http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/l...cle_eea3e56e-e027-11e7-9378-4b03961fa529.html
Three pieces of Cville news updates. This 1st 1 is hilarious in the article above. There was a protest outside of the federal court yesterday where 8/12 counter protesters have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury, presumably about what they witnessed on 8/12. This local group, Solidarity Cville, is encouraging people who have been subpoenaed to resist the subpoenas, even though they've been informed that the main target of the federal investigation is James Fields - the motorist up on city murder and umpteen malicious wounding charges. The feds also want to charge him with civil rights violations and whatever else they can come up with to ensure this guy never sees the light of day again. Here's a couple of quotes.
“It is shameful that the most vulnerable members of our community are being singled out by law enforcement,” Han said. “It’s is a secretive procedure — no lawyers, no judge. Just the prosecutor and the grand jury.”
“The same law enforcement who rely on the violence and white supremacy of the state can never be relied upon to serve justice against white supremacists. It is vital to look at this situation from this perspective,” the blog post says.
Not sure what kind of alternative reality these morons are living in or what they're scared of. Even if they did something violent, they can't be asked about that (would be a violation of the 5th), and they've already been told that Fields is the object of the criminal investigation. Did they just learn what grand juries are? Solidarity Cville and SURJ are the same groups who joined in the riot at the city council meeting after 8/12, and their 2 main complaints were that: (1) you let the white supremacists march (there was a federal injunction mandating that the city allow the rally in that location); and (2) the city hasn't removed the statues yet (there is a state court preliminary injunction estopping the city from removing the statues). We have had a proliferation of left wing nut jobs over the last several years around here who do not share the same reality as the rest of us. And the unfortunate thing is they tend to show up and take over a lot of city meetings.
The city also had the preliminary hearings on all of the white supremacists today. Walked by it on my way back from court today. Lots of press, and they closed the streets surrounding the city circuit court and had lots of cops out, including snipers. A block away, they had a cop in front of our local synagogue, and I chatted with him for a minute. They put him there because the synagogue had been threatened on 8/12. Also saw in the news that Kessler was outside court this a.m.
The last thing is the city denied Kessler's application for a permit this past week to hold a 2 day event on the 1 year anniversary next August. So that means he's heading to federal court soon. The city has also issued new permitting procedures for permits for events with 10+ people in the future. I'm not a constitutional attorney, but I think the city may have a tough row to hoe with an outright denial of a permit. As I posted on 12/1, the local review conducted by our former US Attorney was scathing, especially toward our horse's ass of a police chief. He was found to have said that he intentionally allowed all of the fighting that morning so that they could declare an unlawful assembly and disperse the crowd. I'm sure that finding will make its way into Kessler's suit, and it certainly won't impress a federal judge. We now should have ample cause not to permit such a rally downtown, where it is nearly impossible to separate the 2 sides when you have 1-2K people from both sides coming from all directions. But they could effectively separate both sides at McIntire Park because it does have 2 separate entrances, 1 from the bypass and 1 from the high school. The other restrictions will be no guns (there will be a bill this General Assembly session permitting localities to restrict open carry for events such as this), no flags, no blunt instruments, no water bottles, no aerosol cans, no nothing on your person whatsoever. So that if violence were to break out, it's just people using their fists.
