Jason Kessler
(Authors Note: I was one of the lead organizers for the rally and some of my reporting is a first-hand account. DO NOT under any circumstances interact with any Antifa implicated in this article. Leave that for the lawyers.)
FOIA documents obtained by Shadowproof show that UVA police were using hearsay from the anarcho-communist website It’s Going Down to inform their negligent response to the Alt-Right’s torchlit march on August 11th. They ignored repeated requests for assistance from both Unite the Right marchers as well as UVA students and staff.
The Unite the Right organizers had discussed the possibility of doing a civil rights march from so-called “Nameless Field” to a Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the UVA Rotunda for some time. However we were uncertain until the night of August 11th whether to actually go through with it due to a pending court case surrounding the next day’s rally and leaked planning details by Left-wing agitators.
As early as 3:23pm on August 11th, emails show UVA Chief of Staff Anda Webb alerting police about the march (and parroting a fake Left-wing talking point about there being a march on St. Paul’s Church).
By 7:52pm, the night of the march, UVA Chief of Police Mark Gibson was emailing an It’s Going Down article about the march to Charlottesville Chief of Police Al Thomas. It’s Going Down is an extremist site which has helped organize violence against right-wing activists and police officers around the country. They were running logistics for the J20 riots at Donald Trump’s inauguration, for instance. [More]