Good morning, RVA: 489↘️ • 8↗️; scenes from the Circle, and a new police chief

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and you can expect a hot, humid day ahead of you. No rain for the next couple of days, so take care to water your plants and gardens!

Water cooler

Richmond Police are reporting that last Thursday afternoon, Dominic Thompson, 31, was shot to death on the 2600 block of Ford Avenue in the city’s East End.

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 489↘️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 8↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 58↘️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 14, Henrico: 19, and Richmond: 25). Since this pandemic began, 220 people have died in the Richmond region. The COVID Tracking Project Twitter account continues to give me nightmares with their daily chartsandgraphs summary of the national coronavirus picture, and you should probably give them a follow. As we see reported cases of the virus spike in the South and the West, I do think this is important to remember: “Despite the numbers you see here, more people were almost certainly infected at the peak of the spring outbreak than are infected now. Testing was strictly limited, and only caught a small % of cases. But if the trends continue, this surge could reach or surpass those levels.” So, yes, things are bad right now, but they were worse in the spring when we had no real idea just how bad things were.

Protests continued in Richmond over the weekend. Some of my favorite moments from across the last couple of days included: Sure Hand Signs updated the Richmond postcard mural on Charm School with imagery from the last 30-odd days of protests, the big huge puppets made an appearance at a march in rememberance of the Stonewall riots of 1969, someone added a little landscaping to the area around the Marcus David-Peters sign at the Lee Circle, I can’t get enough of this trombone guy, and Sabrina Moreno at the Richmond Times-Dispatch put together a nice piece about the projection art that’s become a mainstay of the evening experience at the Lee Monument. However, on Friday night, either the Richmond Police Department, Virginia State Police, the Virginia Capitol Police, or some combination thereof once again shot rubber bullets and chemical weapons into a crowd of protestors and into a residential neighborhood. Please watch this video in its entirety and see Allen Avenue turned into a war zone by our local law enforcement. I think Marc Cheatham from the Cheats Movement put it well: “The videos I’m seeing tonight are too much for me. I’m frustrated, sad, angry, confused, and sick and tired of this scene every few days. The police know the routine, yet it is becoming increasingly clear that they choose when and where they want to show force. Enough already.” Who’s even in charge and who has the authority to put a stop to this kind of police behavior?

The answer to that question might by Gerald Smith, a former deputy chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Police Department and, starting Wednesday, the new chief of the Richmond Police Department. Let’s just say that the hiring of Chief Gerald Smith was not the smoothest transition possible. On Friday afternoon, Mark Robinson at the RTD reported that Interim Chief Jody Blackwell had resigned his position of Interim Chief not even two weeks after he took the job (with an email to officers, subject line “What’s up Troops?”). Then, later that evening, June 26th, Mayor Stoney announced he’d picked Gerald Smith to take up the job permanently. Quick turnaround for sure, but, muddling the process waters further, Robinson also found an ad in yesterday’s paper announcing a nationwide search for a new police chief—with the recruitment period beginning on June 28th and the application review period beginning July 26th. Without being on the inside, it’s impossible to know the sequence of events and what pushed the Mayor to cast aside an apparently planned month-long process. Maybe he vibed with Gerald Smith. Maybe Blackwell’s resignation created an unacceptable level of internal turmoil within the police department. Maybe Blackwell’s past officer-involved fatal shooting made him an untenable interim chief. Maybe the folks who placed the ad just forgot to talk to the folks making the hiring decision. Honestly, all of those seem just as likely to me at this point. Everything involving the local police feels chaotic, and I know I would feel a lot better if the folks in charge just slowed down and spent some time opening up their decision-making process and bringing Richmonders along on some of these choices and changes.

Speaking of changes, the Hermitage Road Historic District Association released a statement about the A.P. Hill monumentwhich currently spends its time making the intersection of Hermitage and Laburnum one of the most dangerous intersections in the city. Here’s the money quote: “We are asking that the Mayor and the City Council of Richmond create a plan to remove the monument and remains expeditiously. We understand the reinterment process may take more time, so we ask that the statue itself be removed as soon as possible.” And, yes! A.P. Hill is actually buried under that monument which makes it a gravesite—and a veteran’s gravesite at that. Last week, in response to some questions from Councilmember Hilbert, the City Attorney said he had folks looking into the double complicated process of removing a Confederate monument that is basically also a gravestone.

National Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson has a great column in the paper calling for getting rid of Confederate school names and mascots—specifically Hanover’s Lee-Davis, home of the actual, literal Confederates. Robinson quotes from Faith Hubbard, class of 2019, “Being forced to call myself a Confederate as a Black student at this school was so disgusting and humiliating. My friends and I made many attempts to contact the school board about this and they shut us down each time.” The RTD’s Kenya Hunter and C. Suarez Rojas, say that last week the “Hanover County School Board abruptly adjourned in a split vote Tuesday after a two-hour closed session, putting off an expected decision on a pair of schools named for the Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and ‘Stonewall’ Jackson.” Just rename the dang schools already, Hanover!

Also from Kenya Hunter, this piece looks at just how few Black students attend Maggie Walker Governor’s School. Read this and remember that it’s not just about changing names and taking down monuments, it’s also about changing and taking down the systems that lead to Black kids making up just 7% of the student body at our regional governor’s school.

This morning’s longread

Richmond’s Confederate Monuments Were Used to Sell a Segregated Neighborhood

So much has happened since this June 11th article, but it’s still interesting to read about some of the original context underlaying Monument Avenue.

Throughout the development of the neighborhood, real-estate companies used the monuments to entice buyers. In 1913, the Greater Richmond Realty Company took out an ad in the Richmond Times-Dispatch that included an illustration of the proposed Jackson monument under the headline: “Stuart, Lee, Davis, Have Already Been Honored. No Longer Neglect Jackson.” The depiction of the intersection along with a tree-lined field in the background made it easier for potential buyers to envision their home overlooking the Confederate general. The ad implied that Jackson would not be fully honored until all the lots were claimed and occupied.

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