
Why were police in Charlottesville told to stand down unless otherwise instructed? - Liberty Unyielding
It remains to be seen whether police could have prevented a crazed motorist for plowing into a crowd of counter-protesters at Saturday's now-infamous white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. But they almost certainly could have prevented some of the other violent clashes between white nationalists and
So why didn't that? That's the million-dollar question occasioned by a tweet posted Saturday by the ACLU of Virginia that states that police were ordered "[to] not intervene until given command to do so":
Jason Kessler, the organizer of the Unite the Right event, told NBC 29 in Charlottesville that the blame was "primarily the result of the Charlottesville government officials and the law enforcement officers which failed to maintain law and order by protecting the First Amendment rights of the participants of the 'Unite the Right' rally."
"Charlottesville violated the federal court's order by shutting down the rally at Lee Park after left-wing agitators began throwing bricks at us. Our right to free speech was violated when the police officers acquiesced to the unconstitutional 'heckler's veto' raised by our detractors," Kessler added.
Kessler was attacked and chased away as he attempted to hold a press conference on Sunday. One man was arrested after he reportedly