Inside the U. of Virginia’s Response to a Chaotic White-Supremacist Rally

Edu Bayer, New York Times, Redux

The images are indelible now.

Hundreds of white men, carrying flaming torches across the University of Virginia’s Lawn, chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Then, a violent skirmish with counterprotesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, the university’s founder. And finally, young activists, covered in pepper spray, asking the police why they waited so long to intervene.

In the days before white nationalists overtook her campus, Teresa A. Sullivan, the university’s president, conjured up an image far quainter than what the world would see. The university, she told board members, was prepared for the possibility that demonstrators from Unite the Right might come to grounds, but perhaps only as harmless tourists.

“Of course we anticipate that some of them will be interested merely in seeing Mr. Jefferson’s architecture and Lawn,” Ms. Sullivan wrote in an email on August 9, two days before the Friday night march.

Ms. Sullivan’s email is among more than 3,000 pages of documents provided to The Chronicle through a public-records request. Together, the emails shed light on the mentality of a university administration and a campus police force that were caught off guard by a throng of white supremacists who used one of the nation’s premier public institutions as the staging ground for a demonstration reminiscent of Nazi Germany and the worst days of the Ku Klux Klan.

The documents show administrators slowly coming to grips with the full scope of a menacing mob, which brought with it violence that, according to an internal investigation, might have been defused or prevented had the campus police and university leaders heeded warning signs. So, too, do the documents provide a window into a changing paradigm of college leadership, as administrators and law-enforcement officers adjust to the heightened risk of confrontation between their students and outside groups spoiling for a fight.

The events at the University of Virginia, which have shaped how college leaders across the nation plan for and respond to campus demonstrations, challenged decades of thinking about dealing with campus protest. The police and administrators, biased against intruding on constitutionally protected speech, saw their predispositions upended by a crisis with no clear precedent.

The well-publicized Unite the Right rally, which was slated to be held in downtown Charlottesville on Saturday, August 12, was a sort of homecoming for Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer, two University of Virginia alumni who have become prominent in the white-nationalist movement. Leading up to the rally, most of the security concerns focused on how the group might clash off campus with counterprotesters at Emancipation Park, where white nationalists planned to express their opposition to the removal of a statue of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

But the police were also concerned that the University of Virginia, an iconic symbol with its own complex racial history, might prove an enticing target in its own right. What better place to kick off the weekend’s demonstrations?

Capt. Donald H. McGee, a university police officer, appears to have heard these concerns as early as August 8, three days before the march on the Lawn. After a meeting that day of the Charlottesville Police Department, Captain McGee warned his superior about a possible “tiki torch march” to be held the night before the big downtown rally. The description proved prescient.

“It was stated that at 9PM there were plans to replicate the tiki torch march they made last month at an undisclosed location,” Capt. McGee wrote to Michael A. Gibson, the university’s chief of police, and several other officers. “There is concern that the location could be the Rotunda or Lawn area since Mr. Spencer, an alum will likely be at the Friday event.”

The email is significant because it suggests that intelligence about the march came earlier and was more specific than the university has acknowledged in its own timeline of events.

In a statement provided to The Chronicle, university officials said, “There were contradictory and misleading details about events, locations, routes, and timing.

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Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

A white nationalist march on the U. of Virginia’s campus in August ended in a violent melee with counterprotesters. A trove of more than 3,000 pages of documents, provided to The Chronicle through a public-records request, shows university administrators and police responding in real time to the threats posed by the group.

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Andrew Shurtleff

3:22 p.m. Well before demonstrators from Unite the Right begin to congregate, university officials hear talk of the group’s intentions. Michael A. Gibson, the university’s chief of police, receives an email about a possible “alt-right march on-Grounds this evening, beginning at a Jefferson statue (not sure which one).” He shares the information with Capt. Donald H. McGee, a university police officer, who replies, “Excellent. Thanks Chief. This could possibly be the tiki torch march that was mentioned earlier this week.”

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Andrew Shurtleff, The Daily Progress

8:18 p.m. Al S. Thomas Jr. (above), Charlottesville’s chief of police, is among several law-enforcement officers who offer assistance to university police before the march. “Thanks,” Chief Gibson responds. “We’ll see how this plays out.”

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Andrew Shurtleff, The Daily Progress

9:52 p.m. Marchers leave Nameless Field, a recreational space on the outskirts of campus, and head toward the Lawn. The group diverts from the route that organizers had said they would follow, heading toward the heart of university grounds.

