On Saturday, August 12, 2017, date of the scheduled “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, I woke up early, went for a morning jog, then showered and changed into my “work clothes” (i.e, a T-shirt and my trusty, if mildly wrinkled, khakis).
Soon thereafter, Matt Parrott picked me up as promised, with a couple of other passengers in tow, before driving us all to the fairly nondescript parking lot of a strip mall just outside of town. This was apparently one of several “meet up points” for UTR attendees “in the know” to begin their journey to the Lee monument site, where the rally was to be held. Two police escorts were there, and from what I can recall, they seemed like conscientious men eager to ensure people's safety and keep the peace.
(Unfortunately, this marked the last time that day that I would experience law-enforcement officers actually interested in fulfilling their ostensible duties. Thereafter, the “boys in blue” would prove to be utterly useless, if not worse than useless.)
Soon we had all clambered into various larger vehicles and departed in a caravan. Our destination, reached a short time later, was a downtown parking garage. Within the protective steel and cement guts of this structure, people clambered out of their vehicles, where some got attired in protective gear resembling that which “Based Stick Man” had popularized earlier in the summer.
From this sheltered perspective, it was impossible to gauge just how chaotic things had already become just below us, in Emancipation Park and its immediate environs. However, we were able to spot a low-flying police helicopter as it hovered just above us. No doubt its pilots had tracked our arrival and they were duly delivering the new surveillance info to headquarters.
Presently, it came to be time to begin our procession down the various levels of the parking garage and emerge onto the street below, where we knew that counter-protesters were waiting for us with requisite spittle-flecked hatred and avid bloodlust. There was some effort to generate bravado, to start a marching chant, something with a “based” message, along the lines of “Hey ho, hey ho/Send illegals back to Mexico,” or more simply, “White lives matter!” (There was, however, no talk of “blood and soil” or any other Nazi-esque sentiments, unlike had been uttered by the Tiki torchers of the previous night’s reverie).
Some of my companions held St. Andrews flags and other assorted forbidden paraphernalia of a decidedly “Southron” aesthetic, yet I did not feel, as one “embedded” within this group, that I was surrounded by people who were spoiling for a brawl. These were not “scrappers,” but generally sedate, mostly middle-aged men and women. They were there to take part in a rally, not to engage in a violent confrontation.
But peaceable though they may have been at heart, it little mattered. For the events that followed clearly demonstrated that neither local nor state authorities had any interest in ensuring that participants, however docile, remained safe.
When we walked up the road which led to the elevated grassy area of the park, it was clear that someone had released tear gas in our direction. For a few minutes, enveloped in a puff of smoke, we were doubled over, coughing as the stinging substance wreaked havoc on our lungs. But somehow we moved past this spot, and past an unrestrained, unbarricaded mob of screaming malcontents, up the steps to the park.
It was here that I met up with Francis Nally, aka “Pilleater,” the somewhat eccentric proponent of “Asian-Aryanism,” whom I had gotten to know online in the months leading up to the event. However, there was little time to talk, or to relax, or to feel at peace in any way, because it soon became clear that the park was encircled by hooligans who were using makeshift weapons to take potshots at us. Antifa and BLM-affiliated agitators were launching both smoke bombs and glass bottles, apparently filled with concrete, in our direction as they screamed, swore, and spewed angry invective all the while.
Again and again, their homemade catapults launched objects which could well have proven fatal, or at least highly injurious, had they managed to strike anyone in the head. Yet the policemen on the scene were (quite literally) unmoved by the violent crimes happening in their midst. They were doing exactly squat to stop, arrest, or disarm anyone. Instead, these intrepid law-enforcement officers, who to a man has sworn an oath “to serve and to protect” the public, just stood there, their arms by their sides, their expressions blank, making no effort whatsoever to shield anyone from the openly violent acts being perpetrated in broad daylight, much less to apprehend the violent malefactors.
Later, of course, it emerged that a “stand down order” had almost certainly been handed down, either by the BLM-friendly Charlottesville mayor, or by the city’s Chief of Police, or by the supremely odious (and thankfully now removed from office) Governor Terry Mcauliffe, though such an admission was never actually made. Still, it was clear to everyone with eyes to see that the cops on the scene had neither the interest nor the inclination to do their jobs. In the weeks that followed, even some liberal outlets decried the Charlottesville PD’s “woefully unprepared and poorly organized” response to events, and a scathing writeup by a federal attorney took the Chief of Police, among others, to task for their unforgiveable inaction.
Had the local police been properly prepared, barricades would have been set up to prevent the two hostile camps from coming to blows, and anyone (on either side of said barricades) who attempted to assault those on the other side would have been intercepted, arrested, and taken away in cuffs.
But here in Charlottesville, in “Emancipation Park,” before the stern-faced stone countenance of General Lee, even such elementary precautions had been neglected by law-enforcement. One wonders if this was truly due to the sheer incompetence of the local constabulary, or if indeed things had deliberately been set up to fail, in order that bloody mayhem might ensue, so that the “alt-right” attendees (and by extension, President Trump) could be blamed by the Democrat mayor and governor, even though nearly all instances of violence were instigated by antifa and BLM counter-protesters (whose atrocities, as noted, went entirely unpunished by the cops on the scene).
No doubt, some Machiavellian calculation was afoot. But as the saga was still unfolding, it wasn’t easy to discern such motivations or sought-after political outcomes. Nevertheless, in the midst of the anarchic tumult, I recall standing on the border of the park, facing the roiling mob of murderously hateful, spittng, spluttering goons, and muttering to Francis, “This isn’t going to end well.”
Prophetic though my statement proved to be, the truth was that I didn’t yet know the half of it.
Andy Nowicki is the author of several books, most recently The Insurrectionist . Visit his author page, altrightnovelist.com, and his Youtube channel.
Amazing.