On Sunday in the Richmond suburb of Lakeside, a man named Harry Rogers drove his truck through a crowd of peaceful protesters. He turned out to be a high-ranking member of the Virginia Ku Klux Klan.
A Hanover man claiming to be the highest-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan outside of prison in Virginia appeared in court on Monday morning for an arrest from driving a truck into a group of protesters on Sunday, according to WTVR.
Hanover resident Harry “Skip” Rogers was arraigned and charged with felony accounts of attempted malicious wounding and destruction of property and a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery.
Henrico Police said that Rogers drove his pickup truck into a group of protesters occupying part of the roadway in support of Black Lives Matter movements sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.
Protesters near Vale Ave. in Henrico’s Lakeside neighborhood called the police in response at around 5:45 p.m. on Sunday. WTVR reports that many witnesses reported seeing the driver of a blue pickup truck rev its engine and drive into the crowd of protesters.
Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor said “an attack on peaceful protesters is heinous and despicable and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
Rogers has admitted to being a high-ranking KKK member, the RTD reported. Additionally, Rogers’s history of participating in white supremacist and neo-Nazi activities is known to local anti-racist activists from his previous activities during the Unite The Right rally in 2017, as well as with local branches of the KKK.
“By his own admission… [Rogers] is an admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a propagandist for Confederate ideology,” Taylor said, according to the Times-Dispatch.
Rogers is due back in court for a full trial in August, according to WTVR.
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