Washington Post: Closing arguments underway in Unite the Right Charlottesville trial

By Ellie Silverman, Washington Post. Read the full article here.

CHARLOTTESVILLE — They had come for the “Battle of Charlottesville,” plaintiffs’ attorneys said Thursday, armed with flagpoles to double as weapons and fantasies of a race war, taking to the streets to fight anyone they viewed as an enemy.

They recruited foot soldiers, assembled into formation and descended on the city of Charlottesville for a weekend of rage, the lawyers continued. Dozens of people were injured and intimidated, and a neo-Nazi, who is now a defendant in this lawsuit, rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, they said.

Then, plaintiffs’ attorneys said, the defendants celebrated.

This was the plaintiffs’ final pitch to jurors in closing arguments Thursday in a federal civil trial accusing some of the country’s most prominent white supremacists and hate groups of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence at the Unite the Right rally weekend in August 2017.

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