Report finds law enforcement failed at Charlottesville rally

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Law enforcement responding to a violent white nationalist rally in Virginia this summer failed on multiple fronts, including by not adequately communicating or coordinating in advance and by removing an officer from an area where a car plowed into counterprotesters and killed a woman, an independent review found.

The findings of former U.S. Attorney Tim Heaphy’s monthslong investigation in Charlottesville were released Friday. City officials asked Heaphy, now a partner with the international law firm Hunton & Williams, to conduct the review after facing scathing criticism for how they handled the events of Aug. 12.

Heaphy’s team interviewed 150 people and pored over half a million documents for the report, which found a lack of preparation and coordination between state and city police and a passive response by officers to the chaos.

The report said the city of Charlottesville had failed to protect public safety or the protesters’ right to express themselves.

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

White nationalists who descended on Charlottesville in part to protest plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee began fighting in the streets with counterdemonstrators before the event even officially began. The brawling went on for nearly an hour in plain view of officers until the event eventually disbanded. Later, as counterdemonstrators were peacefully marching through a downtown street, a car drove into the crowd, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring many more.

The report says “planning and coordination breakdowns” before Aug. 12 led to “disastrous results.”

“Because of their misalignment and lack of accessible protective gear, officers failed to intervene in physical altercations that took place in areas adjacent to Emancipation Park,” the report said.