Posted on 05/27/2023 12:14:53 PM PDT by lowbridge
An Enosburg Falls man who attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., has been charged with a felony for marching with a torch during a demonstration with other white nationalists.
Ryan Roy, 34, faces one count of burning an object with the intent to intimidate. He's at least the fourth person indicted for participating in the August 11, 2017, rally on the University of Virginia campus. Marchers carried lit torches and chanted things such as "Jews will not replace us!" and the Nazi slogan "Blood and soil!"
Roy, who grew up in Essex, did not respond to requests for comment this week. But in 2017, he was outed as a rally attendee after locals spotted him in an award-winning Vice News documentary about the event. In an interview with Seven Days shortly afterward, he admitted that he'd attended and said the large crowd proved "that we’re a legitimate movement, that this is a movement of people. It’s not like a fringe thing."
“My views are right. I don’t feel like I need to hide it,” he said at the time. “I’m not oppressing anyone. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m not breaking any laws. I feel the way I feel.”
Virginia adopted the charge of "burning an object with the intent to intimidate" in 2002, "partly in response to the Ku Klux Klan, which was known for burning crosses in public to scare the Black population," the Washington Post reported. If convicted, Roy faces up to five years in prison.
The prosecutor who was in office during the 2017 rally declined to prosecute the marchers. But his successor, Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney James Hingeley, vowed to bring charges if elected, according to CNN. He took office in January 2020.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.sevendaysvt.com ...
Flag burning is speech tho…
I suspect that this law was written so that the intent of the accused doesn’t have to be established, only the perception of the aggrieved. The prosecution will trot out some sad minority women to say they were paralyzed with fear.
#blm good......#wnm bad. HUH? Topsy turvey!
Years ago, the Supreme Court ruled burning an American Flag (that belonged to you) was a form of free speech.
So why not a torch?
Is a torch illegal? No? Then what’s this crap about?
Seems like a freedom of speech thing to me
Isn’t that Torch Marchy thing a Stephan Banderas NAZI gig from Ukraine? Oh yeah. I though we were good and supportive of them…
Victor for sure. A real one.
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