Thread by @socialistdogmom

room’s so full they had to send people to overflow rooms to watch on TV. fire marshal is present, keeping us safe... by physically obstructing the exit?

there was community resistance to city’s entreaties to just go to a block party or some shit instead of standing up to the klan. but yeah, your summary is fine, too

“i’ll get back to the tear gas. that’s in the ‘what went wrong’ section.” cool cool

counter-protesters are “very emotional.” oh yeah we were all on our periods.

tear gassing counter protesters after the klan left decreased community confidence in law enforcement? damn we got our $350,000 worth!

40 minutes in and he has used the word “fulsome” three times. it’s used in the report with bizarre frequency. i guess he really did author at least large chunks of it himself.

respectfully disagree sir

cops felt prepared for hundreds of armed nazis because they had experience controlling drunk college kids at a block party and also the dalai lama visited once. crowd control pros.

i don’t even have a fun comment for this

“to be fair, there was a lot of pressure. people were hounding you.” — heaphy makes sure council members don’t feel any discomfort from the report they paid for.

“cities can limit possession of certain items that could pose a risk to public safety. except for guns.” of course.

state troopers traipsed through a church without permission, scoping out sniper locations. weird, no one wanted to let you use private property to quarter your troops? don’t put the blame on the community, pigs.

the library is not a place for fascism. fuck this narrative. cops had to “march” three blocks. that made little substantive difference in response. point the finger elsewhere. if anything, 3 blocks gave them time to figure out which way to wear their helmets.

“officers were behind barricades unable to engage civilians.” unable? unwilling? prohibited.

he has called counter-protesters “emotional” three times so far, by my count. sorry racist violence just really sets off my pms. just a bunch of hysterical overreacting emotional wrecks.

cops literally don’t care what happens to us. they chose not to engage unless it looked like someone was getting killed. unfortunately they waited too long. someone got killed.

at the press conference and again today, he really hits hard the only case where a cop helps someone. “there was at least one time that a police officer goes over the barricade.” crowd is not amused.

“instead of moving toward the violence, what they do, is they’re all sent back here.” (to zone 4) “nobody is left, even at the barricades. nobody is in the crowd. and there were units available.”

our chief of police, as the violence escalates, all units pulled out of the crowd: “let them fight.”

undercover officers? you mean officers who took the day off to attend, right? as chief thomas said, let them fight.

after the park was cleared, suddenly they have the units to protect PROPERTY. not people.

this is why heather died.

looking at images from drone footage. the small sawhorse used to block the 4th street intersection was never even moved, it’s just so small that fields was able to DRIVE AROUND IT. how is that traffic control?

VSP refused to provide their operational plan to CPD before A12 and refused to cooperate with heaphy for review. a copy was accidentally left by VSP in the command center.

VSP flaherty says cpd & vsp radios could easily be linked, but cpd never requested it. realized early on A12, but chief thomas decided to work around it. interagency communication was verbal OR radio to command center, have someone there radio their people.

SOMEONE DIED, BUD

brb i’m having a fucking stroke

really highlighting how lucky we are that there wasn’t more property damage. thank god, huh?

emphasizing that awareness of the situation WAS NOT the problem. says this is something that “went right.” what good is real time drone footage if you’re locked in the command center?

bottom line = failure, end of sentence.

our police need expensive new software to gather online intelligence! or they could’ve listened to ANY of the dozens of people here in town who did their own research and compiled threats & did exhaustive research. all they need is the internet.

“this is really hard.” re: learning about the first amendment

he’s describing a recommended strategy called “stadium” approach. i believe this is what they did in shelbyville. it was cumbersome, but probably would’ve been possible here. kept us totally separate from nazis.

that amount of security is... problematic. it could rise to the level of curtailing speech. penning folks in poses serious risks. but does rule out brawls. you can’t win.

“there’s a lot of antipathy toward the police.” after two hours of a powerpoint describing how the police don’t care about us, want to let us fight, are so incompetent that injuries & death were allowed to happen.

after being allotted one hour for his presentation, it’s now two hours later. council members now have one hour to ask heaphy questions. crowd is restless.

szakos has questions about stadium approach. how do you make folks choose the right entrance/prevent mixing? he says most people make the right choice on their own. i feel like that’s incomplete, it requires close work with organizers on both sides.

heaphy won’t say nazi. he calls them white nationalists. crowd cries back “call them nazis!”

signer interrupts szakos to say all councilors should keep their questions to five minutes. she’s trying to ask if police had animosity toward counterprotesters after J8.

