • 03:42:09
    No one has said that we are.
  • 03:42:12
    We are working to ensure that we can enhance the quality of life for people here in our city.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 03:42:26
    Thank you.
  • 03:42:28
    Questions for Mr. Jones or requests?
• • Kathy GalvinMember, City Council
  • 03:42:31
    I do have an observation though and it does get at this idea of community engagement and then talking about issues of race and class and then frustrations that we're hearing about while the engagement really isn't genuine, it isn't authentic, it isn't effective.
  • 03:42:55
    and I've just been thinking as you were reciting Mr. Jones, like the dialogue on race and this other group that's gonna be engaging people in meetings to talk about race.
  • 03:43:09
    I think what's starting to hit a lot of us is that what the community is demanding is partnership in governance.
  • 03:43:21
    So for example, it's not just wanting to make sure that there's oversight of race relations between the police and the community.
  • 03:43:33
    It is real partnership in the creating of policy that's related to that.
  • 03:43:38
    It gets down to even with zoning.
  • 03:43:41
    It's not just wanting to be informed of what's going on.
  • 03:43:46
    It is a situation where we need to have
  • 03:43:51
    really skilled people facilitating discussions of people with people about what your community is going to look like and how you want it to look like.
  • 03:44:02
    So it's a deeper engagement than I think that anybody has ever really promoted here before, even though there's been efforts and discussion about it.
  • 03:44:13
    This is really moving towards a partnership.
  • 03:44:18
    It is not simply informing.
  • 03:44:21
    and it's going to need resources and it's going to have to permeate every department in the city.
  • 03:44:27
    It's not only the police, it's not only the neighborhood development services, it's not only parks and recreation, it's not only public works, it's everything.
  • 03:44:41
    So I think that's the challenge that I see.
  • 03:44:43
    It's real effective engagement with the community.
  • 03:44:49
    to make the community that these people want, this people, us, want.
  • 03:44:57
    So I just want to not take that lightly.
  • 03:45:02
    It's going to be a mind shift.
  • 03:45:05
    It's going to require everybody to stop being in a bunker mentality.
  • 03:45:09
    They're talking a lot about the officers engaging and mingling with the people.
  • 03:45:13
    It's going to take every person in every department, all of us, engaging the people in the community.
  • 03:45:19
    So that's the observation that I've had, that it's got to be genuinely different.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 03:45:31
    I have just two things that I just, it's really more information sharing that I'd like to offer to this process.
  • 03:45:40
    One is that I just came back from a meeting, a statewide meeting of Virginia First Cities, which is made up of other
  • 03:45:47
    Urban cities around the Commonwealth, cities that have urban cores that aren't so much Northern Virginia but are the rest of the cities.
  • 03:45:58
    We were working on our legislative agenda and I brought up amendments to our legislative agenda and they were both adopted, one unanimously, one almost unanimously.
  • 03:46:08
    One is that Virginia First Cities
  • 03:46:10
    and the cities around the state will support our legislation to allow localities to regulate guns on their own property.
  • 03:46:19
    And the other is that Virginia First Cities will support the efforts to, the legislature to give localities the right to regulate and dispose of or keep statues and monuments on their own property.
  • 03:46:37
    I also, and the only reason I'm making this about me is because it's information that you all don't have because I think all the rest is kind of a group discussion, but I've also been named to the transition team for Governor-Elect Northam for localities, the interface between state government and localities, and so although some of that meeting will happen after I'm no longer on council,
  • 03:47:01
    I would be happy to take some of the recommendations that you're talking about, the things that we need from the state up through that process.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 03:47:12
    So, Maurice, what kind of timeline are we talking about here?
  • 03:47:16
    Permits?
  • 03:47:18
    We'll have a rough draft in two weeks?
• • Maurice JonesCity Manager
  • 03:47:21
    Sure, we'll have something for council to see in two weeks.
  • 03:47:24
    Some of the SOPs may be finalized even before the next city council meeting with the permitting process.
  • 03:47:32
    And then most of the other issues will be addressed in early 2018.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 03:47:38
    So if the community had some input into the permit process, they should come prepared next?
  • 03:47:43
    That's correct, yes sir.
  • 03:47:46
    because I know there's a couple people in this room, excuse me, who have taken out competing permits.
  • 03:47:56
    So it would be nice if soon we could figure out whose permit will prevail.
  • 03:48:06
    I'll put it that way.
  • 03:48:09
    Second thing is the permits, two weeks, how about metal detectors?