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It’s Going Down

10:04 p.m. The group arrives on the Lawn. Eli Mosley (above), a U.S. Army veteran and the marchers’ designated security contact, tells the police that the group has taken a different route to avoid counterprotesters. Captain McGee tells fellow officers that he has a “hard time buying” the excuse. “Wondering what his excuse is for lying,” the captain writes.

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Andrew Shurtleff

10:07 p.m. The marchers ascend the Rotunda stairs, heading for a confrontation with counterprotesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson.

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Shay Horse, NurPhoto via Getty Images

10:23 p.m. After violence ensues, the university police declare an unlawful assembly. An internal investigation later concludes that the officers, biased toward minimal intrusion on constitutionally protected speech, followed protocols that were “insufficient” to manage a “torch-bearing group intent on intimidation.”

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Edu Bayer, New York Times, Redux

11:28 p.m. Larry J. Sabato, a professor of politics who had sheltered students in the basement of a faculty pavilion on the Lawn, sends an email to President Teresa Sullivan and others. “In my 47 years of association with the University,” he says, “this was the worst thing I have seen unfold on the Lawn and at the Rotunda. Nothing else even comes close.”

“In response to the events of August 11 and 12 the university has been identifying the ways in which its response could have been more effective, and to institute policies and procedures that will prevent violence of this sort from happening again.”

Captain McGee’s email goes on to show that university officials were aware of the hazards that might be posed by torches on campus, but felt constrained in their authority to stop such an eventuality. The captain reported that “Barry,” most likely Barry T. Meek, the university’s associate general counsel, had suggested torches “should not be allowed.” But the university police appeared unaware of an existing policy that would have empowered officers to extinguish the torches, which were later employed as weapons.

“There is no regulation against torches or open flames (charcoal grills are allowed) but we should stress that is is (sic) a fire safety issue,” Captain McGee wrote. “Something to think ahead and plan for the possibility.”

In the wake of the incident, Virginia’s Board of Visitors passed a resolution aimed at strengthening the university’s open-flame policy, which will soon be published as a state regulation.

Captain McGee declined an interview request.

Anthony P. de Bruyn, a spokesman for the university, responded on behalf of Mr. Meek, saying that “there was a university policy, but no regulation relating to the conduct of the protesters carrying tiki torches.”

Regardless of how the rule was classified at the time, UVa’s investigation concluded that the university police department was “not sufficiently aware of its authority to enforce” it.

Well before the march, tensions were growing between two loosely defined factions at the University of Virginia, pitting activists against an administration that would have preferred for students and professors to avoid any interaction with the Unite the Right group. Those tensions appear to have informed how both groups responded before and after the incident, affecting how they shared information and stoking a tendency to blame each other for perceived shortcomings.

In the tense days that followed the demonstration, Virginia’s president criticized student activists for what she described as their failure to pass along concerns about the white supremacists’ march.

“Nobody elevated it to us,” Ms. Sullivan said in a videotaped exchange with a student. “Don’t expect us to be reading the alt-right websites. We don’t do that. Now you guys have responsibility here too. Tell us what you know.”

But records and interviews show that students and faculty members did just that, even as they feared being dismissed as social-justice crusaders crying wolf.

Intelligence about the march circulated through a network of students and professors before reaching the top ranks of the university’s administration and police force.

Jalane D. Schmidt, an associate professor of religious studies, first saw online chatter about a campus march on the afternoon that it happened, Friday, August 11. But she feared that the information, if related by a known activist like herself, might not be taken seriously. So Ms. Schmidt alerted a source that she presumed would be unimpeachable: The first lady of Charlottesville.

Through an intermediary, Ms. Schmidt conveyed the information to Emily L. Blout, an assistant professor of media studies at Virginia and the wife of Michael Signer, Charlottesville’s mayor. In the eyes of the administration, Ms. Schmidt later told The Chronicle, Ms. Blout would seem more credible than “some brown-skinned, outspoken professor like me.”

When violence broke out later that night, and the police presence seemed minimal, Ms. Schmidt emailed Ms. Blout with consternation: “Was the memo not received?”

“UVA has known about this since 3 pm,” Ms. Blout replied. “I went to the top.”

Ms. Blout confirmed to The Chronicle that she had elevated the information, but she declined to elaborate.

Email exchanges among administrators and the police indicate that a call was made around 3 p.m. to Louis P. Nelson, Virginia’s associate provost for outreach, who was told of a possible “alt-right march on-Grounds this evening, beginning at a Jefferson statue (not sure which one).”

Mr. Nelson did not respond to interview requests.

University police responded to the tip with knowing acknowledgment. “Excellent,” Captain McGee wrote to Chief Gibson. “Thanks Chief. This could possibly be the tiki torch march that was mentioned earlier this week.”

As the intelligence was shared throughout Friday afternoon and evening, other law-enforcement agencies and city officials offered support to the university. In each email exchange provided to The Chronicle, university and police officials indicated that they had the situation under control.

“I think we are good for right now,” Chief Gibson wrote at 8:11 p.m. to Al S. Thomas Jr., Charlottesville’s police chief, and Ron Lantz, Albemarle County’s chief of police. “My folks are watching this closely.”

Around that same time, Maurice Jones, Charlottesville’s city manager, wrote to Patrick D. Hogan, the university’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“Pat, I just heard about Kessler March tonight,” Mr. Jones wrote. “Do you need assistance?”

Mr. Hogan replied, “I think Mike Gibson has ample coverage for University. But hopefully City will be available to help in surrounding areas.”

In another response to overtures from outside jurisdictions, Chief Gibson wrote, “We’ll see how this plays out.”

What played out in the ensuing hours was chaos. Counterprotesters would later question why there seemed so few officers relative to the situation.

In an email to The Chronicle, Albemarle County’s Chief Lantz said he was “letting everyone know” that day that he had contingent officers nearby. But he said he could not comment on whether the university declined resources that might have helped to quell or prevent the violence that night.

Charlottesville’s Chief Thomas declined an interview request.

Mr. de Bruyn, the spokesman, said in a statement that the university police “had coordinated with local and state police partners in advance of the Aug. 11 event and resources from those agencies were pre-staged nearby to respond as they were needed.”

In an email to The Chronicle, Chief Gibson said that the university’s on-duty shift commander had made a radio request around 8:30 p.m. for officers from other jurisdictions to be on standby near campus.

According to the university’s official timeline, officers from other agencies did not arrive at the Rotunda Plaza until 10:17 p.m. — after the violence had ensued and just two minutes before the crowd began to disperse.

More than 40 officers were ultimately on the scene to restore order, according to the university’s investigation. But UVa officials would not answer detailed questions about how many of its 67 sworn officers were actually present at the Rotunda when the Unite the Right group arrived.

As the white nationalists congregated Friday night at Nameless Field, a recreational space near the university’s Memorial Gymnasium, university police officers projected a calm that some on campus interpreted as complacency, email records show.

Timothy A. Freilich, executive director of Madison House, a student volunteer center located at the university, had seen men unloading torches and reported his observations at a police substation, according to emails he sent days later. He then “spoke to a lone police officer on the Lawn” and reported again a now widely circulating rumor about a looming march on grounds.

“His response was along the lines of, ‘Oh we know. They are everywhere,’” Mr. Freilich wrote to Mr. Nelson, the associate provost.

For the police and university leaders, the scope of the demonstration began coming into view not long after sunset.

Andrew Shurtleff

“I am being told social media is lighting up over this,” Chief Gibson wrote to his colleagues at 8:30 p.m. “It is certainly no secret.”

Captain McGee replied, “Was afraid of that.”

As the throng left Nameless Field, Mr. Freilich “did not see a single cop in the darkness other than the guy on the Lawn” and a gathering at a nearby church, he wrote to Mr. Nelson. Driving along University Avenue, Mr. Freilich looked on in horror as the torch-bearing marchers began to take to the streets.

“I kept driving rather than stop,” he wrote, “both because I have two young girls who love their father, and because it was one of the most terrifying things I have seen in my life — even while under the misconception that law enforcement and the University had things under control.”

Behind the scenes, the university police were in contact with Unite the Right’s designated “security guy,” who is identified in emails as “Eli.” This appears to reference Eli Mosley, an Army veteran who would later identify himself to reporters as the “command soldier major of the ‘alt-right,’” executing the Lawn march “as a military operation.’”

True to Mr. Mosley’s description, the group used drones to surveil the area before taking the Rotunda.

