While Virginia’s major news organizations are content to report arrest statistics and Orwellian police doubletalk, one writer — Jeff B. Thomas — spent a week on the front lines in Richmond in late June 2020, where rioting continues nightly.
Thomas’ reporting is nothing less than a masterpiece of multimedia journalism.
In his Blue Virginia article, Thomas shows us a set of videos taken on the scene in late June 2020, accompanied by explanations of their context.
What he concludes is that we are witnessing “a horrific orgy of extralegal violence, arbitrary arrest, assault and battery on peaceful protesters, and official deceit to justify it, all recorded on video.”
Most harrowing are the screams in the background.
Thomas also objects to the way these events are being covered in the news media and perceived at the governor’s office:
How did the Richmond Times-Dispatch summarize these events? “A Dozen Arrested Early Tuesday at Richmond City Hall Protest.” And Governor Northam, whose state mansion sits a couple blocks from here and whose police were mostly responsible for the police violence? “Mostly these demonstrations have been peaceful, but here in Richmond we continue to see nightly conflicts between demonstrators and our police. After three weeks it is no longer clear what the goals are or a path to achieve them. Clearly Richmond needs a different path forward. These nightly conflicts cannot continue indefinitely.”