“that’s kind of not my question” szakos after equivocation from heaphy. she wants to know if police thought counter protesters were hostile, enemy combatants. he’s giving an evasive yes. but we could’ve told you that.

“for $350,000 i got two questions” wes bellamy opened his questions with an apology to us. said they let us down. that’s a start.

heaphy says he doesn’t think it is possible to prevent nazis from coming back. jesus. now walking it back, claiming he doesn’t know if it’s possible.

wes now asking if this had been a traditionally known gang, black people (emphasizes that white nationalists ARE a gang), would this have gone down the same way?

heaphy is now gangsplaining the definition of gangs to wes bellamy. someone in the crowd yells “LIKE THE COPS?” wes pushes back, emphasizing that he’s talking about RACE here. that if these had been black people, would this not have been different?

galvin: “my apologies to the community.” jesus she can’t sound sincere for a MOMENT, can she? this is the most painful nonpology i’ve ever heard from a public official.

“we had no idea what our state police counterparts were doing” — officer feedback after J8. obviously not something cpd learned from or acted on. this was a huge factor in how A12 went down.

this is councilor fenwick’s 2nd to last council meeting of his term. he is OUT TO LUNCH but occasionally hits a profound note. even a stopped clock, etc. doesn’t sound like today is gonna have one of those moments though.

fenwick used a significant portion of his time making a statement i didn’t quite get. now asking a question about changing perception of community defenders. i think he’s making a point i agree with, but it’s hard to tell.

two old white men in suits are debating the definition of antifa. bob got our backs, though! “you say fight, i would say defend” 🔥

signer tries to start with an apology. booing. miss rosia bringing the fire rejecting his apology. he’s calling her to order. i dare him to remove this pillar of the activism community.

signer whining about his five minutes. mary carey yells “five minutes too long. next!” 🔥🔥🔥✊

miss rosia referenced, obliquely, mike’s constant sidestepping of issues of race by equating it with his experience as a jew. he asks that we “refrain from using religious slurs.” fucking coward. all she said is “you’re a jew and i’m black.”

cops aren’t nodding off or texting anymore. they’re ready to drag somebody outta this room. two officers blocking each of the two exits. i’ll never understand why they make it so hard to leave if they don’t want us here.

the public hearing is about to begin. demands for apologies from signer still coming from the crowd. “this is not how we do business” signer is afraid.

woman who’d been yelling at signer now being hassled by 3 cops. wes bellamy is now chair of meeting & is in charge of calling to order. he’s yelling “officers she’s fine” but the cops aren’t backing off.

🔥🔥 the first person called for public comment ceded his time to her so she could finish her criticism of signer

this is all garbage but we have the best community of activists and community defenders. folks ceding their time to activists of color & others whose strong voices need to be heard. we WILL be heard!

comrade dave now calling for slashing police budget and working toward police free society ✊

damn dave brought the fire again 🔥🔥 first a whole public comment of fred hampton quotes now this. gonna watch that again on the video feed tomorrow.

good good comrade brought a white board for real time signage updates. defund police/signer resign/people over property, the possibilities are endless!

a woman terribly injured on A12 talking about police failure to protect people over the summer. she left her wheelchair in the hallway, is using a cane. i hope they see what they’ve done.

says she saw an officer laugh on A12 when antiracist activists were hurt. and again in court. officers have clear animosity toward anti racists.

“the cops are not the answer. the cops are an integral part of this problem. no cops, no kkk, no fascists in the usa” 🔥✊ yes girl.

ms katrina recounting an experience of being followed by a truck in the days after A12. was terrified, but couldn’t call the police because she was terrified of them, too. other activists of color report similar experiences of being followed & harassed by racists.

don gathers calling heaphy out — report totally ignores the role of race. points out that in the crowd of lawyers, there’s not one person of color. he’s not wrong.

don: if there was no stand down, as is claimed, then every single officer violated their oath. damn right. somebody decided not to protect people. just say who it was.

