Across Virginia
WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal jury has convicted a former Virginia police officer of storming the U.S. Capitol with another off-duty officer to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Jurors on Monday convicted former Rocky Mount police officer Thomas Robertson of all six counts he faced stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, including charges that he interfered with police officers at the Capitol. His sentencing hearing wasn’t immediately scheduled. Robertson’s jury trial was the second among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The first ended last month with jurors convicting a Texas man, Guy Reffitt, of all five counts in his indictment.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday called for a response from a Virginia school system regarding a controversial admissions policy at a highly selective high school and efforts by a coalition of parents to overturn it.
Roberts was responding to an emergency application from the group Coalition For TJ to vacate a stay pending an appeal filed by the Fairfax County Public Schools to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On March 31, a three-judge appeals panel ruled that the school system can continue to use its new admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology while it appeals a ruling that found the policy discriminates against Asian American students.
U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ruled in February that impermissible “racial balancing” was at the core of the new policy. Hilton had also turned down a request from the school system to delay implementation of his ruling, but the 4th Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, said the school board had met the legal requirements for a suspension of Hilton’s order while its appeal is pending.
With Roberts’ action, the school board has until Wednesday to present its response. The chief justice would then decide on the application, which includes referring the case to the full court.
“We’re very happy to see that he called for a response from the school board,” said Glenn E. Roper, an attorney representing Coalition for TJ, the group challenging the policy. “We hope the court will take our application seriously and hopefully grant it so that the discriminatory policy won’t be enforced for this application season.”
Fairfax County Public Schools didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening.
After criticism over its lack of diversity, the school board scrapped a standardized test that had been at the heart of the admissions process and opted instead for a process that sets aside slots at each of the county’s middle schools. It also includes “experience factors” like socioeconomic background.
The parents group argued in its lawsuit that Asian Americans, who constituted more than 70% of the student body, were unfairly targeted in the new policy.
The school’s current freshman class, which was admitted under the new policy, saw a significantly different racial makeup. Black students increased from 1% to 7%; Hispanic representation increased from 3% to 11%. Asian American representation decreased from 73% to 54%.
The school system has insisted that its new policies are race neutral, and the panel evaluating applicants is not even aware of applicants’ race as it conducts its reviews.
UPDATE:
Hampton Electoral Board Chair David Dietrich has resigned after allegedly making a racist post on Facebook. The Chairman of the Hampton GOP Phillip Siff called upon the appointing authority for all electoral board members to remove Dietrich after a post he allegedly made about Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, calling for him to be “lynched” — which is a federal crime. On Saturday, Governor Youngkin called on Dietrich to resign saying he would not accept racism in the Commonwealth.
Previous: Electoral Board Chair David Dietrich has been called upon to resign after allegedly making a racist post on Facebook. WAVY-TV reports the Chairman of the Hampton GOP Phillip Siff has called upon the appointing authority for all electoral board members to remove Dietrich after a post he allegedly made calling the racist post about Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin, calling for him to be “lynched” — which is a federal crime. See what is allegedly the post below. As of the last word, Siff said Dietrich refused to resign.
WARNING – the post that follows contains offensive language. Continue reading
RICHMOND, VA – Governor Glenn Youngkin announced that he will donate his first-quarter salary to the Virginia Law Enforcement Assistance Program, an organization dedicated to helping law enforcement officers and first responders who have undergone traumatic critical incidents in the line of duty or in their personal lives.
During his 2021 campaign, the Governor pledged to donate his gubernatorial salary. Today, he announced the donation of $43,750 at VALEAP’s Post Critical Incident Seminar in Harrisonburg, Va.
“I pledged to serve our Commonwealth without accepting a salary because I want to continue giving back to the Commonwealth and helping Virginians in every way I can,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin. “I have chosen to donate my salary to the Virginia Law Enforcement Assistance Program (VALEAP) because of their important mission to assist law enforcement personnel and first responders who have undergone traumatic critical incidents. This reaffirms my ongoing commitment to support our men and women in law enforcement with mental health resources, training, and equipment to ensure that we are serving those that protect our communities across the Commonwealth.”
A trial starts this week for a former Virginia police officer charged with storming the U.S. Capitol with a fellow officer who has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday for the case against former Rocky Mount police officer Thomas Robertson. The town fired Robertson and fellow officer Jacob Fracker, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and could be a key prosecution witness. Robertson’s trial will be the third among hundreds of people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The first two trials both ended with convictions.
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court has refused to revisit a ruling that struck down a key permit for a proposed natural gas pipeline running through Virginia and West Virginia.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday that it would not revisit a February ruling by a three-judge panel that invalidated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s opinion that the Mountain Valley Pipeline would not jeopardize two endangered fish species.
The panel found “serious errors” with the agency’s conclusion that construction of the pipeline wouldn’t pose a threat to the Roanoke logperch or the candy darter.