The following day, according to a report in Vice, Mr. Mosley would encourage armed men to return to the Robert E. Lee statue, off campus in Emancipation Park, after they had been ordered to disperse. “I need shooters,” he would say. “We’re gonna send 200 people with long rifles back to that statue.”

The university police, who had relied on Mr. Mosley as a point of contact within the group, came to question his reliability as Friday night progressed. He would tell the officers that the crowd was not as large as they had hoped and that the group had no intention of marching through the very heart of the campus. He also promised that they would pick up their trash.

“He says all is going good,” Angela M. Tabler, a patrol lieutenant, wrote to fellow officers at 9:57 p.m.

But few within the university’s administration shared this optimistic view. Communications during this critical period have the feel of an impending siege, as university officials exchange real-time intelligence from three vantage points.

Ms. Sullivan was stationed at Carr’s Hill, the president’s residence. Allen W. Groves, dean of students and the lone administrator on hand at the Rotunda, provided Ms. Sullivan with eyes on the ground. The president was also in communication with Larry J. Sabato, a professor of politics who had sheltered students in the basement of a faculty pavilion on the Lawn, where he lives.

“Lots of yelling west of us, but I can’t see anything yet,” Ms. Sullivan wrote to Mr. Groves at 9:45 p.m.

Mr. Groves replied, “We can hear it up here, too.”

At 9:56 p.m., Ms. Sullivan wrote back, “I think they are headed to south lawn with open flames.”

This was not what was supposed to happen. Mr. Mosley had assured officers that the group would march along University Avenue, a route that would take them to the north side of the Rotunda away from the core of campus.

“Wondering what his excuse is for lying,” Captain McGee wrote to Lieutenant Tabler.

Mr. Mosley had told the police that the group changed its route to avoid counterprotesters, a claim that Captain McGee found less than credible.

“I have a hard time buying that,” he wrote.

The torches were now a higher-order concern, as the group snaked past McIntire Amphitheatre, closing in on the Lawn.

“Amphitheater,” Ms. Sullivan wrote to Mr. Groves at 10:01 p.m.

Captain McGee pinged Lieutenant Tabler two minutes later.

“Angela,” he wrote, “does the security guy know the concern with the torches around buildings?”

Chief Gibson had the same question.

Marching in formation across the Lawn, the group of about 300 men yelled in unison, “Blood and Soil!” and “Whose Streets? Our Streets.”

At 10:07 p.m., they reached the Rotunda. From there, they descended a long set of stairs to the Jefferson statue, surrounding a couple of dozen protesters, who were shouting “No Nazis! No KKK! No Fascist USA!”

The police hung back as tensions escalated. There were no orders to stand down, Mr. de Bruyn, the university spokesman, said. But the officers relied on the same tactics of minimal intrusion that they had used in decades of previous nonviolent protests, a strategy that the internal investigation characterized as “insufficient” to deal with a “large, highly organized, torch-bearing group intent on intimidation.”

As the mob closed in on counterprotesters, violence appeared all but inevitable. A torch, wielded like a spear, struck Mr. Groves. His arm bled as he tried to pull students out of the melee, eyewitnesses said.

Two Virginia law-school students, filming the events from a high perch and streaming their footage live on Facebook, described the scene in panicked commentary: “Oh my God,” one said. “There are torches going. They are beating up the counterprotesters.”

At 10:22 p.m., Captain McGee wrote to his colleagues, “Do we need more help from CPD and County?”

By this time, the university police were treating people who had been pepper sprayed. Emily Gorcenski, a blogger and activist who was among those sprayed, confronted the police on camera about not intervening sooner.

“My face is burning,” she said. “My face is burning. The cops did nothing.”

In an email to Ms. Sullivan later that night, Mr. Groves said, “I was with them when the attack came. Totally unprovoked.”

At 10:57 p.m., about 20 minutes after the police had declared the situation clear, Ms. Sullivan wrote to university communications officials and Mr. Hogan, the chief operating officer. She had called the chairman of the Board of Visitors, she said, and Virginia’s governor, Terry McAuliffe.

“State has bumped up police numbers,” she wrote, “will show force thru (sic) the night.”

At 11:28 p.m., Mr. Sabato wrote to Ms. Sullivan, Mr. Groves and H. Douglas Laycock, a law professor and the president’s husband.

“In my 47 years of association with the University,” Mr. Sabato wrote, “this was the worst thing I have seen unfold on the Lawn and at the Rotunda. Nothing else even comes close.”

Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.

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