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Debbie Pohlig said she was at the courthouse with her daughter around 1pm when ‘an unruly crowd’ of protesters began banging on the windows. She said they were escorted into an office for protection, where they stayed for about 30 minutes. Based on her experience, Pohlig said officers reacted appropriately. 

“It was really very scary…that is not the way to go about getting into a courthouse,” Pohlig said. “There is a way to get your point across and I just think they put other people in danger.”

“Placing these restrictions on defendants in the form of a preliminary injunction unnecessarily burdens the police and puts them and the public at risk,” she added. “On the other hand, plaintiffs have the option in the future to protest without unlawful force, without blocking roadways and without disrupting or jeopardizing public peace and order.”

“Few doubt that in the course of five years the Lee circle will be in the very heart of the fashionable neighborhood of Richmond,” a newspaper reported around the time of the dedication. When novelist Henry James visited in 1905, however, he compared the general’s figure to “some precious pearl of ocean washed up on a rude bare strand.” Over time, however, the subdivision became an exclusive and wealthy enclave where African-American residents were prohibited.

Fifteen people arrested at a sit-in protest in the Huguenot neighborhood late Thursday night, according to Richmond Police. The demonstration was outside of Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Colette McEachin's home, protesters and police sources told CBS 6.

“The biggest fear, if litigation results, is that you end up with an indefinite injunction prohibiting the removal of the monument,” Brown said. “In my opinion, any attempt to try to short cut this process is likely to greatly increase the risk that the statues will remain in place on their pedestals much longer than the time I’ve described before.”