Good morning, RVA: 445 • 18; the police chief resigns, and so does another Confederate monument

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and you can expect cooler temperatures and more rain. You might see the sun tomorrow, though!

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 445 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 18 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 103 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 65, Henrico: 22, and Richmond: 16). Since this pandemic began, 205 people have died in the Richmond region. Almost a quarter of the new coronavirus cases in Virginia reported yesterday came from the Richmond region. Out of the three local jurisdictions, Chesterfield has the highest percent positivity at 12.1, with Richmond and Henrico at 11.0 and 8.6 respectively. I don’t really know what to make of it, but the graph of the seven-day averages of new cases in the region by locality is pretty interesting. Something is different about Chesterfield! At the Governor’s press conference yesterday, which featured Pharrell, he (the Governor, not Pharrell) said the Commonwealth would not move into Phase Three this week and that he would have more details on the particulars of Phase Three on Thursday.

Yesterday, after three straight nights of violent police response to people protesting violent police responses, Mayor Stoney asked for and received Police Chief Will Smith’s resignation. You can read the Mayor’s press release here and you can watch the press conference here (which you should definitely do). Major William Jody Blackwell will serve as the Interim Chief.

Policywise, the Mayor doubled down on his commitment to a community review board, the Marcus Alert, and “strengthening the Richmond Police Department’s ban on chokeholds and duty to intervene policy.” He also announced the Richmond Task Force on Reimagining Public Safety which will “bring more than 20 individuals from the activist, legal, academic, law enforcement, behavioral health and other communities together to agree on a set of actionable steps forward within 90 days of the first meeting.” Note the “reimagining” language which was used yesterday by both the ACLU of Virginia and Sen. McClellan. It sounds like if you want to defund the police, this is the task force for you. No word on who those 20 folks are yet.

Vibewise, to me, this speech was two weeks late and sounded like the speech Stoney needed to give on June 3rd—after police gassed peaceful protestors at the Lee monument and after he committed to protestors to put together a community review board and the Marcus Alert. Missing for me were an acknowledgment of the police’s inappropriate use of force over the last several nights and a promise that it would stop. The Mayor blamed any and all violence on a small subset of protestors who, in his view, aren’t supporting the cause of Black and Brown folks. It’s hard for me to buy that line of reasoning when every morning I wake up to videos of cops using their cars as weapons, throwing flashbangs at members of the press, or arbitrarily pepper spraying crowds. Stoney never mentioned any of this and either implicitly—or at times, outright—supported the aggressive police behavior. What’s the point of firing the Chief yet fully supporting the unacceptable on-the-street actions of officers working for the Chief?

Yesterday, the Mayor said he’s ready to move in a new direction with policing in Richmond. Firing Chief Smith, the Reimagining Task Force, a community review board, and the Marcus Alert are all steps in that new direction. Yet, at the very moment the Mayor delivered his remarks, City crews were busy erecting enormous cement barricades in front of the police headquarters while cops in riot gear gathered, creating a physical symbol of the RPD’s defensive position. That us vs. themmindset needs to change. The relationship between the Richmond Police Department and the city it serves is fundamentally broken, and there’s a lot of work to do to rebuild—reimagine—that relationship. Unfortunately, for now, I’m skeptical.

It’s 2020, and that means protestors tearing down another Confederate monument in Richmond is not even headline news. Last night, despite the rain, a crowd marched their way to the Howitzer statue near VCU’s campus and made short work of it. Be sure you update your Confederate monument bingo card. The Commonwealth Times’s Eduardo Acevedo has a Twitter thread following the night’s protest and you can read a recap of the night over on their site. Also on the monument tip, Justin Mattingly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, says “Attorney General Mark Herring asked a Richmond judge not to extend an injunction barring removal of the Robert E. Lee statueon Monument Avenue.” The injunction lifts tomorrow which is when should know more about the short-term fate of the statue.

Unrelated to the day’s coronaupdates, at his press conference yesterday the Governor announced that he will introduce legislation making Juneteenth a paid state holiday. Maybe tangentially related to the topic of his press conference, Mayor Stoney announced he’d do the same for City employees. Here’s a Juneteenth piece in the Atlantic I linked to last year, and, should you need it, will serve as a good primer heading into this year’s holiday.

Tonight’s Richmond 300 virtual summit looks at Southside Plaza, an area of town I think is filled with opportunities to build more things. You know the deal: Sign up on the Eventbrite and read the Southside Plaza section of the plan ahead of time (PDF).

This morning’s patron longread

The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I’m One of Them.

Submitted by Patron Casey. This is bananas, and, I can only imagine, would make a person extremely paranoid.

One of the first witnesses called to the stand: Sgt. Timothy Reynolds, who is white. To get intel on activists and organizers, including those in the Black Lives Matter movement, he’d posed on Facebook as a “man of color,” befriending people and trying to infiltrate closed circles. Projected onto a giant screen in the courtroom was a screenshot of people Reynolds followed on Facebook. My head was bent as I wrote in my reporter’s notebook. “What does this entry indicate?” ACLU attorney Amanda Strickland Floyd asked. “I was following Wendi Thomas,” Reynolds replied. “Wendi C. Thomas.” I sat up.

If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.