Washington Post: Unite the Right trial opens with competing versions of deadly Charlottesville rally

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Jurors on Thursday were presented with two competing versions of what unfolded on Aug. 11-12, 2017, when hundreds of white supremacists descended on Charlottesville for a rally that ended with an avowed neo-Nazi plowing his car through a crowd, killing a woman.

In opening statements in the federal civil trial to determine whether the leading figures in the Unite the Right rally conspired to engage in racially motivated violence, the plaintiffs’ attorney said that violence was planned for months, in coded language calling for attacks on Black and Jewish people.

Representatives for many of the two dozen defendants named in this case blamed others for the violence and said their hateful language was hyperbolic — and constitutionally protected — speech.

“Plaintiffs are going to prove that violence was planned, that it was executed and that it was celebrated by the defendants,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Dunn. “What they say and do privately behind closed doors is going to tell us a lot about their true motives and plans in this case.”

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