Downtown Demonstration Deteriorates Into Destructive Riot

Once more national events triggered a flare up of unrest in Richmond after a week of intense demonstrations in Portland, Oregon. For the past week demonstrators clashed with law enforcement in the Pacific Northwest city outside of the federal courthouse. Headlines, viral video clips of violent exchanges, and threats from President Trump drew increasing outrage from local activists.

On Tuesday July 21 a mysterious flyer of unknown origin appeared on social media promoting a “Save The Date” to “Fight The Police State” and advising that “Richmond Stands In Solidarity With Portland” on Saturday July 25.

On July 22 & 23 more flyers were released with specific details instructing demonstrators to gather at Monroe Park on Saturday night at 10 PM. These new flyers were inflammatory calls to incite violence and destruction in the city. One flyer advised “Fuck The Feds. Fuck Virginia State Police. Fuck Richmond Police. Fuck Trump. No Peace Police. Bad Protestors Don’t Exist.” The reference to peace police advising that those who wish to stop other participants from committing crimes should not attend.

Another flyer distributed on social media said “Let People Get Wild: Let’s not get in the way of each other’s rebellion. If what someone is doing makes you uncomfortable, go elsewhere.”

The most damning and infamous of the flyers declared in bold lettering “Richmond Stands With Portland 7/25” and “No Bad Protesters. No Good Cops. No Peace Police. Do What You Want. Fuck Shit Up.”

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Not only were these flyers spread around social media but some were printed and distributed on car windshields or passed out to juveniles in nearby northside neighborhoods. On Broad Street someone even spray painted the invitation on the side of building. It was abundantly clear going into this weekend that the upcoming event would be anything but a peaceful protest and it would be attended by people out to cause late night mischief in the city streets.

Prior to the event provocateur Mike Dunn who has recently risen to prominence with his affiliations to the Boogaloo Boys ideology and 2A movement posted to social media seeking “a team of guys in Richmond this Saturday ready to go” further adding “You need to be armed.” This individual also has an unusual alliance with the controversial Hampton Roads BLM757 group which also planned to mobilize their militant and armed members to attend the July 25 event.

Dunn’s name became more familiar in RVA activist communities after he orchestrated a political rally attended by several hundred on July 4^th in downtown Richmond which was focused on mobilizing individuals who share an enthusiasm for firearms, 2A ideology and a profound distrust of the federal government. In an intriguing twist this event was organized in collaboration with an extremist group known as Propertarians. Many consider this group an intellectual façade to make the ideals of advancing white identity and culture more palatable to mainstream audiences.

With so many contributing components the July 25 event was destined to be a chaotic affair leaving much of the general public scratching their heads afterwards about the motivations of participants, what it accomplished and who was responsible for all the eventual damage.

In the days and hours leading up to the event many neighborhood associations and businesses were concerned about the growing threat of unrest. Richmond Police allayed some concerns advising that they were aware of the event and had plans in place.

As night fell on Richmond on July 25 RPD officers patrolled Monroe Park on foot and advised anyone in the park that the grounds would close to guests at sunset. Police cited the rarely enforced city ordinances closing Monroe Park and other recreation areas from dusk to dawn.

Around 9 PM demonstrators began gathering near the park with many choosing to congregate along the southern perimeter on Main St. As the crowds grew some started yelling at the police telling them to leave with police responding “we’re not going anywhere.”

Just before 9:30 PM the Mike Dunn and Booglaoo Boys affiliated individuals appeared near the park all of whom conspicuously carrying a variety of long rifles and wearing tactical vests with ammunition. With their arrival crowds defied police orders and moved into the center of the park and police withdrew to a distance.

