B4 EZ RE K THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020
soldiers were fighting for home
and country, not slavery.
“They were fighting for a
nation that was based on the
perpetuation of slavery,” Ayers
countered.
McSweeney asked if Ayers saw
“a difference between the
motivation of individual
combatants” and that of the
Confederate states, inquiring, “Is
it possible they were fighting for
their homes?”
“Of course they were,” Ayers
said, but he termed that a “false
distinction,” saying their homes
were rooted in a system of
enslavement.
McSweeney noted that many
former Confederates worked
during Reconstruction for a
group known as “readjusters,”
who advocated restructuring
Virginia finances to pay for Black
education. Those people praised
Lee and believed that
Richmond’s grand monument
would help history vindicate him
against “the accusation that he
was a traitor committing
treason,” McSweeney said. Then
turned the question to Ayers:
“Was he?”
“Did he raise his hand against
the United States, to which he
had sworn an oath?” Ayers said.
“Yes.”
[email protected]ing that the governor’s action is
in step with the changing times.
“We think that just ends this
case,” Heytens told Circuit Judge
W. Reilly Marchant as the one-
day trial got underway.
But lawyer Patrick
McSweeney, representing the
plaintiffs, argued that the
General Assembly’s action is
unconstitutional because it
targets a matter of pending
litigation.
“This raises separation-of-
powers questions,” McSweeney
said.
Marchant, who said he
expected to rule on the case in
seven to 10 days, pushed back
against both sides during more
than six hours of testimony and
arguments. The budget
language, tucked among dozens
of arcane amendments adopted
late Friday, smacks of “special
legislation,” Marchant said —
improper laws aimed at helping
or excluding one particular
group or interest.
On the other hand, he told
McSweeney, it’s not up to him to
decide whether the amendment
STATUE FROM B1 is constitutional. Instead,
Marchant said he was looking for
evidence of changes in public
policy so dramatic that they
make it legal to violate the
covenants of the original deeds to
the property.
“Is the fact that all those
legislators voted for it evidence of
public policy?” Marchant asked.
McSweeney suggested he should
ignore the vote, but the judge
responded, “Is it your position I
should put blinders on?... That’s
a complicated issue.”
The 60-foot colossus of Lee
became the focal point of
protests this summer over racial
inequity, triggered in Richmond
and across the country by the
killing of George Floyd in
Minneapolis police custody.
Demonstrators festooned the
stone base of the statue with
graffiti condemning police
brutality against African
Americans, creating a powerful
visual symbol of the Black Lives
Matter movement.
When Northam ordered the
statue taken down in June, it was
one of five Confederate figures
along this city’s finest residential
thoroughfare. A local resident
filed suit to block the removal,
and a circuit court judge imposed
an injunction that prevented
work from getting underway.
Frustrated protesters took
matters into their own hands,
pulling down a nearby statue of
Confederate President Jefferson
Davis, along with a handful of
other monuments around the
city. Richmond Mayor Levar
Stoney (D), invoking a state of
emergency declared by the
governor, called the remaining
statues a public health risk and
ordered them removed.
Figures of Stonewall Jackson,
J.E.B. Stuart and Matthew
Fontaine Maury all came down
from city property on Monument
Avenue, leaving Lee — the only
one owned by the state — as the
last one standing.
A handful of residents filed
suit over Stoney’s actions, but not
until after the statues were
removed. The Supreme Court of
Virginia later threw out their
case, saying the plaintiffs had no
legal standing to sue.
But the case against Northam
persisted, even after the original
judge who placed an injunction
against taking the Lee statueJudge considers Lee statue’s removal
BY EMILY DAVIESA man suspected in an at-
tempted homicide was killed by
police after a high-speed chase
and shootout with officers Mon-
day afternoon in Emmitsburg,
Md., according to the Frederick
County Sheriff’s Office.
Another man was apprehend-
ed and taken into custody follow-
ing the incident. His condition is
unknown but is not believed to
be serious, Frederick County
sheriff’s spokesman Todd Wivell
told reporters on the scene.