  • 03:48:14
    I mean if we're gonna
  • 03:48:16
    Institute some of these suggestions.
  • 03:48:19
    How about an RFP on metal detectors?
• • Maurice JonesCity Manager
  • 03:48:21
    I think the first step in that process, that may be a result of our findings, but the first step in that process would be bringing on an expert who could help us with kind of the stadium, that stadium approach to permitting large events and policing those large events.
  • 03:48:40
    And metal detectors may be part of that, but I think it's best for us to listen to some expertise on that.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 03:48:49
    I keep hearing about large events.
  • 03:48:53
    What city in this country has had an event remotely similar to what we had?
• • Maurice JonesCity Manager
  • 03:49:00
    Not very many.
  • 03:49:01
    If you look at some of the places that Mr. Haffrey referenced in his
  • 03:49:06
    in his report, one of them was Pikeville, Kentucky, which I think had 120 white nationalists there and maybe 200 counter protesters.
  • 03:49:17
    Were they armed?
  • 03:49:19
    I believe they did have some weapons that they were utilizing.
  • 03:49:24
    And then even the events in like, for instance, Portland and Berkeley and Anaheim did not have the same numbers that we had on August 12th.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 03:49:33
    Not even close.
  • 03:49:33
    All right, because I remember the figure 100
  • 03:49:37
    100 white nationalists.
  • 03:49:41
    There was a drone count of Emancipation Park of 650.
  • 03:49:46
    So I'm just wondering if we're going to go to an expert, how he or she would be an expert in helping us avoid
  • 03:50:03
    Maybe not the same thing, but something close to it.
• • Maurice JonesCity Manager
  • 03:50:06
    I don't think we can look at some of these smaller previous events as the models for us.
  • 03:50:10
    I think we'd have to look at larger events that have taken place in larger cities.
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 03:50:15
    We just have to do something intelligently and quickly.
• • Maurice JonesCity Manager
  • 03:50:21
    And I think part of that will be scalability because I think we will have obviously some smaller events in the future.
  • 03:50:27
    And as I mentioned before, hopefully nothing as large as we had on August 12th, but we need to be prepared for that just in case it happens again.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 03:50:40
    Thank you.
  • 03:50:41
    I've got three quick items.
  • 03:50:43
    I'm sorry, Mr. Bellamy, excuse me.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:50:48
    Initially, thoughts that come to mind, thank you for your update.
  • 03:50:52
    I'm looking forward to not only implementing some of the suggestions, but hoping to rebuild trust within the community.
  • 03:51:00
    One of the items, I stepped out earlier and I didn't know if it was discussed, but there are a few different countries, excuse me, a few different cities around the country who have been doing racial equity lens trainings for their entire departments throughout the city.
  • 03:51:15
    I would love to
  • 03:51:16
    See if we can begin to implement that.
  • 03:51:20
    And while we're talking about your recommendations, I just, maybe Mr. May, you can let me know if I'm out of order, but I did want to hear from Mr. Avey after you heard from so many people in terms of why race wasn't a part of the report.
  • 03:51:33
    Is it possible for him to answer that question?
  • 03:51:35
    I mean, is now an appropriate time?
  • 03:51:38
    Mr. Avey, would you be?
  • 03:51:40
    Sure.
  • 03:51:40
    Simply because, I mean, I know it's a question that everyone's asking.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:51:44
    It's a fair question.
  • 03:51:45
    There's no way you can talk about these events without the context of race.
  • 03:51:51
    It's crucial.
  • 03:51:52
    It informed so much of what occurred.
  • 03:51:56
    It did not, however, in our view, in our findings, influence directly how the city prepared for those events.
  • 03:52:07
    Again, I don't believe our task was to identify
  • 03:52:10
    the roots of white supremacy or to talk more broadly about the corrosive effect of that among particular communities in Charlottesville.
  • 03:52:20
    Those are real issues.
  • 03:52:22
    But our task was to look at these events, how they came about, how the city collectively focused upon them and how they were handled.
  • 03:52:32
    And I frankly did not find evidence of, in the police department and other city departments, that issue directly impacting
  • 03:52:40
    the plans, the preparations.
  • 03:52:42
    That's why it isn't discussed more.
  • 03:52:44
    I don't think that its absence from the report is some sort of subtle suggestion that it's irrelevant.
  • 03:52:50
    It absolutely is relevant.
  • 03:52:51
    It is a little bit beyond some of what we heard tonight, frankly, a little bit beyond the scope of what I think we were asked to do.
