There have been countless protests taking place across the country as people continue to speak out against racial injustice and police brutality since the death of George Floyd. Many of those protests have been incredibly peaceful and moving events. Others have been marked by violence — in some cases resulting in injury and death.
Luckily, that wasn't the case when a man drove a car into a peaceful protest on Sunday. Astonishingly, there were no injuries, but the crime is still a serious one and, possibly, a hate crime.
Harry H. Rogers, 36, of Hanover County, is the man who reportedly drove a vehicle into a peaceful protest that was taking place just outside of Richmond, Virginia. Authorities said the man identified himself as a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. He told them he was the highest-ranking member of the Virginia chapter of the KKK.
His social media reflected that he did seem to be involved in the hate group. Various posts show that he has been involved in white supremacist groups and demonstrations for years. Prosecutors said they were investigating the episode as a possible hate crime.
It's an incredibly frightening occurrence that shows how racial tensions are at an absolute breaking point in the current climate.
According to the New York Times, the Henrico County Police Division said it received a call about the incident just before 6 p.m. "Several witnesses reported that a vehicle revved their engine and drove through the protesters occupying the roadway," the police said in a statement. Rogers was arrested and charged with assault and battery at the scene.
Still, it's unclear whether Rogers' claims about his membership in the Ku Klux Klan were true. Either way, he is currently being held without bond. It's a serious crime and one we've unfortunately seen take place before. In Charlottesville in 2017, a protester named Heather Heyer was killed by a car driven by a neo-Nazi at the Unite the Right rally.
"The accused, by his own admission and by a cursory glance at social media, is an admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a propagandist for Confederate ideology," said Shannon L. Taylor, the commonwealth's attorney for Henrico County. Taylor seems to be taking the incident extremely seriously. "We are investigating whether hate crimes charges are appropriate."
"Protesters acting peaceably, well within their constitutional rights of assembly, should not have to fear violence," Taylor said. "We lived through this in Virginia in Charlottesville in 2017. I promise Henricoans that this egregious criminal act will not go unpunished. Hate has no place here under my watch."
Still, even recently, this hasn't been the only attack of this nature. A strikingly similar one occurred in Seattle on Sunday night, too, when a man with a pistol drove a car through a crowd of protesters. Video footage from the scene shows the frightening event. In that incident, a man was shot. He remains in the hospital in a "satisfactory" condition after undergoing surgery.
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said, "What we can tell you is that the suspect, who was in a black car, drove straight into the crowd that was demonstrating in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. The crowd tried to stop the car as it was progressing speedily down the street. One person from the crowd was wrestling with the driver when the driver pulled out a gun and fired at least one round striking the person in the shoulder."
These kinds of occurrences are so unsettling to hear about. Protesters are out trying to raise their voices and, hopefully, create the space for positive change to take place. The hope is that those protests stay peaceful so that those voices can actually be heard — and that goes in both directions. Protesters should aim to stay focused on their mission rather than inciting violence. But they shouldn't fear for their lives when partaking in peaceful protest, either.
Attacks that come from self-proclaimed members or leaders of the KKK are even more jarring. It shows that, while membership in the racist organization has been down for many years, there are still people with strongly held racist views that aim to hurt others out there, waiting to act. For anyone who plans to take part in peaceful protest, it's a scary reality.
However, in 2020, it's a reality that we have to begin coping with. The number of white supremacist groups has been going up in recent years. So has white supremacist propaganda, as well as the number of hate crimes we're seeing.
We don't yet know if Harry Rogers is a KKK leader. But the hope is that these kinds of crimes are being taken extremely seriously. No one deserves to be hurt or fear for their lives for engaging in peaceful protest. People who claim to be associated with racist organizations perhaps deserve to be punished as such.
