Demonstrations In Downtown Richmond Once More Turn Into Catastrophic Rioting

The day started ominously with smoke still clearing from the previous night’s blazes on Broad Street and the largest building implosion in Richmond history occurring in downtown at the old Dominion Energy One James River Plaza tower.

After surveying the overnight damage from demonstrations the Department of General Services announced that the capitol square complex would close indefinitely. State workers and contractors spent the morning boarding up the facility and reinforcing barricades at the entrances to prevent crowds from entering the complex in another night of unrest.

By midday calls to action were spreading like wildfire on social media and the general consensus for the night was to meet at the intersection of Broad & Belvidere around 8:30 PM. For the next half hour ever increasing crowds gathered on the sidewalk of Broad Street waving signs and generating largely encouraging interactions with passing motorists.

Initially the demonstrations had a peaceful nature with many gathered giving interviews explaining their grievances and that they wanted government leaders to address their demanded reforms. Unfortunately those voices of peaceful protest would be drowned out by the acts of destructive rioters who took advantage of the Black Lives Matters movement.

With the sun descending below the horizon and the skies growing darker by the minute the crowds swelled to hundreds of participants who were eager to march. Around 9:05 self-proclaimed leaders directed the march to move east along Broad Street towards downtown.

Unlike the previous evening’s demonstrations which started off mostly peacefully this event began with a roar as hostile elements within the crowd immediately began engaging police. At 9:30 a Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter stated that firecrackers and bottles were thrown at a police car along Broad Street. At 9:40 PM gunshots were reported around the 100 block of West Broad Street and eggs/water bottles were thrown at police cars on Henry Street. By 9:45 PM it was clear that this would be a long night for the city of Richmond.

Business vandalism started early with ill intentioned demonstrators smashing the windows to the Boost Mobile store on the 300 block of East Broad Street. Adding insult to injury the vandals tossed a lit road flare into the store with the objective of setting it ablaze. When crowds reached the state capitol hostile individuals immediately targeted the constructed barricades and knocked them to the ground. Once knocked down some rioters began picking up barricades and launching them towards riot gear equipped police.

By 10:30 PM rioters had smashed the Wells Fargo on East Grace Street, destroying the windows and disabling the ATM machine. Also around this time fires began to pop up around the city with garbage cans and dumpsters a frequent target of arsonists.

Around 10:35 the crowd swarms the Richmond Police Department headquarters where they are met with tear gas and other crowd management tools in an effort to disperse them from the building entrance. Some rioters retaliated and set dumpsters ablaze on the properties adjacent to the police building on West Grace Street. Nearby on the 200 block of West Broad St vandals struck at the windows of storefronts demolishing the windows to the former Comfort restaurant.

By 11 PM the crowd had shutdown West Broad Street and taken over the intersection of West Broad & Adams Street. At this point in the evening the demonstrations broke up into several component groups with some moving along Belvidere while some rioters continued to cause mischief along Broad Street. Around 11 PM demonstrators began marching towards the VCU campus on Belvidere and then turned westbound along Franklin. Their destination: Monument Avenue, the target: The Monuments.

As the crowds swarmed through the VCU campus vandals painted graffiti tags on many university properties and signs. Worse still, some in the crowd set more blazes in dumpsters and trash cans on properties along the route.

Around 11:23 PM while marching west on Franklin St a participant threw bricks at the Beth Ahabah Synagogue but according to video from a Commonwealth Times report the perpetrator was quickly reprimanded by fellow demonstrators for “being a dumbass” and told not to smash windows on a synagogue.

By 11:25 PM the crowd reached the J.E.B. Stuart Confederate monument at the intersection of Lombardy, West Franklin and Monument Avenue. The mass of demonstrators quickly overwhelmed the iron railings surrounding the statue and they were cast aside into the street. Crowds immediately swarmed the statue and climbed the pedestal, chanting and covering it with defiant graffiti. For years just a single graffiti tag on this confederate statue would cause headlines and generate waves of rage within the pro-confederate community. On this evening the crowds would leave the pedestal covered in dozens of tags.

Throughout the whole incident no police were to be seen as crowds completely controlled Monument Avenue and were free to do as they pleased. While traveling through the residential area the crowd focussed most of their energies on the monuments but the next day would reveal plenty of property damage on city infrastructure and nearby homes. Smashed lamp posts, toppled and smashed plants, and graffiti on walls were common sights up and down the stretch of Monument Avenue to Arthur Ashe Boulevard.