  • 03:52:58
    Is there anything else?
  • 03:53:00
    I mean, while I'm here, if there's anything else I can answer.
  • 03:53:04
    Maybe I'll raise one more thing.
  • 03:53:06
    Ms. Galvin.
• • Kathy GalvinMember, City Council
  • 03:53:08
    It's kind of related to the engagement, the technique.
  • 03:53:17
    the orientation of the engagement that the police need to have with the community that is racially sensitive, that is sensitive to class.
  • 03:53:27
    We're talking about totally different cultures.
  • 03:53:30
    We have a serious problem with the fact that most of our police officers can't live in the city because they can't afford to live here.
  • 03:53:35
    And then you've got a situation where they're commuting from different parts of the state.
  • 03:53:41
    So there's serious gulfs, I think,
  • 03:53:45
    between the groups.
  • 03:53:47
    And so any ideas, wisdom you could share about that would be helpful.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:53:54
    I served in the Obama Justice Department and a big signature initiative was implicit bias training.
  • 03:54:01
    Every federal law enforcement officer was required to go through a series of candid discussions about their own implicit bias.
  • 03:54:08
    So much of law enforcement involves the exercise of discretion and the factors that inform that discretion
  • 03:54:15
    are crucial and officers need to evaluate their own implicit bias.
  • 03:54:20
    I didn't meet, we didn't meet in the course of our review, any officer who said overtly anything racist.
  • 03:54:28
    That doesn't mean that there is an implicit bias that affects all of us.
  • 03:54:31
    And an examination of that was, I think, a healthy exercise that the FBI and DEA and ATF and all the federal agencies went through.
  • 03:54:40
    And one more word on this same point about officers.
  • 03:54:42
    There was a lot of discussion earlier about whether this is sort of where the problem was or is within law enforcement.
  • 03:54:52
    And what we found was that the large majority of the officers with whom we spoke were frustrated themselves, wanted very much to engage, to protect public safety, to be in a different position and engaging with preventing disorder.
  • 03:55:10
    And we heard them say things like, we failed the community.
  • 03:55:14
    I mean, Detective Frazier said that.
  • 03:55:16
    Jim Mooney said, you know, we had our thumbs up our ass, you know, to use the vernacular.
  • 03:55:20
    That was his word.
  • 03:55:21
    You know, Joe Hatter said, we were prevented from doing police work.
  • 03:55:26
    So I don't think that this was an issue of lack of will or of courage or of desire to do their job.
  • 03:55:33
    I don't think this is a problem, that problem affects the sort of top to bottom, a lot of very honorable men and women, black and white and Latino and Asian that serve in this department that are really honorable people that want to do the right thing.
  • 03:55:47
    They were put in the wrong position and as I won't go through it again, the planning and the alignment and the gear, all of that.
  • 03:55:54
    really prevented them from doing their job.
  • 03:55:56
    But there are really good people there.
  • 03:55:58
    And even the command staff had good intentions, poor execution, good intentions.
  • 03:56:02
    So when you're thinking about how deep the problem goes, I just wanted to make that point that we really found a lot of frustration among the rank and file about their inability to do their job effectively.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:56:14
    To that point, we've also heard from file and rank within the police department that they
  • 03:56:20
    We vehemently disagree with how you categorize their planning, their training, and so forth.
  • 03:56:25
    We've also had community members also say as much when it's been stated in which you've put things into your report that they adamantly believe that they didn't say.
  • 03:56:35
    We've had officers send us emails and communications, high-ranking officers send us emails and communications saying as which they felt that the interviews were interrogations, not actual interviews.
  • 03:56:46
    that you put things into your report.
  • 03:56:48
    I mean how would you respond to that?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:56:50
    There's a lot in there and I've seen some of that as well.
  • 03:56:52
    The issue of interrogation, I know Captain Mitchell sent a long email.
  • 03:56:58
    We interviewed him towards the end.
  • 03:57:01
    We felt like it was important to get information from some of the line men and women and I confronted him with a lot of what we heard.
  • 03:57:08
    I didn't think it was fair to write a report that was critical of planning and command decisions
  • 03:57:14
    without laying it out for him and saying, hey, we heard that Joe Hatter said he was prevented from doing real police work.
  • 03:57:20
    We heard from Lisa Best that she felt like she had no idea what to do that day.
  • 03:57:26
    And I confronted him with that.
  • 03:57:27
    And to the extent that seemed confrontational or I forget the term he uses, that it was a prosecution.
