The mayor of Richmond, Virginia, announced that he asked the city’s police chief to resign amid the ongoing protests.
Mayor Levar Stoney said at a Tuesday news conference that Richmond Police Chief William Smith has resigned and that Maj. William “Jody” Blackwell is now the interim police chief, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Stoney called Smith “a good man” and said the now-former chief has “served this city with grace.”
“But we are ready to move in a new direction,” he added.
The shake-up comes after video emerged over the weekend, showing a police SUV driving through a crowd of demonstrators who blocked its path, although the police said that demonstrators had been attacking the vehicle. It is also two weeks since police controversially fired tear gas at protesters 20 minutes before a city curfew went into effect.
Protests continued in the Virginia capital Sunday and Monday evening. The department said that the demonstrations on Sunday had “escalated into rioting and violence” with several officers injured. Smith said the “organizers were intent on provocation and creating mayhem by throwing rocks and other objects at the officers on duty, who showed great restraint in response to these attacks.”
“We fully support peaceful demonstrations, but we will not tolerate the violent assault of police officers, the threats to law-abiding members of our residential and business community, or the willful destruction of city and private property,” Smith said on Monday.
Richmond has become a central location during the protests, which began after the death of George Floyd. The former capital of the Confederacy, the city has a number of monuments from the Civil War era that demonstrators want removed. Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced that the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue would be removed, although a 10-day injunction was granted later, which temporarily blocks Virginia from removing the statue.
