Man charged with assaulting white nationalist in Charlottesville acquitted

A black man who was badly beaten during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last year has been acquitted on assault charges.

DeAndre Harris was found not guilty of misdemeanor assault and battery against Harold Crews, a member of a white nationalist group, The Washington Post reported Friday. 

Charlottesville General District Judge Robert Downer Jr. warned the crowd to “restrain” their emotions before announcing his ruling, the newspaper reported.

Downer’s ruling found that Harris had only struck Crews because he believed that the man was going to hit his friend with a flagpole, according to the Post. 

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Online footage shows that after Harris swung the flashlight at Crews, several white nationalists rushed into the parking garage where Harris was beaten on Aug. 12.

Harris’s beating by white nationalist demonstrators became a rallying point for counterprotesters in the wake of the white nationalist rally. Video of the attack that surfaced online quickly went viral.

Harris sustained a spinal injury and head lacerations that required stitches from that attack. Four of Harris’s accused attackers have been charged in the beating.

The white nationalist rally in Charlottesville was organized ostensibly to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. But the rally quickly turned violent, with white nationalist groups clashing with counterprotesters who had turned out in opposition to the gathering.

President Trump also came under heavy scrutiny after blaming “many sides” — counterprotesters included — for the violence, and saying that there were “very fine people on both sides.”