  • 03:57:34
    You know, it was a hard interview because we had heard a lot of those things and felt like we wanted to give him, as the incident commander, an opportunity to respond.
  • 03:57:43
    He didn't hear the comment, let him fight in the command center.
  • 03:57:48
    He didn't say it didn't happen.
  • 03:57:49
    He said he didn't hear it.
  • 03:57:50
    Two other people, including the chief's own assistant who sits right outside of his office every day, who did hear it.
  • 03:57:56
    So absolutely, I'm not surprised that there are some
  • 03:58:00
    some facts and details with which people disagree.
  • 03:58:03
    I'll also say that more broadly, Wes, we had 150 interviews that were conducted by four people and all those were summarized and then other people read them and tried to incorporate them.
  • 03:58:13
    And it could be that we got some details wrong.
  • 03:58:17
    I'm prepared to admit that.
  • 03:58:18
    I don't think we got the big picture wrong.
  • 03:58:21
    We may have things, some mischaracterizations inadvertently,
  • 03:58:26
    but I still don't believe anything that I've read that I've seen causes me to question sort of the overall conclusions.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:58:32
    Lastly, before I stop, so while we're talking about race and also mischaracterization, there's been a great deal of community concern that I've personally heard about the cover of the report using the picture from the officer with his head down, the African American officer essentially standing in front of the Ku Klux Klan.
  • 03:58:51
    I've heard from pastors, clergy leaders, regular people in the community,
  • 03:58:55
    that was extremely disrespectful and it did the opposite in terms of trying to bring the community together.
  • 03:59:01
    Would you mind explaining to everyone why you chose to use that picture?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:59:05
    That may be an example of my own implicit bias because I did not anticipate that.
  • 03:59:11
    I really didn't.
  • 03:59:13
    I chose that photo because to me it actually captured the twin kind of competing values that I talked about of public safety and free speech.
  • 03:59:22
    You have this free speech event
  • 03:59:24
    protected by an officer.
  • 03:59:27
    That's why I picked it.
  • 03:59:28
    I didn't stop to think that it could look as symbolic
  • 03:59:32
    of disrespect.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:59:34
    I told you that.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:59:35
    You told me that after I'd already made the decision.
  • 03:59:36
    It was already done.
• • Wes BellamyVice Mayor, City Council
  • 03:59:38
    You could have changed it.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 03:59:39
    Well, it was already delivered to the city.
  • 03:59:43
    To me it was done.
  • 03:59:43
    It was already delivered to the city.
  • 03:59:45
    But my point is, I did not anticipate that.
  • 03:59:50
    Had I known that, had I done a better job of examining my own implicit bias, I wouldn't have done that.
  • 03:59:56
    I don't want to put something on here that's disrespectful.
  • 03:59:58
    I understand that.
  • 03:59:59
    But it wasn't
  • 04:00:01
    I guess all I can say is it wasn't intentionally disrespectful, it was ignorantly disrespectful.
  • 04:00:07
    I thought it was more of a symbol of the competing values and to the extent it was disrespectful, that's my mistake.
  • 04:00:16
    Is there anything else I can?
• • Bob FenwickMember, City Council
  • 04:00:19
    So tonight we've heard a lot about some of the place officers didn't go by the book or they didn't follow best practices.
  • 04:00:30
    So where do we find a copy of the book?
  • 04:00:33
    Where do we find a pamphlet with best practices in it?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 04:00:38
    There is no book and this was, as you said earlier, an unprecedented event.
  • 04:00:43
    There is no easy template that they could plug into and solve.
  • 04:00:49
    The problem is that there were multiple books or there were multiple instructions and there was miscommunication and there was confusion.
  • 04:00:56
    As unprecedented as it was, our position is
  • 04:00:59
    It should have been much, much clearer what they were supposed to do.
  • 04:01:03
    And they should have been put in different positions and given the tools to do more effective intervention and protect public safety.
  • 04:01:11
    So I admit that it is a very, very volatile and complex situation into which to place officers.
  • 04:01:19
    That said, I still think there were significant mistakes that were made that could have been avoided.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 04:01:30
    All right, Mr. Jones, I've just got a couple contributions to this discussion.
  • 04:01:36
    The first one is in this very important issue about cyber intelligence.
  • 04:01:41
    There's been a lot of discussion about open source.
  • 04:01:44
    We've had some conversations about this offline as well.
  • 04:01:48
    I think it would be worth, as this plan gets developed, looking into non-open source also.
