The ACLU, CNN, the New York Times, and most importantly, protesters who were actually present in Charlottesville and other rallies are asking questions which used to be mocked as "conspiracy theories." After a textbook demonstration in Boston of how to keep possibly antagonistic sides apart, in order to keep the peace, the world is asking, as is a lawsuit against Charlottesville, why police in that city seemed to be not only not stopping confrontations, but encouraging them.



Hawk Newsome, president of Black Lives Matter of New York, told CNN the affiliate WCAV:

"The police actually allowed us to square off against each other...There were fights and the police were standing a block away the entire time. It's almost as if they wanted us to fight each other."

The New York Times reported that witnesses said police pointedly ignored a gunshot during the fracas in Charlottesville. Rosia Parker, a community activist, told the Times:

“We all heard it and ran — I know damn well they heard it...They never moved.”

The Times reported that a 25-year-old woman named Kendall said she had been chanting at the white-power protesters when one of them punched her in the nose.



The woman told the Times:

“I moved quickly to the police and said: ‘A man attacked me! Please help me! I need your help. He’s right there!'...They didn’t move a muscle. Only a few of them had the courage to make eye contact with me.”

Joining in the criticism is the ACLU. On it's website, ACLU of Virginia’s Executive Director Claire Gastanaga wrote:

"The policing on Saturday was not effective in preventing violence. I was there and brought concerns directly to the secretary of public safety and the head of the Virginia State Police about the way that the barricades in the park limiting access by the arriving demonstrators and the lack of any physical separation of the protesters and counter-protesters on the street were contributing to the potential of violence. They did not respond. In fact, law enforcement was standing passively by, seeming to be waiting for violence to take place..."

Gastanaga noted that at a previous KKK rally with counter-protesters present, police placed barricades and themselves between the assembled groups, resulting in effective separation and prevention of violence. In other words, it's not as if the police do not know how to head off violence. In Charlottesville, they just didn't.