Organizers of far-right rally awarded $25 by US jury

A US jury rewarded $25m in damages against deadly far-right rally organizers that took place in August 2017.

In 4 out of 6 counts, the defendants were liable for the bloodshed at the Right rally in Virginia.

Nine people who encountered emotional and physical injuries in the rally have filed a civil lawsuit.

A neo-Nazi drove a car inside the counter-protesters. This incident killed a woman and injured several others.

The jury rewarded $500,000 in court in the punitive damages against twelve defendants. Also, the jury rewarded $1m against 5 white supremacist organizations. $12m was imposed against the neo-Nazi, the car’s driver, in the incident.

An attorney of the plaintiffs, Roberta Kaplan, said that they are planning to refile the lawsuit. It will help a new jury to decide on those charges.

According to the lawsuit, “They also brought with them semi-automatic weapons, pistols, mace, rods, armor, shields and torches.”

Jason Kessler, the main organizer of the rally, was also liable. He said “alt-right” and spoke during the event.

Christopher Cantwell was another defendant of the far-right rally.

The rally was about a protest against a Confederate statue’s removal. The previous president Donald Trump said that fine people existed on both sides. Also, he stated that the white nationalists and neo-Nazis need to be completely condemned.

In June 2019, James Alex Fields killed a counter-protestor, Heather Heyer, while driving his car into the crowd. This civil case involved the incident survivor’s testimony.

Marissa Blair described it as a terror scene.

According to the defendants, the First Amendment of the US constitution protects racist views. Also, they said that everything happened in self-defense and held the police responsible. However, it was they who failed to keep the two teams from fighting.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said that they expect that the lawsuit serves as a deterrent against any further extremist rallies.

Credits: BBC