Charlottesville Mayor Backs Legal Fight Against White Nationalist ‘Freelance Armies’
Image by Getty Images
By Sam Kestenbaum October 13, 2017
Business leaders, elected officials and residents in Charlottesville, Virginia, are going to court to try to prevent a repeat of the violence at a white nationalist rally that ripped through town this summer.
Mike Signer, the Jewish mayor of Charlottesville, said he supported the legal campaign to prevent future white nationalist violence — decrying what he called the “freelance armies” that marched through the city’s streets.
Charlottesville City Mayor @MikeSigner speaks about the lawsuit filed against unauthorized paramilitary groups returning to the city. pic.twitter.com/kQrVWRR0VT
— Kari Beal (@KariBealTV) October 12, 2017
“I support [the campaign] as a stand against the disintegration of our democracy, and as a call for us to put a firm close to this horrible chapter in our democracy where people think it’s OK to parade in military outfits in public, to openly threaten violence against other people, to fire weapons into crowds, to beat people in public, and to use a car as a weapon,” Signer said. “This violence is all of a piece, and it can be stopped with the legal relief we are asking for under Virginia’s Constitution and our laws.”
Two separate court cases — one federal, the other state — are targeting “Unite the Right” rally leaders and organizers, like white nationalists Richard Spencer and Matthew Heimbach, the Washington Post reported. The federal suit seeks monetary damages and a ban on similar gatherings. The state suit targets the private militias that marched down the streets, armed with weapons and clad in military garb.
Signer became a target for “alt-right” trolling online in the days leading up to the August rally, which was organized presumably to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate leader Robert E. Lee. Signer initially opposed removing the statue, but changed his position, after the rally, which devolved into violence and resulted in the death of a counterprotester.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