The two men involved were
suspects in an attempted homi-
cide in Pennsylvania, Wivell said.
Their identities had not been
released by Monday evening.
The chase began in Pennsylva-
nia before crossing into Freder-
ick County around 2:30 p.m. The
pursuit unfolded down Route 15
before making its way back north
on the highway, when the sus-
pects fired shots at a police
vehicle, Wivell said.
The suspects’ vehicle crashed
just off Route 15 near Route 140.
At that point, the men emerged
from the vehicle and fired shots
at police, Wivell said. It is un-
clear whether law enforcement
officers fired shots at that time,
according to the sheriff’s office.
Police took one suspect into
custody at the crash site. The
other fled to a nearby Exxon-
Mobil station and fired at offi-
cers, the sheriff’s office said.
Officers returned fire and struck
the suspect, Wivell said. Theman was transported to a hospi-
tal, where he later died.
Pennsylvania state troopers,
Maryland state troopers, Cum-
berland Township officers and
Frederick County sheriff’s offi-
cers were all involved in the
incident, the sheriff’s office said.
It was unclear as of Monday
evening which law enforcement
agency’s officers fired the fatal
shot.
The sheriff’s office said one
employee at the gas station was
“slightly injured” and refused
treatment.
It said there is no current
threat to the public.
A Frederick County Sheriff’s
Office investigation into the inci-
dent is ongoing.
[email protected]MARYLAND
Officers kill suspect in shootout
down recused himself,
acknowledging that his residence
in the Monument Avenue
historic district created the
appearance of a conflict of
interest.
On Monday, with Attorney
General Mark R. Herring looking
on, lawyers for the state said
Northam’s action is in keeping
with a dramatic shift in public
attitudes that now deem
Confederate memorials to be
racist. To make their case, thelawyers quizzed historian
Edward Ayers about the origins
and meaning of Confederate
iconography.
Statues such as the Lee
memorial “are a part of the same
array of laws and practices put in
place to reclaim White power in
public spaces after
Reconstruction,” Ayers said.
McSweeney, during cross-
examination, debated Ayers
about the real causes of the Civil
War, arguing that individualJOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee casts a shadow in
Richmond. A judge expects to rule on its status within 10 days.long past time to consign these
relics to the dustbin of history.
“This culture is unacceptable
for any Virginia institution in the
21st century, especially one
funded by taxpayers. Virginians
expect all universities — and
particularly public universities
established by the General
Assembly — to be welcoming and
inclusive, and to eschew
outdated traditions that
glamorize a history rooted in
rebellion against the United
States.”
A VMI spokesman did not
return messages seeking
comment Monday evening. In a
statement to The Post last week,
retired Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III,
the school’s superintendent, said:
“There is no place for racism or
discrimination at VMI.” He
promised that “any allegation of
racism or discrimination will be
investigated and appropriately
punished, if substantiated.”
Black cadets make up about
8 percent of VMI’s 1,700 students.
The school, which was founded in
1839 and became the last public
college in Virginia to integrate in
1968, received nearly $19 million
in state funds this past fiscal year.
T he campus’s main Parade
Ground features two statues of
enslavers — Confederate Gen.
Stonewall Jackson, who taught at
VMI, and the school’s first
VMI FROM B1
superintendent, Francis H.
Smith, who believed Black people
should be resettled in Africa.
Until a few years ago, freshmen
were required to salute the
Jackson statue, which sits in
front of the student barracks.
In The Post article, Black
students and alumni described
an atmosphere of hostility and
cultural insensitivity. One Black
woman, who graduated in the
Class of 2019, filed a complaint
against her White business
professor who reminisced in
class about her father’s
membership in the Ku Klux Klan— and how they had “the best
parties ever.”
Other Black students said they
were outraged in 2018 when a
White sophomore told a Black
freshman during Hell Week that
he’d “lynch” his body and use his
“dead corpse as a punching bag.”
