Former U.S. Attorney Tim Heaphy delivered his report on the August 12th events in Charlottesville to City Council last night. WMRA’s Jordy Yager has more.
Every seat in council chambers was filled Monday night, as Heaphy presented his legal team’s findings for more than 90 minutes. Charging the city $350,000, Heaphy and his team interviewed more than 150 people over the last three months, compiling a 220-page report.
It found multiple levels of city and state dysfunction, outlining a myriad of missteps ahead of the white nationalist rally in which dozens were injured and three people died.
But members of the public said there was something missing from the report. Dr. Rick Turner, the former head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he believes the race of the city’s police chief, who is African-American, played a role in why his orders were not followed by rank and file officers that day.
RICK TURNER: If the author of the report was a conscious black person, he couldn't miss the relevance of race in this context. Instead, this report never mentioned it. We live in a state of steadfast denial.
Heaphy, however, said he found no evidence of race as a factor, but acknowledged…
TIM HEAPHY: I don’t think that its absence from the report is some sort of subtle suggestion that it’s irrelevant, it absolutely is relevant, it is a little bit beyond the scope of what I think we were asked to do.