Admitted Ku Klux Klan leader and Hanover resident, Harry “Skip” Rogers, drove his truck through a crowd of protestors at the corner of Hermitage and Laburnum the evening of June 7, 2020. Two people were injured. The vehicular assault occurred in Henrico, where Henrico police have jurisdiction. A cyclist injured during the incident, Richard Sebastian, stated that the assault was, “intentional,” and occurred after Rogers drove past protestors, pulled a U-turn, then drove into the crowd.
Local residents recall that Rogers has attended many KKK rallies in the past, and once attempted to instigate a fight at a memorial for Heather Heyer, the woman who was murdered in Charlottesville by James Alex Fields, Jr. Fields is a white nationalist who drove his car into a crowd of protestors at the Unite the Right rally in 2017. Footage from the arrest details that Rogers drove into a crowd of protestors while a minor was in the truck with him. Eyewitness accounts reveal that police waited nearly two hours to officially arrest Rogers.
An official report from the chief of police states that police received a call about the incident at 5:45 pm. A witness at the scene claimed he personally made a 911 call about the incident at 4:30 pm. Another eyewitness account states that police did not immediately arrest Rogers for the incident, and appeared to casually converse with him before placing him in handcuffs to ride away in the front seat of the police car. By this afternoon, Rogers was charged with simple assault and malicious wounding. The Henrico attorney’s office stated they will be investigating if hate crime charges apply, despite already having an admission from Rogers himself about his Klan affiliation.
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