According to a Black student who
helped investigate the incident,
the White student was only
suspended, not expelled.
Several members of the
Virginia House of Delegates
expressed outrage after reading
The Post story.
“ Virginia needs to take
immediate action to stop the
culture of racism and oppression
at Virginia Military Institute,”
tweeted Del. Mark H. Levine
(D-Alexandria), who is White. “If
VMI won’t immediately end this
now, it is up to us in the General
Assembly to do it. Shape up, VMI.
Or else.”
Del. Don L. Scott Jr. (D-
Portsmouth) said in an interview
that the accounts from Black
cadets and alumni “sickened”
him.
“It’s 2020. No student should
have to sit in a classroom and be
lectured about the benefits of the
Ku Klux Klan... especially at a
school with a statue of Stonewall
Jackson and that extols the
virtues of the Confederacy,” said
Scott, who is African American.
“The leadership of the school is in
an echo chamber. That’s whythey’re not appalled by this.”
Del. Jennifer D. Carroll Foy
(D-Prince William), a Black VMI
graduate who is running for
governor, said cadets accused of
racism, sexism or bullying should
be investigated and, if found
guilty, expelled. She said the
school also needs to create a
diversity and inclusion office and
institute diversity training for
those who work there.
“I personally went through
more egregious experiences at
VMI that I do not wish to
recount,” said Foy, 39, who
graduated in 2003. She said it
was particularly disturbing to
read what the current generation
of VMI students has endured
because it shows that “the culture
has not improved over the years.”
Peay, who has served as
superintendent since 2003, has
defended the campus’s statues,
praising Jackson in a July letter
as a “military genius” and a
“staunch Christian.”
All of the school’s top officials,
including the VMI chief of staff,
the faculty dean, and the
inspector general/Title IX
coordinator, are White men. Of
VMI’s 17 board members, just
three are Black.
The school’s administrators
and staff have also participated
in racist incidents themselves. In
2017, Col. William Wanovich, the
school’s commandant of cadets,
posed in a photo with studentswho donned boxes to look like
President Trump’s border wall,
scrawled with “Keep Out” and No
Cholos,” a slur against Mexicans.
The school has declined to say
whether Wanovich, who kept his
job, was ever punished.
In June, Carmelo Echevarria
Colon III, a former battalion
operations and training sergeant
who had been at the college since
2012, denounced the Black Lives
Matter movement in a Facebook
post that surfaced on Twitter: “I
am seeing all these clowns taking
a knee and bowing to [protest].
I’ll take a knee alright. To
maximize my shooting platform.”
Colon left the school this
summer.
Race began publicly roiling
VMI in June when Kaleb Tucker,
who had just graduated after
enduring four years of indignities
as a Black cadet, shared an online
petition demanding the removal
of the Jackson statue. His effort
sparked a counter-petition by
Jeremy Sanders, a Class of 2015
graduate and Army captain, who
wrote that the “core” of VMI was
“under attack by those who seek
to destroy these noble ideas that
have made VMI cadets an ‘honor
to their country and state.’ ”
Northam has made racial
equity in Virginia a cause since he
was caught up in a blackface
scandal over his 1984 Eastern
Virginia Medical School
yearbook. His page showed aphoto of two people, one dressed
in blackface, the other in a Klan
robe. Initially, Northam said he
was in the picture but did not
specify which costume he wore.
The next day, though, Northam
said he wasn’t in the picture at
all.
But Northam also
acknowledged that he had
applied shoe polish on his cheeks
in 1984 while dressed up as
Michael Jackson for a dance
contest.
Last year, it was revealed that
one of his nicknames as a VMI
undergraduate and listed under
his yearbook photo was
“Coonman,” which some Black
state legislators deemed a racial
slur. (“Coon” is a dictionary-
defined offensive term targeting
Black people.) Northam has said
he is not sure how it became his
nickname.
As governor, Northam is
charged with appointing
members of the college’s Board of
Visitors. His selections, though,
must be confirmed by the
Virginia General Assembly.