“dismissive and disgraceful” — don re: the cover of the report. disgusted by admiration of thomas jefferson in report’s 1st paragraph. seriously tone deaf — heaphy has no awareness of race.

retired critical care nurse describing a job in which she held lives in her hand, importance of doing it correctly. drawing a comparison to police work. gonna grab this video clip from the feed tomorrow. she’s destroying those incompetent pigs.

“if i walked in there [unprepared into a dangerous situation] and somebody died, the board of nursing would pull my license.” she’s not wrong. why do cops get such a pass?

i’m not here for calm, measured statements from middle aged straight white men, tbh
“finally, if you will, a modest suggestion...” nah, sit down.

woman calling signer out on his “insistence on civility,” calling it disturbing. pointing out that NOW he believes things (from the report) that activists told him before. “you didn’t believe before you paid $350,000”

she’s reading some choice quotes from the report — “you’re damn right we gassed them” and an officer saying he pulled his people because he was worried they’d kill someone. i’ll pull the direct quotes later. “we had no reason to believe the police would protect us”

activist pointing out solidarity cville put together extensive documentation that wasn’t even used in the report. activists had good reason to mistrust heaphy, not cooperate, but their publicly avail. information wasn’t even used!

“mr heaphy, i don’t even know you, but i don’t think i like you.”
“get all of us to come down from our homes, our jobs, and make us listen to that bullshit”
“you should’ve asked some of the people you got hurt. you should’ve asked the people who were there.”
mary carey 🔥

“why must you hire another to find out your own details?” a woman now calling for resignation of entire council. she’s not wrong about the report — it’s scope was limited to the realm of those paying for it. they could’ve just outed their own wrongs.

ugh no, this woman is from RISE Cville — that pro-statue group trying to recall the whole council. i guess there’s some overlap, even when you generally disagree. the report was trash, but so is her platform.

mason pickett is next on the list, but he’s been removed from chambers. he called a local activist, a woman, a “fucking bitch” for looking at him a few hours ago. the man’s a menace. can’t wait to see him brought up on those assault charges from a while back.

joyously, the woman he said that to is next! some bright spots in this weird disaster. nancy bringing some passion — the statue discussion IS about race. this summer WAS about race. ignoring race in that report makes it totally useless.

nancy reminding us that it’s not just our council, not just cville. uva and albemarle county need to be held accountable, too. albemarle’s CA needs to prosecute. need review of officer conduct in all 3 jurisdictions.

“who are we supposed to come together with if we can’t trust law enforcement? if we can’t trust you [council]?”
“we want accountability. you need i give it to us. that is your role. we elect you.” breaking it down real simple for this council.

“i am a mother. i am a grandmother. i am a neighbor. and i am a community leader. do you understand the words coming out of my mouth, mike? so i take this very seriously.” 🔥 ms rosia!
COMMUNITY ACCOUNTABILITY! folks on that dais aren’t part of this community in a meaningful way.

to heaphy- “you profited from tragedy and death”
“the $1.5 mil is a fictional price tag”
“to say that it could have been worse is to gaslight us and susan bro.” an insult to heather.
review goes very way on city mgr jones — who controls funding for report
🔥 Daaaaave!!

dave asks if mason pickett, who called nancy a “fucking bitch” in council chambers will be prosecuted, specifically citing donna’s case — charged & convicted for TALKING in chambers on Aug. 21. will mason, an old white man, be treated the same as donna, a young woman of color?

final speaker, i think? she’s reading a letter i and other folks signed. i’ll try to find & post text. we need more time to digest heaphy report before meaningful community discussion can take place. we have concerns re: lack of race awareness in the report.

also concerned about lack of acknowledgement/discussion of role of community activists over the summer. we need more time. we need accountability. we need them to do better.

oh dear, live tweet typos. goes EASY on him. he’s squeaky clean!

galvin & heaphy laughing and palling around during a recess. how can he claim to be independent and objective? they all know each other, way back.

back in session. jones will be presenting his plan to move forward in response to the heaphy report. i’m bored already. this man used to be a sportscaster? he has the charisma of a teaspoon.

