Charlottesville report: Police inadequacy and coverup

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where a deadly car attack began in Charlottesville during a white nationalist rally was guarded by a single school resource officer who feared for her safety and was allowed to leave her post as angry protesters swarmed, according to an investigative report released Friday by a team of lawyers hired to review the Aug. 12 rally.

"Unfortunately, (Charlottesville police) commanders did not replace her or make other arrangements to prevent traffic from traveling across the Downtown Mall on 4th Street," the report says.

"A single wooden saw horse was all that impeded traffic down 4th Street as large groups of people continued to roam the streets. This vulnerability was exposed when James Fields drove his vehicle down the unprotected street into a large crowd of counter-protesters at the intersection of 4th Street SE and Water Street, killing Ms. Heyer."

More generally, the review found police were woefully unprepared for the mayhem that would unfold, a breakdown that produced "disastrous results."

Though officials have repeatedly claimed that police were not ordered to stand down, the report says both Charlottesville police and Virginia State Police "failed to intervene" as violence peaked.

"VSP directed its officers to remain behind barricades rather than risk injury responding to conflicts between protesters and counter-protesters," the report says. "CPD commanders similarly instructed their officers not to intervene in all but the most serious physical confrontations. Neither agency deployed available field forces or other units to protect public safety at the locations where violence took place."

Instead, according to the report, law enforcement commanders focused on declaring an unlawful assembly to disperse the crowd.

The report accuses Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas of making several attempts to obstruct the process, including trying to control what information subordinates gave to investigators, deleting text messages related to the review, trying to hide his use of a personal email account to conduct some official police business and creating planning checklists that were not actually used to plan for the rallies.

"Chief Thomas’s attempts to influence our review illustrate a deeper issue within CPD — a fear of retribution for criticism," the report says. "Many officers with whom we spoke expressed concern that their truthful provision of critical information about the protest events would result in retaliation from Chief Thomas."

Virginia State Police also refused to provide some information to the Hunton & Williams team, according to the report, an attitude consistent with the agency's "relative independence" before and during the rally. The report says the state agency did not share its "formal planning document" for the Aug. 12 rally with city police, "conducted separate trainings and convened an exclusive briefing for its on-scene personnel" on the morning of the event, and used a separate radio channel to communicate as events unfolded.

"This represents a failure of one of government’s core functions — the protection of fundamental rights. Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and protect citizens from harm, injury, and death," the report says. "Charlottesville preserved neither of those principles on August 12, which has led to deep distrust of government within this community."

The thinking would be let Antifa/ liberals get what is coming to them and let the alt right take the blame for the bloodshed.

I assume "liberal" is projecting what the right was thinking and not your contribution?

It would be what I think top level Charlottesville law enforcement was thinking, not the right as a whole.

If in fact that was the case, it wouldn't be the first time that the police had held back while the forces of reaction have a crack at so called "commies and leftists." Only consider how local southern law enforcement had stood by why the Klan beat and killed civil rights protesters, or how cops had allowed strike breakers to assault striking union workers.

If in fact that was the case, it wouldn't be the first time that the police had held back while the forces of reaction have a crack at so called "commies and leftists." Only consider how local southern law enforcement had stood by why the Klan beat and killed civil rights protesters, or how cops had allowed strike breakers to assault striking union workers.