Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

City Of Charlottesville Blamed For Handling Of Violent March

An early official report is blaming the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, for the violence that occurred in the city on August 12 during a white supremacist rally — saying the city had been warned about possible violence, including a potential car attack.

The report was presented to the Governor’s Civil Unrest Task Force in Richmond last week, NBC reported.

According to the report, the city mishandled the rally in a number of ways. City leaders did not take security recommendations leading up the “Unite the Right” rally, the report charged, and also had an “inadequate permit process,” which resulted in confusion in the days leading up to the rally.

International Chiefs of Police Director Jim W. Baker said the city had been warned about possible violence, including a potential car attack. During the clashes a car plowed into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one woman.

The rally was organized ostensibly to protest the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, but snowballed into a much larger cause for the “alt-right” and white supremacists, with some flying swastika flags and giving Nazi salutes.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.