‘Several injured’ as protesters at Robert E Lee monument ‘throw fireworks at cops who pepper-sprayed crowd’ – The Sun
SEVERAL people were injured on Friday night at the Robert E Lee monument in Virginia, where cops and protesters clashed over the Confederate memorial.
Richmond Police released videos and a statement saying protesters had unlawfully gathered at the monument of the general, which city officials said they planned to take down.
According to police, roughly 75 to 100 protesters had gathered just before 10pm, despite the monument closing at sunset around 8.30pm and not opening again until sunrise.
Authorities tried to get protesters to disperse after they claimed demonstrators were shooting paintballs and “throwing other hard objects” at cops.
Virginia State Police tweeted body camera footage that they said shows “fireworks being launched by protesters from Monument Ave at police.”
“At least one of the protester's pyrotechnics spun out of control & struck an individual in the median.”
A video taken at the scene claims to show state police "launching flash bangs and tear gas from mortars."
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Per the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a protester who threw something at cops was shouted down by other protesters.
But shortly after, police fired “several rounds of chemical irritants into the crowd.”
Police have claimed “no tear gas was used” but that a police officer “deployed pepper spray one time, due to ongoing assaults from the crowd.”
The police department said four cops and one state trooper were injured by paintballs.
Officials said one officer was hit in the back of the head and was being treated at a hospital, and said another officer was hit in the back of the neck “with a hard object.”
Another video taken at the scene on Friday night appears to show a cop spraying at the crowd after one officer appeared to shove a female protester who approached him to the ground.
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Six people — including a juvenile — were arrested on charges ranging from unlawful assembly to assaulting a law enforcement officer to trespassing and obstruction of justice.
The Times-Dispatch reports that at least five police vans waited as cops arrested protesters — and at one point, a cop was heard yelling to a colleague it was “time to grab somebody."
Around 11.35pm, police left the area and protesters disbanded.
The clashes marked the fifth week that authorities have said protesters have unlawfully gathered in Richmond, which is the capital of Virginia.
After Heather Heyer died in 2017 when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd in Charlottesville, then-Governor Terry McAuliffe temporarily banned gatherings at the Robert E Lee monument.
But in 2019, his emergency regulations around the statue became permanent, making it illegal to gather at the statue.
Last week, concrete barriers were installed around the statue, hours after protesters tore down a different Confederate monument.
Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced earlier this month that the statue would be removed and placed in storage while its future was determined.
The Lee statue, along with other monuments along the avenue and throughout the city, have been rallying points and sites of clashes with police during demonstrations that began following the death of George Floyd.
President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted that he signed an executive order protecting American statues and monuments, adding: "Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country!"
He slammed the destruction in major US cities.
“They’re tearing down statues, desecrating monuments, and purging dissenters," he said, echoing his previous statements on the matter.
"It’s not the behavior of a peaceful political movement; it’s the behavior of totalitarians and tyrants and people that don’t love our country.”
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