The plaintiffs' attorneys say they've amassed 5.3 terabytes of digital communications by the defendants, including many on the online platform Discord initially leaked by Unicorn Riot, a left-leaning media collective. RELATED: Charlottesville removes Confederate statue located near rally site "It's the only case that really takes on the leadership and organization of the white supremacist movement," said Karen Dunn, one of the lead attorneys in the lawsuit. To win a judgment, the plaintiffs must prove the defendants conspired to commit racially motivated violence and planned it in advance - and that the plaintiffs were injured as a result. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are relying on a 150-year-old law passed after the Civil War to shield freed slaves from violence and protect their civil rights.Ĭommonly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, the law contains a rarely used provision that allows private citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations. The case is built on a vast collection of chat room exchanges, social media postings and other communications in which the defendants use racial epithets and discuss plans for the demonstrations, including what weapons to bring. RELATED: Statue of Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea toppled in Charlottesville rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. The plaintiffs include four people who were hurt when James Alex Fields Jr. The nearly two dozen defendants include: Jason Kessler, the rally's main organizer, who terms himself a "white civil rights" leader Richard Spencer, who coined the term "alt-right" to describe a loosely connected band of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and others and Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist who became known as the "crying Nazi" for posting a tearful video when a warrant was issued for his arrest on assault charges for using pepper spray against counterdemonstrators. 12, 2017, ostensibly to protest city plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville on Aug. A firestorm erupted after then-President Donald Trump failed to strongly denounce the white nationalists, saying there were "very fine people on both sides." It accuses some of the country's most well-known white nationalists of orchestrating a "meticulously planned conspiracy" to commit violence against Blacks, Jewish people and others based on race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. FILE - Neo Nazis, Alt-Right, and White Supremacists take part a the night before the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, VA, white supremacists march with tiki torchs through the University of Virginia campus.
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