Tensions amid peaceful vigils at UVA
Trump tweets allude to deadly Va. rally as its anniversary approaches
TCHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. he city of Charlottesville marked the anniversary of last summer’s white supremacist violence that sent ripples through the country with largely peaceful vigils and other events, but police had a brief, tense confrontation with demonstrators angry over the heavy security presence there this weekend.
“Why are you in riot gear? We don’t see no riot here,” activists chanted Saturday evening.
Shortly before a pre-planned evening rally to mark the anniversary of a campus confrontation between torch-carrying white nationalists and counterprotesters, activists unfurled a banner that said, “Last year they came w/ torches. This year they come w/ badges.”
A group of more than 200 protesters — students, residents and others — then marched to another part of the University of Virginia’s campus, where many in the crowd shouted at officers in riot gear who had formed a line.
Kibiriti Majuto, a coordinator for UVA Students United, said the students moved to another part of campus because they didn’t want to be “caged” in the area where the rally had been planned.
“How does that create a sense of community? How are we going to be safe in that situation?” he asked.
Majuto said police “were not on our side” last year when white supremacists surrounded counterprotesters on the rotunda.
“Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” he said.
Charlottesville city Councilman Wes Bellamy said he tried to defuse the situation and told the police commander that the students were upset by the officers’ tactics, calling the officers’ riot gear “over the top.”
After a few minutes, most of the demonstrators began to walk away. There were no immediate reports of arrests on campus.
President Donald Trump on Saturday condemned “all types of racism and acts of violence” on the first anniversary of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, calling for the nation to “come together” after a week in which he stoked racial divisions with attacks on black athletes and other minorities.
Taking to Twitter ahead of a controversial “Unite the Right 2” white supremacist rally Sunday in Washington, Trump decried the “senseless death and division” spawned by what he called the “riots in Charlottesville.” A counterprotester was killed when a man who police say identified himself as a Nazi drove a car into a crowd.
“I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence,” Trump wrote. “Peace to ALL Americans!”
The remarks stood in stark contrast to Trump’s reaction a year ago — when he declared that “both sides” were to blame for the violence in Charlottesville — and followed a week of racially incendiary statements by the president and allies.
Trump insulted the intelligence of NBA star LeBron James and CNN anchor Don Lemon, both of whom are black, reignited his crusade against black football players protesting police brutality and told a group of business leaders that Chinese students studying in the United States were spies.
One of the few African-Americans to have worked in the White House, former special assistant Omarosa Manigault Newman, also accuses Trump of being a racist in a book to be released Tuesday.
During a “Bikers for Trump” event here in Bedminster, N.J., on Saturday, the president told reporters that Manigault Newman was a “lowlife.”