The anxious crowd of several hundred were eager to get things moving and at 9:45 PM the Boogaloo and BLM757 affiliated individuals gathered the crowd’s attention and led them on a march eastward on Cary Street. Many participants did not fully understand at this point that these controversial figures were leading their demonstration through the streets of Richmond. Shortly after 10 PM local activists in the march began spreading the word that this was a bad situation and that the leadership of the march should be seized from these non-trusted participants. As the crowd traveled northbound on and near 3^rd street some began chanting “Fuck Mike Dunn!” helping draw more questioning attention within the march to the self-proclaimed leaders of the night. Arriving on the 300 block of East Broad Street the BLM757 affiliated activists chose to stand up for Mr. Dunn insisting he was indeed an ally and that their mutual interest in firearms was in the spirit of the broader BLM protests.

By 10:25 PM “bike marshals” known for their role in typically leading these events through Richmond attempted to take the lead of the march around the 600 block of East Broad Street however much of the demonstration felt leaderless at this point with crowds wandering aimlessly around East Broad Street. Around 10:30 the majority of demonstrators separated from the Boogaloo Boys and around the same time fireworks were detonated in front of the federal courthouse on the 700 block of East Broad St adding to the confusion among the participants.

Sometime around this point it was noted by journalists that a number of juveniles began mixing in with the crowd, a number of whom arriving on dirtbikes. According to witnesses a number of these younger individuals immediately started jumping on cars in the area.

Between 10:50 and 11 PM crowds moved south from Broad Street and swarmed the area in front of Richmond Police Department headquarters on West Grace Street. Reporters and social media users noted that this direction of the march was guided by the Boogaloo and BLM 757 affiliated individuals who had rejoined the majority of the crowd.  

It didn’t take long for the combined forces of RPD and Virginia State Police to declare an unlawful assembly on the demonstration gathered in the parking lot outside the station. Prior to the event police deployed city dump trucks as a vehicle barricade and established a perimeter on the ground to prevent hostile demonstrators from causing harm to the structure. In this highly volatile event VSP officers stationed in the building’s parking garage livestreamed the confrontation on social media to provide citizens an unedited view of the evening events.

From Demonstration To Riot

Around 11:10 PM smoke began rising from a city dump truck after an arsonist in the crowd through an accelerant through the now busted out window of the vehicle. Around the same time vandals were striking the side of the RPD headquarters with graffiti.

With the situation deteriorating police deployed tear gas in an effort to disperse the crowd from blaze now growing in front of RPD HQ. Out of an abundance of caution firefighters would not be permitted to access the burning truck until demonstrators cleared the area.

Between 11:15 and 11:25 PM police discharged both chemical irritants and foam projectiles on the crowds which successfully cleared them from the area and sent the march regrouping to the south on West Franklin Street.

With the crowd now moving west on Franklin Street the mood has taken on a much more hostile tone and some in the crowd becoming increasingly destructive. While traveling west on Franklin St it was noted by a journalist that an armed resident from the Towers apartment building clashed with demonstrators and that windows were smashed on the Graduate Hotel. In addition to damaging the Graduate Hotel destructive vandals attacked the Commonwealth Club windows with rocks and damaged a parking meter with expanding foam.

Shortly after 11:35 the crowd arrived at their starting point in Monroe Park but for this excited bunch the evening was nowhere near over. The crowd regrouped and gathered momentum abandoning any semblance of a peaceful protest and becoming a full blow riot. Marching west on Main Street through the VCU campus the crowd tagged numerous buildings with graffiti and smashed the windows of Foo Dog restaurant. According to witnesses and security camera footage a mix of masked adults and juveniles would grab whatever objects they could find and indiscriminately smash business windows in the Uptown area.

As the destructive crowd approached the controversial District 5 restaurant police formed a protective line on Main Street preventing any further advancement to the west. From about 12:10-12:20 AM police and demonstrators clashed in West Main Street in the blocks between the intersections of Meadow and Granby. Some participants moved north on Granby but the majority stayed together and moved south towards Cary Street.

Around 12:25 two men in a pickup truck engaged in a heated verbal confrontation with a demonstration participant on the 100 block of North Granby Street. This clash escalated into a terrifying incident of gun violence with a white male from the truck discharging his weapon several times. No one was injured in the incident but nonetheless this normally quiet residential block was anything but with the frightening and reckless handling of a firearm outside their bedroom windows.