The February ruling came one week after the same three-judge panel rejected a permit that would have allowed the pipeline to pass through a 3.5 mile (5.6 kilometer) section of the Jefferson National Forest. In both cases, the judges faulted the U.S. Forest Service and the wildlife agency for failing to adequately assess the pipeline’s environmental impact.
The 303-mile (487-kilometer) pipeline, which is mostly finished, would transport natural gas drilled from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations through West Virginia and Virginia.
The Roanoke Times reports that Mountain Valley now has little hope of obtaining the required approvals without going through a renewed permitting process. The $6.2 billion infrastructure project has been targeted by about a dozen environmental groups and is already more than three years behind schedule.
While acknowledging a “greater degree of uncertainty” following Friday’s court decision, a spokeswoman for Mountain Valley told the newspaper that its plans are still alive.
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A man was killed and two women were wounded in a shooting at a Virginia mall Saturday evening, police said.
Norfolk police were called to MacArthur Center around 6:25 p.m., the department said in a news release. The women, who were shot in their ankles, were taken to a hospital with injuries that weren’t believed to be life-threatening.
Police Chief Larry Boone told news outlets that the shooting was prompted by an argument over money, and that he believed the male victim and the suspect were related. Boone said he didn’t know if the two women had any relationship to the shooter or the man who was killed.
The victims’ names weren’t immediately released.
Several area roads were blocked off as authorities investigated. Police shared photos later Saturday night of a suspect and a person of interest, asking for the public’s help in identifying them.
The shooting happened on the same day as the funeral for 25-year-old Virginian-Pilot reporter Sierra Jenkins, who was one of two people killed less than two blocks from the shopping center on March. 19. Authorities say Jenkins was caught in a crossfire as she was leaving a bar.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia appeals court has upheld the conviction of a man accused of shooting at police officers who were patrolling the streets around a public housing complex in Richmond two years ago.
Anthony J. Slayton was found guilty at a bench trial of malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of malicious wounding, maliciously shooting into an occupied vehicle, and shooting from a vehicle. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Slayton argued that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support his convictions. The appeals court rejected his claims on Tuesday.
According to court records, three Richmond detectives were in plain clothes and riding in an unmarked SUV in August 2020 when they heard that police units had been dispatched to Mosby Court for a shooting incident.
As they drove to the scene, their vehicle was hit by at least seven gunshots from a passing car. One of the bullets shattered the windshield and grazed the shoulder of one officer, who was also hit by fragments of shattered glass.
The suspects’ car was stopped just moments later by another officer, who recovered two loaded handguns hidden underneath the floor mat of the front passenger seat where Slayton had been sitting. A forensics expert linked the guns to casings found at the crime scene and a bullet recovered from the police vehicle.
Prosecutors at trial also played a recording of a jail call Slayton made while awaiting trial in which he stated that one of his co-defendants had betrayed him by telling police he was the shooter.
Slayton argued on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that he was the shooter, and that the culprit could have been any one of the other occupants of the vehicle.
The appeals court said Slayton’s hypothesis that he switched places with another passenger just after the shooting, or that the driver shot across him out of the passenger’s side window, were not supported by the evidence or any reasonable inferences.
Codefendant Jerad Wyche-Alexander was convicted of the same charges that Slayton faced and sentenced to seven years in prison. The driver of the car from which the shots were fired, Nigg’i Le’quan Harris, was sentenced to three years after pleading guilty to malicious wounding, use of a firearm and maliciously shooting into an occupied vehicle.
Photo: AP
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia state agencies collectively “lost situational awareness” and failed to keep up with growing gridlock during a January snowstorm that stranded hundreds of motorists along Interstate 95, a state-commissioned report released Friday said.
While the 41-page report offered suggestions for improving future emergency responses, it did not ascribe blame to any single person or agency. It noted first responders faced unusually heavy snowfall, busier-than-normal traffic and COVID-19-related staffing shortages — all while dealing with a highway corridor notorious for congestion in the best of circumstances.
State officials, including leaders of the Virginia Department of Transportation, vowed to thoroughly review the report and its recommendations.
“VDOT’s top priority is and always will be the safety of the traveling public, and as we learn from each event, this report highlighted key areas for us to refine in our winter-weather operations,” Virginia Commissioner of Highways Stephen Brich said.
No deaths or injuries were reported from the gridlock near the nation’s capital. But the monster logjams fed outrage among motorists, some of them stranded overnight Monday, Jan. 3, into Tuesday, Jan. 4, pleading on social media for help.
The report included a detailed timeline. It noted plowing began as snow began accumulating, but earlier rain meant roads couldn’t be pretreated.
Traffic accidents began just before 4 a.m. Monday and conditions worsened for hours, with traffic bogging down in heavy afternoon congestion, the report said. Snowfall then intensified, with reports of three inches an hour falling in the Fredericksburg area south of Washington, D.C. Snowplows struggled to keep up.
The queue of traffic continued to build and by 3 a.m. that Tuesday, numerous clusters of disabled cars and tractor-trailers were scattered along a 40-mile (65-kilometer) stretch of I-95 both ways, the report said.