The crowd stayed at the Stuart statue for a few jubilant moments cheering their success and blasting homemade aerosol can blow torches at the monument.   Around 11:35 PM the crowd moved west and begin tagging the pedestal of the giant Robert E. Lee statue. This time the demonstrators didn’t linger and moved along with greater speed towards more higher profile targets.

At 11:52 PM the march reached the Jefferson Davis monument and tagged the memorial with graffiti. At one point someone attached a rope to the statue and an attempt was made to topple it however the equipment and human resources on site proved insufficient to the task.

Moving west along Monument law enforcement attempted to intercept demonstrators but individuals in the mob assembled a makeshift burning barricade in the intersection of Stuart & Davis just after midnight.

Sometime around 12:10 AM the destructive crowd reached Arthur Ashe Boulevard and set their sights on the United Daughters of the Confederacy building. Windows were quickly smashed and arsonists set the building ablaze. Fires continued to burn at the structure through 1 AM as Richmond firefighters braved the chaotic streets to extinguish the flames inside the building.

Meanwhile between midnight and 1:30 AM mobs of opportunist criminals made their way along West Broad Street, smashing windows and looting whatever stores and restaurants they desired.

Around the same time malicious crowds were smashing windows and looting on Broad Street dangerous arsonists were also wreaking havoc along and near the commercial corridor. Starting at 11:30 a fire was spotted near the 800 block of West Franklin on the VCU campus. Not long after another blaze popped up at 11:45 PM as fires were lit around the intersection of North Lombardy & West Franklin with flames roaring behind homes on the 1500 blocks of Franklin & Grace.

When you knock out windows of businesses that had nothing to do with this, you are not inspiring change. That's an insult to the cause.

Mayor Levar Stoney

Blocks away on West Main Street in the Uptown neighborhood criminal opportunists struck the popular Experimax Computer Store first with juveniles smashing the windows and then returning in an SUV to load up on expensive tech merchandise. The black owned business would end up suffering tens of thousands of dollars in losses from the damage and looting.

Experimax wouldn't be the only black owned business to suffer from the wanton crimes of opportunity. Waller Jewelry had their business vandalized and robbed in the historically black Jackson Ward neighborhood. The pandemic and rioting dealing catastrophic challenges to these small Richmond businesses would prove too much for some turning boarded up windows into storefronts closed permanently.

By 2 AM terrifying fires were breaking out in buildings along Broad Street. A vehicle fire raged on the 300 block of West Broad with alarmed calls about trapped residents in the adjacent building. Around the 500 block of West Broad Street rioters constructed bonfire blocking travel along the road – including firetrucks attempting to respond to the blaze on the 300 block.

Around 2:40 AM arsonists lit the DTLR shoes store ablaze on the 1500 block of West Broad Street but because of the strained fire department resources and the armed rioters on the ground no fire crews were able to respond to the location for 20 minutes. As a result the fire ravaged the store and smoke caused major damage to nearby stores whose windows were already knocked out from looting.

By 3:45 AM another dumpster fire flared up in the alleyway behind 1120 West Franklin and another smoldering rubbish fire required another attack from firefighters at 5:40 AM. By this point in the night Richmond Fire Resources were pretty much depleted and crews from Hanover, Henrico and Chesterfield were responding as part of their mutual aid agreements. Several times during the night RFD leaders opted to let fires burn out rather than risk resources in dangerous situations where gunfire was reported.

According to reports tabulated by the Richmond Fire Department the city suffered nearly $4 million in fire losses during the rioting. The worst damage was reported at the United Daughters of the Confederacy where they suffered $1.25 million in structural damage. Total losses inside the structure are not yet known.

Over the course of the night there were multiple reports and recorded videos of gun violence in the area of the rioting. According to police around 12:30 AM one man was shot in his car by an armed rioter at the intersection of Meadow and West Grace Street. The man was taken to VCU medical center with life threatening injuries.

Read More

• Commonwealth Times - Shops on Grace and Broad streets damaged in protest over the killing of George Floyd
• Virginia Mercury - Confederate memorial hall burned as second night of outrage erupts in Virginia
• Richmond Times-Dispatch - Three days and nights of protests in Richmond