Are Mass Arrests Looming For Charlottesville Torch Marchers? 

_{This article was originally published to Full-Haus.com, syndicated here with permission of the author. If you would like to submit your own content, please email amerikanercontributions@proton.me}

There is understandable concern growing in dissident circles and among Charlottesville veterans in particular that anyone who attended the Unite the Right torchlit rally on August 11, 2017 might face imminent arrest and extradition to Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail in Virginia. Are mass roundups of anyone who had the courage to light up that night looming, or is this another case of leftist fearmongering to stoke our anxiety and discourage future activism? 

Rule 1: Always assume the worst.  

Rule 2: Things are never as bad as they seem. 

To date, we know of only three arrests under the Soros-funded and Morris Dees-doppelgänger “Commonwealth’s Attorney” Jim Hingeley’s novel interpretation of Virginia Statute 18.2-423.01, of which the relevant section reads:  

Any person who, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, burns an object on a highway or other public place in a manner having a direct tendency to place another person in reasonable fear or apprehension of death or bodily injury is guilty of a Class 6 felony. 

Anyone found guilty of said charge faces up to five years in a Virginia prison. And contrary to popular speculation, the law does not date to Reconstruction, despite a Klan connection: It was passed in 2002 in response to contemporary cross burnings, went all the way to the Supreme Court, and was upheld in a 6-3 ruling despite the best efforts of our guys Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in Virginia v. Black. 

Putting aside the dubious legal basis and flagrant political motivation of bringing these charges almost six years after the fact, we know that: 

1. All three cases were filed on February 6, 2023, and Attorney Hingeley campaigned for his position in 2019, in part by promising to persecute prosecute the torch bearers, and against the legal conclusion of his opponent and predecessor. This has been in the works for a long time, and more charges are expected. 

2. All three men arrested to date were previously doxed and known to be in attendance holding torches. One might speculate that antifa’s newly concerted effort to identify every person in Charlottesville ideologically to the right of Trotsky during those two historic days in August 2017 represents a deliberate, coordinated operation – possibly in tandem with the Open Society and its new favored attorney – to enable this very legal offensive. 

3. At least two of the three men arrested featured prominently in footage of the melee at the foot of the Thomas Jefferson statue on the University of Virginia campus, and one of the three was also charged for the infamous “Maliciously Release Gas” euphemism for using pepper spray. The enemy might just be targeting “the worst” of the most prominent torch bearers. 

Before proceeding, the purpose of this piece is not to provide false comfort to the men and women who courageously marched for White interests that night. Nor is it to whip them into a frenzy of frenetic panic in expectation of a no-knock raid at any moment. It is simply to lay out and interpret what we know as of now.  

A reasonable summation of the situation might be: “If you are doxed and known to have held a torch at the demonstration, you might be arrested in the near future and should plan for the possibility. If you have not been identified as a participant or did not touch a torch, you probably are safe for now.” 

Of the hundreds in attendance on the good guys’ side on August 11, many are already doxed and not exactly living underground. So the February arrest of one of the accused stands out as evidence that a massive simultaneous dragnet is not likely underway, despite the near certainty that more arrests are coming. 

If we follow the letter of the law in question (which is an admittedly naïve assumption under this system), if you did not carry a flame, you should be fine. If you did, holding a Tiki Torch burning self-contained Citronella fuel while walking on public property regardless of slogans is not remotely in the same category as burning a large wooden cross in front of your black neighbor’s house. Due process and First Amendment issues will jump off the page of any lawyer who agrees to fight this. Don’t give up the ship before the storm has even arrived, even if the prospect of a Charlottesville jury looks about as appealing as a DC trial does to a J6 attendee. And take note: Albemarle County does not have a public defender’s office. Those in need will be assigned private counsel at taxpayer expense. 

Importantly, and to the best of our knowledge, there was zero intent via the organizers or the rank and file to seek out or confront any specific group or individual. There was no detour past Congregation Beth Israel, nor Wes Bellamy’s office, nor even a single rank hovel of the hordes of antifa and anti-whites lurking in Charlottesville that night in preparation for their imminent violence the next day. On the contrary, it appears that Edward Gorcenski and his decidedly non-merry band of miscreants deliberately sought out the confrontation by “occupying” the foot of the Thomas Jefferson statue in the path of the demonstrators, live-streaming and crying for aid and attention all the while. 

It’s also curious that news of these arrests broke via the brand new blog of Charlottesville antifa activist and skinheaded lesbian Molly Conger, whose Twitter handle “@socialistdogmom” (she/her) at least deserves the praise of truth in advertising. Aside from having an inordinate amount of time on her hands for communist hall monitoring in the absence of actual motherhood, one suspects she might just have an agenda in trying to stoke undue distress in the hundreds of White Americans who showed up that night and suffered serious consequences for exercising their “Constitutional rights,” or still fear the prospect of persecution. 

Finally, even readers in the cheap seats can clearly see that a nearly six-year-delayed prosecution led by a Soros-funded candidate following a suspiciously-renewed mass doxing campaign against Charlottesville veterans in the absence of any charges against the legions of armed, violent, masked red guards determined to shut down a court-affirmed assembly is as much a mockery of justice as it is business as usual in Weimerican jurisprudence. If there is “no statute of limitations for felonies” in Virginia, surely the makeshift flamethrower-wielding Corey Long will be rounded up any day now for violating 18.2-423.01. And the Honorable Hingeley’s hounding of righteously infuriated White Americans who “took it to the streets” while dismissing assault and battery charges against a Black American who would go on to murder one and maim three in the DC Metro just over a year later is the new business as usual in Albemarle County, and so much of what we used to know as our country. 

Are mass arrests looming for Cville vets? Absent a glimpse into the remaining sealed indictments, there’s no way to really know. But however this plays out – from lots of black vans to limited sacrificial lambs – be of stout hearts. If you do get pinched as part of this partisan inverse pogrom, remember: exercise the right to remain silent until you have secured and communicated with legal defense. Strongly consider banding together with co-defendants to share resources. Don’t sell out to save your neck. It’s an extremely weak case, despite the hostile territory. In the worst possible scenario, do your time, which will unquestionably be less than five years. And for our legions of legal eagles, ideological compatriots, donors, and just regular ordinary Americans sick of anarcho-tyranny, get ready to help.