  • 04:01:54
    The Georgetown University Law Center, who helped us when we joined their litigation, they did.
  • 04:02:01
    And then, as is in Mr. Hafey's report, there were
  • 04:02:04
    effective ways that some activists got into discord and got some of the plans that were in there that were much more specifically malicious about actions.
  • 04:02:14
    So there's, there are the, there are going to be the vendors and so on and consultants that help with open source, but I think that it's worth going deeper.
  • 04:02:20
    And I know that that resource, I know we had a conversation with the legislators and they said it's fairly rare for cities to be, to have like a function on this, but we are under attack and are being invaded and are being tested.
  • 04:02:33
    So I think that it would be worth
  • 04:02:35
    An investment here and going deeper.
  • 04:02:38
    The second one is it's clear I'm really looking forward to working on this permitting.
  • 04:02:43
    Everything is going to have to change with the way that events and press conferences are done.
  • 04:02:47
    The questions that have been raised about the resistance press conference.
  • 04:02:52
    I had a conversation with staff and that was a press conference.
  • 04:02:55
    And the practice is that for press, it ballooned very quickly, but that for press conferences that were seen as
  • 04:03:01
    as press events that were even more in the free speech column, so we really just didn't get permits for them.
  • 04:03:06
    And just like the press conference, this is what the statute is earlier.
  • 04:03:10
    We are all, council will need to be trained on these new ones.
  • 04:03:13
    There will, there's going to have to be a lot of communication because as we discussed, I remember, these events in the age of social media, it's not like the old days when you sent a flyer and invited a whole bunch of people for a week later and now your event happens
  • 04:03:26
    in a day because all of a sudden there's 1,200 Facebook likes and that is a fairly new phenomenon so there needs to be a whole lot more public education about whatever we're gonna, what we implement and we're gonna implement it fast.
  • 04:03:38
    I mean we, this, this is gonna be, this, I think we're gonna act on this, council doesn't even need to act on some of the permit stuff because it's within the city manager's exclusive administrative control so I just am emphasizing there needs to be training and a lot of public education about the new regime that comes in because
  • 04:03:55
    After we change and we don't have to be beholden to practices in the past, we start a new page.
  • 04:04:01
    It is a new day in Charlottesville for all these events and the sizes are going to be different, what's allowed will be different, the notice periods.
  • 04:04:07
    And the third thing is I have to say there's been a ton of attention, as there should be, to race here.
  • 04:04:11
    It is crucially important by omission and commission, but the Jewish community was deeply traumatized in this city.
  • 04:04:21
    It's a smaller community.
  • 04:04:22
    20% of the city is African American.
  • 04:04:25
    There's 400 families that belong to Congregation Beth Israel.
  • 04:04:29
    They were
  • 04:04:30
    so shaken they are unsure about whether to take now, take their kids to Sunday school.
  • 04:04:36
    There's a whole discussion about having to fear fear itself.
  • 04:04:40
    There were Nazis in our streets, Nazis who were trying to invoke the slaughter of six million people in a way to terrify people in their day to day lives.
  • 04:04:52
    as horrible as anything that could possibly happen to me, to my family, to my friends,
  • 04:05:10
    Phallops in this front was just a complete disconnect in the perception of the Jewish community.
  • 04:05:17
    It was like they're okay because there's these security components that have it physically covered, but it didn't address the emotional experience of having these people
  • 04:05:28
    in front of them and the security that just a cop car would have provided by saying the government is with you, has heard you, is attending to your experience of this horror.
  • 04:05:39
    So I just want to make sure that that's not lost in the mix of things that we're working on, that that is a marginalized community.
  • 04:05:46
    We know that Nazis are coming back and it is a utterly terrifying thing to experience.
  • 04:05:54
    Thanks.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 04:05:57
    No one's going to be accountable.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 04:06:00
    We have public comment now.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 04:06:02
    That's going to be a much longer process.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 04:06:03
    And that's probably a longer process.
• • Kristin SzakosMember, City Council
  • 04:06:05
    And we've been asked to make it a longer process.
• • Mike SignerMayor, City Council
  • 04:06:07
    We did just hear in a letter from a whole bunch of very respected organizations that said to, you know, not do things in three days.
  • 04:06:15
    So we have public comment that's going to start right now that Mr. Fenwick, I'm going to hand out.
• • Kathy GalvinMember, City Council
  • 04:06:20
    Mr. Mayor, is there other business please?
  • 04:06:22
    Let me just hand this down to him.