In 2019, he reappointed one
Black board member, Gene Scott,
who graduated in VMI’s Class of
1980, and appointed a new Black
board member, Michael L.
Hamlar. This year, he appointed
the Board’s third Black member,
Lester Johnson, a member of
VMI’s Class of 1995.
[email protected]Northam orders independent review of VMI culture after allegations of r acism
BOB BROWN/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/AP
Gov. Ralph Northam (D)
graduated from VMI in 1981.court.
Gardiner also set several
conditions for the officers’
release. He ordered that they not
leave Virginia, that they not
exercise police powers and that
they not possess firearms. The
video arraignments were brief,
and the officers did not speak
other than to acknowledge that
they could hear the judge.
Amaya, 41, and Vinyard, 39,
are charged in the Nov. 17, 2017,
fatal shooting of Ghaisar, 25, at
the end of a pursuit that began on
the George Washington
Memorial Parkway and ended at
an intersection in the Fort Hunt
neighborhood of Fairfax. They
were not required to enter a plea
Monday.
When the FBI investigated the
shooting from 2017 until
GHAISAR FROM B1 November 2019, both officers
provided statements saying that
they fired at Ghaisar because
they believed he was driving his
Jeep Grand Cherokee at Amaya
and that his erratic behavior —
he had driven away from the
officers twice during previous
stops — endangered the
community.
Much of the episode was
captured on video recorded by an
in-car camera from a Fairfax
County police lieutenant who
followed the marked Park Police
SUV along the parkway and then
onto Alexandria Avenue in Fort
Hunt. The video appears to show
Amaya and Vinyard firing into
Ghaisar’s Jeep as Ghaisar slowly
pulls away from them.
After the FBI investigated for
two years, the Justice
Department decided not to file
federal criminal civil rights
charges against Amaya and
Vinyard. Fairfax
Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve
T. Descano picked up the case in
January and asked the Fairfax
court to impanel a special grand
jury in August, and the grand
jury met three times before
issuing indictments against both
officers last week.
Warrants were issued for the
two officers, Descano said.
Vinyard showed up at the Fairfax
jail at 3:33 a.m., and Amaya
appeared at 3:47 a.m., Fairfax
sheriff’s spokeswoman Andrea
Ceisler said. They were kept in
custody until the video
arraignment. A status hearing
was set for Nov. 23, though
Descano said he expects that the
officers will file a motion to move
the case to federal court because
they are federal officers.
In federal court, the officersare expected to invoke the U.S.
Constitution’s supremacy clause
to seek to dismiss the case. Under
the clause, federal law overrules
state law, and some federal
officers have been successful in
arguing that they may not be
prosecuted in state court if they
reasonably believed their actions
were “necessary and proper.”
Descano has said he is prepared
to fight any such effort and has
sought the assistance of the office
of Virginia Attorney General
Mark R. Herring (D).
After the arraignments, a Park
Police spokeswoman said
Monday afternoon that Amaya
and Vinyard’s law enforcement
authority had been suspended
and their service weapons taken,
and that both had been placed on
administrative leave. She would
not say when the actions were
taken or whether the officerswere still being paid. The Park
Police previously said the officers
had been on paid administrative
duty since April 2018. The agency
has said it would not begin its
internal administrative
investigation until the criminal
case is resolved.
Attorney Daniel Crowley, who
represented both officers in a
civil suit filed by Ghaisar’s
parents, entered his appearance
for both officers in the Fairfax
criminal case. He declined to say
whether he would continue to
represent them after Monday.
Having one lawyer represent two
criminal co-defendants is highly
unusual. Crowley told the judge
that Vinyard had his badge taken
away, but he did not otherwise
clarify Vinyard’s or Amaya’s job
status and declined to comment
after the hearing.
[email protected]Judge sets release conditions for Park Police officers in Ghaisar slaying case
SIMA MARVASTIAN
Bijan Ghaisar, 25, was killed
after a 2017 pursuit that ended
in a Fairfax neighborhood.S0114 3
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