Whites ‘challenge’ Jefferson principles

Woman, two cops killed at white supremacist rally, FBI launches investigation

Bedminster/Charlottesvill e (Virginia), Aug. 13: The FBI and federal prosecutors launched a civil rights investigation on Sunday after a woman was killed and 30 were injured when a driver rammed his vehicle into people protesting a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. Two responding police officers were killed in a copter crash.

The violence took place near the University of Virginia, whose founder Thomas Jefferson envisioned a country where “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence he coauthored.

As President Donald Trump came under sharp criticism for his tepid response to the violence, the White House insisted that his condemnation of bigotry and hatred at the “Unite the Right” included white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan and neoNazis. “The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred. Of course, that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups,” a White House spokesperson said.

Hundreds had descended on Charlottesville either to march in or rail against the rally. Unrest quickly flared even as riot police and the National Guard flooded the city’s downtown. White farright supporters, some wearing hats with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and others in riot gear with shields and batons, faced off against counter-protesters as each side hurled projectiles before overwhelming director Chris Wray. “The Richmond FBI Field Office, the Civil Rights Division and the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia have opened a civil rights investigation into the circumstances of the deadly vehicular incident that occurred earlier Saturday morning,” they said.