With alternate routes impassable, problems mounted and “state agencies collectively lost situational awareness and could not verify the extent and locations of the blockages,” according to the report.
It said that was partly due to numerous technological challenges, including a traffic camera failure during widespread power outages; a power outage and ensuing generator issue at a Virginia State Police communications center; severe communications issues with inoperable cell towers; and a system failure of the VDOT real-time traffic information service.
Information also flooded in from social media posts but responding agencies didn’t have a plan for using those “non-traditional data sources” to form an operational picture, the report said, adding that “information was not conveyed to agency leadership in real time.”
Meanwhile, some VDOT districts experienced field staff shortages because of COVID-19, and Virginia State Police had “widespread staffing issues” before the storm, according to the report.
Adding to the woes, passenger traffic was higher than normal because of recent holidays and a raft of flight cancellations, the report said. And “just-in-time” trucking was up since 2019, partly due to supply chain issues.
The report addressed questions frequently raised in the immediate aftermath of the snowstorm, including why then-Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, did not activate the Virginia National Guard.
The report said state officials explored the possibility but noted, as Northam did at the time, that the Guard is not a “quick reaction force.”
The report said the Guard, even if it had been activated, would have had little to no impact on a “situation already in progress.”
The report also addressed questions raised about why more direct assistance to the stranded motorists was not provided. State officials considering that concluded the best strategy was to stay focused on clearing the highway, it said.
Responding to the report, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and members of his administration took critical aim at Northam and his office.
Youngkin said in a news release that the report showed “the previous administration’s leadership did not properly prepare or communicate.”
In a letter to Youngkin, Transportation Secretary W. Sheppard Miller III and Public Safety Secretary Robert Mosier claimed there was “almost no apparent involvement by the Governor or his senior staff.”
The secretaries wrote it appeared neither Northam nor his staff considered an emergency declaration. Emails obtained by The Associated Press in the aftermath of the gridlock showed that was not the case and that consideration was given as to whether one was appropriate.
Northam’s name was mentioned only once in the report, which did not list anyone from his office among those interviewed. The report did not explain the interview selections.
The report was produced by CNA, a nonprofit research and analysis organization that has conducted similar work for the U.S. Navy and local, state and federal government agencies. It said it drew from documents including situation reports, real-time planning documents, news articles, social media, interviews and other sources.
The report also included an admonition to motorists.
“Additionally, the public bears some responsibility to stay informed about road conditions and traffic during snowstorms, and should implement an informed decision-making process before choosing to take to the roadways,” it said.
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — An athlete from a Tennessee university was killed Thursday when he and two other members of his team were struck by a car while running along a road in Virginia, state police said.
Members of the Milligan University men’s cross-country and track and field teams were running on a road in Williamsburg about 6 p.m. when three of them were hit, Virginia State Police said in a news release.
Five people were taken to Williamsburg Sentara Hospital, where sophomore Eli Cramer, 20, died and two others were seriously injured, police said.
Four team members and a coach were running together Thursday when the crash happened, Milligan spokeswoman Chandrea Shell said. The university said in a statement that seniors Alex Mortimer and Eli Baldy also were injured. Baldy was treated and released.
Cramer, a business administration major from Murfreesboro, was the third finisher on the 2021 national championship cross-country team, a two-time All-American and two-time All-AAC for cross-country, the university said. In track and field, Cramer was a four-time national qualifier.
“He held a contagious energy that was integral to his team and our campus community,” McGlamery said. “Cramer was a man who knew when to put his head down and work or when to steal the room with a sarcastic comment.”
In a video statement the university posted on Facebook, Mortimer thanked people for their prayers and said he was told the worst of his injuries are a broken leg and dislocated shoulder.
“I want to say that moments like this make you realize what is and is not important in your life,” Mortimer said. “Do not forsake or discount the beauty and the gift of life. It is like a vapor and it flashes before our eyes.”
The driver fled but crashed into a median a short time later and the driver, Jose Efrain Hernandez Mancia, 26, of Williamsburg, was taken into custody, police said. Mancia is charged with DUI, DUI-involuntary manslaughter, one felony count of hit and run, reckless driving, DUI-maiming and DUI refusal to submit a breath/blood sample, police said. Online court records do not list an attorney who could comment on Mancia’s behalf.
The Milligan team was one of dozens set to compete Friday and Saturday in the Colonial Relays hosted by William & Mary in Williamsburg. A moment of silence was held before Friday’s events, William & Mary Associate Athletics Director Pete Clawson said in an email.
The Milligan team is traveling back to the university Friday and won’t compete in the event, Shell said.
Milligan suspended all learning activities Friday, but said faculty would be present in their classes to support and grieve with students who wish to attend. The university, which is affiliated with the nondenominational Christian Churches, has an enrollment of 1,300 students, according to its website. The school is located about 95 miles (153 kilometers) northeast of Knoxville.