jones: rec’ed better training, better technology & people to operate it. developing guidelines for when to utilize incident management team. “planning to work towards conducting” joint trainings with VSP & others, increase communications capacity (this goes to budget discussion)

restriction of weapons, esp. firearms is in legislative packet (this was discussed at previous meeting — this is not new in response to heaphy report)

“we have to be very careful to who we deny the use of open flame to” can’t deny based on content.
request update to cross burning code, make new law to criminalize use of flame to intimidate, generally. (is this local ordinance or does this go to legislative packet? i don’t know)

jones wants to get new standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place without discussing at council... not sure i like the sound of that

RFP will go out early 2018 for contract to consult on how to do better next time, explore heaphy’s stadium approach. (so sure there will be a next time because they won’t deny UTR II)

honestly this is so monotone i can barely keep the sentences separate. he’s just listening, with barely a sentence per point, a laundry list of items from the report, with a vague promise to address it. this isn’t a plan.

“an important part of what mr heaphy spoke of in the report is restoring faith in the government.”
i’m really confused that this was news?

proposing some kind of facilitated dialogues. “small group activities” for people to talk about their feelings. this sounds suspect. why don’t you just listen to us in the forum that already exists?!

jones is so opposed to the civilian review board that he can barely say the words. stuttered on it like porky pig. well that’s appropriate, at least.

wow he’s just listing shit that’s wrong in this city and it DOESN’T STOP! lack of public housing, need for job training, not enough jobs that pay enough to live, disproportionate minority contact with the police, race problems...

“we know that’s not true” re: charlottesville being a ‘world class city’
“nobody says that’s true”

nice to hear from jones, i guess, but come on. plenty of people say it’s true. he’s sitting next to you, for chrissake.

galvin literally can’t avoid making every statement about zoning. it’s bizarre. very few people understand or care about that. it makes her really hard to relate to.

szakos announcing she’s on the transition team for governor northam. her council term is up at the end of the month. she says she can take city’s needs with her to her role on northam’s team 😳

fenwick asking about permits for next august. says some folks in this room have filed for competing permits. walt smiling slightly... i suspect he’s one of those people. ✊

fenwick asking about metal detectors, etc. jones says they need to employ the consultant to see what would be best for future events. unwilling to commit to any answer.

fenwick saying permit was for 100 white nationalists. drone count was 650. concerned any “expert” could not possibly have experience with the event we experienced. jones was unable to cite any similar events.

“obviously we’ll have some smaller events” [before next august] — jones explaining that we’ll get better at fighting nazis because OBVIOUSLY they’ll be back, repeatedly? is this really what he just said?

asked why race wasn’t in the report, heaphy:
race didn’t directly affect how the city prepared for events
“i don’t think our task was to look at the history of white supremacy or its corrosive effects” race was outside the scope of the review
!!!!!!!

heaphy, ignoring race:
he understood report to be limited to how the events came about, how the city handled them
didn’t find, in the city or in the police department, that issue directly affected events

heaphy on race: “it’s exclusion in the report wasn’t a subtle suggestion that it wasn’t relevant”
what, did you run out of pages?!

galvin:
“we’re talking about two totally different cultures”
cops can’t even live in the city — cry me a river. i’ll link to the cville tomorrow article about this later.
“we’re talking about serious gulfs between the groups”

heaphy, exhibiting his utter lack of even a BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF RACISM: “we didn’t meet any officer that said anything racist”

signer does NOT know what “open source” means. this discussion of “cyber intelligence” is embarrassing.

wes asked about the racist, absurd cover of the report. heaphy pushed back — he obviously thinks the image of a black officer protecting the klan is poetic or some shit. don’t you dare whitesplain that shit to a black man. take a whole fucking stadium full of seats, mr heaphy

wes pointed out that he TOLD heaphy it was problematic before it was released to the public. heaphy argues that it was already done. i yelled “it’s a digital document,” which wes then repeats. heaphy has no excuse.

signer just made a statement about how hard this is for him as a jew. my heart aches for our jewish community. having fucking nazis disrupt your bar mitzvah is an INSANE THING TO HAPPEN. but i have not a moment’s sadness for mike signer. you’re not a victim. shut up and listen.

