No matter how many unpleasant run-ins they have had with law enforcement, a handful of demonstrators keep coming back to protest around the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia.
The memorial, which resides in the onetime capital of the Confederacy, has been the target of vandalism and the ire of protesters calling for the removal of statues that symbolize oppression. Earlier this week, a Richmond judge extended a hold on the removal of the statue ordered by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. The 130-year-old statue will remain in place for the time being. Protesters say they will also continue to return to the statue indefinitely.
Meghan McIntyre, 21, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that she had been gassed three times, arrested, and spent a night in jail over the last three weeks.
“We’re not stopping,” McIntyre said, adding her generation feels compelled to do whatever it can to combat bigotry and racial injustice.
McIntyre was one of 233 people arrested on May 31 for breaking curfew, spent five hours handcuffed on a bus, and was strip searched, fingerprinted, and photographed for a mug shot.
Another protester named Alice, who did not provide a last name, said she was exposed to gas and pushed to the ground by a police officer. Officers also detained her at one point.
“It didn’t feel like America,” she said about her experience. “It felt like Iraq. It felt like a war zone.”
Other protesters have had similar experiences with police. Some have been shot at with rubber bullets.
Most protests have been nonviolent, but police say some officers have also been exposed to violence, including a sergeant who was hospitalized after someone threw a chunk of asphalt at him. Some protesters threw urine-filled balloons at police, and officers have intercepted ball bearings and Molotov cocktails.
Protests around the country began after the death of George Floyd in police custody last month. Public pressure has mounted to increase efforts for racial equity and compel some municipal leaders to remove statues of figures viewed as racist.