Meanwhile the destructive mob that moved south on Granby towards Cary Street would be the news of the night as arsonists built burning barricades in the streets and vandals smashed dozens of windows. The burning barricades were an attempt to slow police down from advancing behind them and were constructed out of whatever materials the rioters could drag into the street. Police reported piles of trash bins, mattresses and landscaping materials all heaped together in the street and set ablaze with accelerants.

With the police advance slowed down rioters targeted the Social Security Administration offices on West Cary Street smashing out many of the windows and destroying landscaping outside the property. Much of the building was also tagged with spray paint by vandals.

Moving further east on Cary Street windows and furniture were smashed at businesses as the crowd picked up speed for maximum effective destructiveness.

By 12:35 AM the crowd had moved north and into the VCU Monroe Park campus and traveled east on Floyd Avenue. Arriving at the Grace E. Harris hall at 12:40 AM six rioters peeled off from the crowd and smashed about a dozen windows and doors on the building’s Floyd Avenue entrance. Only a few moments later at 12:42 AM these individuals then moved further east and smashed more than a dozen windows on the VCU student commons building. Another group of rioters from the crowd attacked the glass windows of the VCU library along Floyd Avenue and toppled benches and planters over to block traffic.

Cutting through the campus the crowds made their way to the West Grace Street commercial area which is also home to a number of student residence buildings. As the swarm of vandals arrived at 12:53 AM nearly every single property along the stretch of Grace Street between Pine & Harrison had their windows smashed out.

With police now closely behind the marauding mob the crowd accelerated its pace westward along Grace Street until reaching Lombardy. Around 1 AM the crowd flowed south on Lombardy with the bluelights of police cars not far behind them with some rioters fleeing west bound on Monument and some choosing to scatter east. Shortly thereafter more than a hundred riot gear equipped Richmond Police and Virginia State Police in vehicles arrived and pursued the crowd to Lee Circle. At this point the majority had dispersed or fled into nearby “safehouses.”

The next day the severity of the night’s destruction became clear and Richmond business owners and VCU were realizing that losses would total into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Seeing the videos and picture of the mess in the city many were left wondering why did this happen and who did this? Richmonders had become accustomed to increasingly peaceful protests so how could this have happened out of the blue? Adding to the confusion was an accusation reported from RPD and the mayor’s office that white supremacists were to blame but news reports debunked that. Further many antifa affiliated individuals in Richmond were resentful of the national attention Mayor Levar Stoney was getting for his alleged confrontation with white supremacists in the city streets.

The answers turned out to be a lot more nuanced and complicated than could be expressed in a simple social media post. Boogaloo Boys did participate in the beginning of the event and certainly did not make things any calmer or safer with the presence of their firearms. While the individuals affiliated with the Boogaloo crowd had been associated in a previous event with a white identity advancement organization it’s an unsubstantiated stretch to say they share those views, planned the event or incited the destruction in the city. If only it were so easy to dispense with blame by hoisting it all on adherents to these reprehensible views.

There are other claims that the BLM crowd was responsible for the chaos and damage in the city and this also is a difficult claim to make. BLM isn’t an organization nor does it have a structure but rather is a loosely connected network of individuals sharing overlapping interests in a wide range of reforms and opposition to racism. Over the summer of demonstrations in Richmond there were thousands upon thousands of participants in BLM events and there were probably some who were among the several hundred who participated in this destructive event.

Lastly there’s claims that the anarchist and antifa activists orchestrated the night of chaos in Richmond and indeed it is very likely that the event’s genesis started within the social networks of those that share that ideology. Many of the individuals who share anarchist worldviews were participants in the night’s events and further acted to recruit and instigate others to participate in a night of crime and destruction. Further some individuals in this group worked to recruit and guide juvenile participants to participate in criminal acts during this chaotic night.

Police made a number of arrests afterwards and continue to follow leads based on security camera footage. Most of those arrested tended to be young, male and caucasian and none of those apprehended for property crimes or rioting were affiliated with white identity, white nationalist or white supremacist organizations as some city leaders suggested early on.

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