Man beaten at ’17 rally found innocent

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A black man who was severely beaten the day of a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and then charged with misdemeanor assault in the same incident was found innocent Friday.

A Charlottesville judge acquitted 20-year-old DeAndre Harris, saying it was clear Harris didn’t intend to harm the leader of a Southern nationalist group who made a complaint against him.

Photos and videos of the Aug. 12 attack on Harris by a group of men in a parking garage were widely shared online. Harris was left with serious injuries.

Harold Crews, North Carolina chairman of the League of the South — which advocates for Southern states to again secede from the union — sought the charge against Harris.

Harris testified that he thought Crews was attacking a friend of his with a flag pole and went over to defend him. Then he said someone sprayed him with mace and “everything was a blur after that,” the newspaper reported.

Four men have been charged in connection with the attack on Harris: Alex Michael Ramos of Georgia, Daniel Borden of Ohio, Jacob Scott Goodwin of Arkansas and Tyler Watkins Davis of Florida.

The white nationalist rally was planned in part to protest the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. It was afterward that the attack on Harris took place and a car drove into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman.