White supremacist Cantwell surrenders to police
Breaking News
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Man who organized torch-lit Charlottesville rally held on 3 counts connected to the march
White supremacist Christopher Cantwell surrenders to police
Story highlights
- Cantwell surrendered to police in Lynchburg, Virginia
- Police had issued warrants for his arrest
(CNN)Christopher
Cantwell, who was featured in a Vice documentary about a white
supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has turned himself in,
authorities said Wednesday.
Police
at the University of Virginia, where a torch-lit march was held on
August 11, had issued warrants for his arrest on two counts of illegal
use of tear gas and other gases, and one count of malicious bodily
injury with a caustic substance.
The
New Hampshire resident surrendered to police in Lynchburg, Virginia. He
is currently being held at the regional jail as he awaits transport to
Charlottesville, where the march was held.
Cantwell
and dozens of others marched through the university grounds on August
11, carrying torches and chanting "Jews will not replace us" and "White
lives matter." They were protesting a Charlottesville City Council plan
to remove a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue from a nearby park.
Protesters
also chanted "blood and soil" -- an English translation of the Nazi
slogan "Blut und Boden," which glorified rural living and held that only
blood descent can entitle individuals to belonging in the nation.
Cantwell
was brash and defiant in interviews with Vice filmed during and after
the march. But he appeared tearful in a separate Facebook video the same
weekend, saying he might be arrested but not specifying why.
In an interview with The New York Times
over the weekend, he said the warrants stemmed from an incident during
the march when he pepper-spraying someone. He said he acted in
self-defense.
"I thought that
spraying that guy was the least damaging thing I could do," he told the
paper. "In my left hand I had a flashlight. My other option, other than
the pepper spray, was to break this guy's teeth. OK? And I didn't want
to do that. I just wanted him to not hurt me."
On
August 12, white nationalists gathered for the "Unite the Right" rally
and clashed with counterprotesters in downtown Charlottesville. Heather
Heyer, 32, was killed when police said a man drove his car into a crowd.
The
driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, has been charged with second-degree
murder and other offenses. His next court appearance is Friday.
Two
Virginia state troopers were killed in a helicopter crash nearby after
monitoring events during the "Unite the Right" rally.
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