he said more but i’m not here for it. it’s on tape, we can all watch it later. i just have no more patience for this self serving, smug, incompetent dirtbag. keep your apologies and your smirks and your victim complex. resign. go home.

moving on to matters by the public. heaphy & his cronies left. i guess they don’t want to hear what we’re gonna say about what just happened.

activist reminding council that stadium approach just invites them here, assumes it’s inevitable. urging them to seek out “more creative solutions” to preventing them from coming here at all.

now urging council to call UVA to account. they let A11 happen. they are a huge employer and don’t pay living wage. they are part of the affordable housing crisis. 🔥

speaker #2 has nothing by high praise for the heaphy report. really laying it on thick. expressing confidence in maurice jones. says the plan was great (is this guy being paid?!)
“i wonder what business he owns?” — wise comrade sitting next to me 😂

nikuyah’s next! 🙌 i’m done hearing yet another old white dude explain our current situation.

ugh yeah he finished by saying “i think it’s very dangerous to have the uncivility” in council proceedings. wants council to EDUCATE us on being CIVIL 😂

huh, nikuyah’s in line, but not next. this lady has some points though “you guys talk about white supremacy with the words of white fragility”
talking about ‘council on race,’ gesturing to the audience “here’s your dialogue on race right here.”
great lead in to nikuyah

nikuyah points out that the two heads likely to roll (city mgr jones & chief of police thomas) are black men. i agree that they aren’t solely culpable, that race is an issue in scapegoating, but i maintain they are culpable enough to be punished, but punish some white guys, too

they’re letting nikuyah talk past her time. wise move. she’ll be sitting next to them in less than a month. it would be bad workplace politics to shut her down.

comrade urging council NOT to immediately pour money into police dept. community had he info they’re saying they need digital surveillance to get. they wouldn’t take it when community gave it to them!!

giving them more power and authority to surveil us is dangerous and unwise. more $ more training isn’t enough. we need to confront power. we need CRB. we need participatory budgeting. divest from police, invest in community.

woman starts to say “we were frustrated to have white supremacists in our community,” pauses, adds the word “overt” 👏

NANCY! back up there. mason called her a fucking bitch. she says her COMMUNITY defended and supported her. not council or cops. “when that red and black flag came down the street, i knew we were gonna be ok” on A12 — COMMUNITY DEFENSE & SUPPORT ❤️❤️

nancy asking if the officer on the cover of the report was asked permission to use his image. council is all staring at their desks. that poor man is now the face of our failed battle with white supremacy.

of the “successes” on J8 protecting both speech & safety: “that was a failure, if you count black folks as part of ‘people.’” there it is y’all. it’s that simple.

“we were promised 40 acres and a mule. i would like mine on main street.” goddamn y’all brought the fire tonight

ms rosia has been here in council chambers for nearly eight hours. she says it’s hard for her to do that because she still has pain from injuries on J8.
— why must we spend so much time demanding accountability from this council?!

rosia is demanding pleasants sr and jr be removed from the force. they are racist monsters who hurt communities of color. there are so many complaints against these men!!

“civility in this chamber is a direct result of your empathy” 🙌🔥
we yell because we don’t feel heard.

“what we heard tonight with the action plan is technical rational bloo blah”
“we need social, moral political leadership”
no sacrificial lamb, we need structural, systemic changes. yes.

“you played the legal game instead of the moral game [...] and heather heyer is dead” 👏

❤️ a brave woman is tearing up at the mic recounting how embarrassed she felt, as a jewish woman, to see signer equate his experience as a jewish man with the black experience in the wake of A12.

his repeated insistence that he understands the SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE of being a low income black person in charlottesville because he is jewish BAFFLES ME. i am glad to hear a member of HIS community call it out.

“you speak well, but you have not done anything for this community. it grieves me to say that.” signer is a slick political type but he’s EMPTY INSIDE.

eight hours in. my snapping fingers ache, my tweeting thumbs are stiff, and my palms sting. the price we pay for civic participation.

speaker is arguing against heaphy’s “twin goals” of free speech and safety. insists they safety is more important. as a therapist, he says anxiety, depression, and suicidality are way up in our community. “take a lawsuit” and deny nazi hate speech.

finally over. i’ll process it better after rewatching most of it tomorrow. because i’m a masochist, i guess.