15-08-2017, 05:00 AM
Charlottesville:
A gun in his face, but he got the photo
By Greg Palast
(Charlottesville) Four neo-Nazis beat black school teacher Deandre Harris with iron bars and lumber. ©Zach D Roberts 2017
Don't look away. Four white neo-Nazis are beating a Black man, crawling on the ground, with their metal poles and a yellow hunk of lumber. The beating continues there's blood on the pavement.
Our photographer, Zach D. Roberts, continues to shoot even as a white militant raises a 9mm pistol to his face.
Zach got a shot of the gun and gunman, too. Luckily, the gunman didn't shoot back.
One photo has gone viral internationally. These others we bring you here because they must be seen. Including, for the first time, the gunman.
Welcome to Charlottesville, USA. Trump's America, month eight.
The young victim is Deandre Harris, a special education teacher in Charlottesville.
According to the President, the violence was perpetrated on "many sides." The only sides I see are the beaters and the beaten; Deandre on the ground with the alt-Right storm troopers with weapons.
Zach D. Roberts is an investigative photojournalist who has been with the Palast investigations team for eleven years.
Here is Zach's report. Deandre Harris, the school teacher, was walking down the street with friends, trading taunts with the white supremacist demonstrators.
Harris' jibes were hardly fighting words. "Go home! Leave town!" Locals like Harris resented the jack-ass invasion.
That's when fists flew and Harris was slammed by one of the white guys straight into a parking lot barrier so hard the yellow wooden arm broke.
Now Deandre fell to the ground, "alone, surrounded by all these white guysand they started beating him with the poles that almost all the white supremacists were carrying."
In the photos, you can see one white guy picking up the yellow barrier arm and raising the three foot hunk of lumber high over his head before he brings it down on Deandrewho is being kicked by another white man's boots while two others bring down metal rods on the prone man.
And no, that's not a cop on the left in the photothat's a neo-Nazi in full riot gear. (Where were the cops? Good question: this parking garage is next to the Charlottesville Police Station.)
Deandre was saved when some gutsy young Black menwith no weaponsran into the underground garage and the white posse scattered.
Except for one. The gunman.
He pulled out what looks to be a 9mm pistol, maybe a Glock semi-automatic, and positioned himself to fire on the rescue squad. But then he heard the click of Zach's camera, just three feet away, and realized he was getting photographed.
Simultaneously, Zach realized he'd left his bullet-proof vest in his car. (I'll have that discussion with him later.)
In this strange stand-off, the camera proved mightier than the bullet. In his tiny little brain, the would-be shooter figured it would be wiser to quickly conceal the weapon and flee.
Deandre "ran into the garage's staircase and collapsed bleeding profusely from the face." Zach waited with him and his protectors for half an hour but no ambulance arrived for him or the other people who were injured.
So, that's the news from Trump's USA. Nazis marching in the street, nuclear war with Korea, the "military option" for Venezuela. And it's only Monday.
A gun in his face, but he got the photo
By Greg Palast
(Charlottesville) Four neo-Nazis beat black school teacher Deandre Harris with iron bars and lumber. ©Zach D Roberts 2017
Don't look away. Four white neo-Nazis are beating a Black man, crawling on the ground, with their metal poles and a yellow hunk of lumber. The beating continues there's blood on the pavement.
Our photographer, Zach D. Roberts, continues to shoot even as a white militant raises a 9mm pistol to his face.
Zach got a shot of the gun and gunman, too. Luckily, the gunman didn't shoot back.
One photo has gone viral internationally. These others we bring you here because they must be seen. Including, for the first time, the gunman.
Welcome to Charlottesville, USA. Trump's America, month eight.
The young victim is Deandre Harris, a special education teacher in Charlottesville.
According to the President, the violence was perpetrated on "many sides." The only sides I see are the beaters and the beaten; Deandre on the ground with the alt-Right storm troopers with weapons.
Zach D. Roberts is an investigative photojournalist who has been with the Palast investigations team for eleven years.
Here is Zach's report. Deandre Harris, the school teacher, was walking down the street with friends, trading taunts with the white supremacist demonstrators.
Harris' jibes were hardly fighting words. "Go home! Leave town!" Locals like Harris resented the jack-ass invasion.
That's when fists flew and Harris was slammed by one of the white guys straight into a parking lot barrier so hard the yellow wooden arm broke.
Now Deandre fell to the ground, "alone, surrounded by all these white guysand they started beating him with the poles that almost all the white supremacists were carrying."
In the photos, you can see one white guy picking up the yellow barrier arm and raising the three foot hunk of lumber high over his head before he brings it down on Deandrewho is being kicked by another white man's boots while two others bring down metal rods on the prone man.
And no, that's not a cop on the left in the photothat's a neo-Nazi in full riot gear. (Where were the cops? Good question: this parking garage is next to the Charlottesville Police Station.)
Deandre was saved when some gutsy young Black menwith no weaponsran into the underground garage and the white posse scattered.
Except for one. The gunman.
White militant with 9mm, then aimed at rescuers. ©Zach D Roberts 2017
He pulled out what looks to be a 9mm pistol, maybe a Glock semi-automatic, and positioned himself to fire on the rescue squad. But then he heard the click of Zach's camera, just three feet away, and realized he was getting photographed.
Simultaneously, Zach realized he'd left his bullet-proof vest in his car. (I'll have that discussion with him later.)
In this strange stand-off, the camera proved mightier than the bullet. In his tiny little brain, the would-be shooter figured it would be wiser to quickly conceal the weapon and flee.
Deandre "ran into the garage's staircase and collapsed bleeding profusely from the face." Zach waited with him and his protectors for half an hour but no ambulance arrived for him or the other people who were injured.
So, that's the news from Trump's USA. Nazis marching in the street, nuclear war with Korea, the "military option" for Venezuela. And it's only Monday.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass