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About 100 activists and residents crowded into the council
meeting, the first since the violent demonstrations two weekends
ago, and shouted "Shame" and "Shut it down" toward council
members and the mayor, forcing them to briefly end the meeting
and leave the chambers, according to the New York Times.
As Mayor Mike Signer and council members left the room, two
people held a sign that read "Blood On Your Hands," the Times
reported.
No one was injured and three people were issued citations for
disorderly conduct before the meeting resumed, the Times
reported.
Activists and residents at the council meeting questioned the
response from police during the violent weekend and criticized
city leaders for not heeding warnings about the rally, the Times
reported.
“We tried really hard,” Signer said, according to the New York
Times, after the meeting resumed, saying that a federal judge
forced the city to allow the rally downtown.
Monday's protest came after hundreds of white supremacists
descended on Charlottesville on Aug. 11 and marched with tiki
torches through the campus of the University of Virginia, in a
display that critics called reminiscent of a Ku Klux Klan rally,
before they fought with counter-protesters.
The next day, white supremacists opposed to plans of removing a
statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery
Confederate army in the American Civil War, clashed with
anti-racism demonstrators before a car plowed into a group of
counter-protesters and killed a 32-year-old woman.
The events on Aug. 11 and 12 highlight a persistent debate in
the U.S. South over the display of the Confederate battle flag
and other symbols of the rebel side in the Civil War, fought
over the issue of slavery.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Michael Perry)
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