Turns out, the Staunton Police Department didn’t do anything to the driver of a truck who threatened hundreds of people at Saturday’s “Hands Off!” rally.
If anything, the officer who witnessed the scene gave the guy encouragement; more on that in a sec.
Stupid me, giving the PD credit for doing its job.
“They gave him a warning as they did not witness any reckless driving themselves,” Sgt. Chris Ammons, the public-information officer for the Staunton PD, told me by email on Monday.
Total bullsh*t.
The officer that Ammons identified as “they” was in an unmarked vehicle at the intersection of East Johnson Street and North Augusta Street in Downtown Staunton as the scene that I described in my column on the protest rally unfolded.
ICYMI
To recap, with more detail: sitting at the stoplight in front of the Augusta County Courthouse, the driver of the truck, engaging in a practice known as “rolling coal,” appears to have engaged a modified switch that allowed the truck to emit two plumes of diesel exhaust through a smokestack.
I’d never heard of this “rolling coal” thing being a thing prior to this, but apparently, goober MAGAs like this guy in Staunton on Saturday have taken to doing this to disrupt and menace political and environmental protests.
What a great world we live in.
“Rolling coal” is illegal in 11 states, among them, surprisingly, Texas, but it’s not illegal in Virginia.
It is, though, quite illegal in Virginia to “operate a motor vehicle at a speed or in a manner so as to endanger the life, limb, or property of any person,” which is a fair description of what hundreds of people witnessed this guy do, as he revved his engine, emitted the plumes of smoke and performed a burnout maneuver familiar to NASCAR fans as he made his way through the intersection.
I was on the crowded sidewalk in front of the courthouse as this was going on, close enough to the truck as it passed by to reach out and touch it.
It was immediately after this that the officer in the unmarked vehicle initiated a pursuit of the truck, eventually pulling the truck over on Byers Street, two blocks away.
Ammons told me in the email that he spoke with the officer who made the stop, and was told that “the officer did not witness the male spinning his tires, but did witness him ‘rolling coal,’ which would only be an equipment violation.”
“Our officer stopped and identified the driver. They gave him a warning as they did not witness any reckless driving themselves,” Ammons told me.
Total bullsh*t.
The “warning” from the officer did a lot of damn good; the driver made his way back to the intersection for two more passes to roll some more coal, as the incels say, albeit on passes two and three, he didn’t burn the tires like he did the first time.
Which signals to us that the “warning” he was given wasn’t about his possible exposure to civil sanction from the EPA for possible violations of the Clean Air Act.
We can rightly guess from the guy returning to the scene that the cop told him, go ahead and blow your smokestack at the libs over there, just don’t burn the tires or actually run anybody over, OK?
“The male was identified,” Ammons told me in the email, “and anyone who witnessed him spinning tires can obtain a reckless driving summons on him if they want to by coming to the police department and going before the magistrate.”
This, folks, is the dictionary definition of “feckless.”
The police see with their own eyes a guy trying to intimidate a protest rally driving recklessly a few feet away from hundreds of people, only by the grace of god not losing total control of his two-ton weapon and plowing through the crowd, but if you want us to do anything about it, it’s your word against his.
At least we know whose side the Staunton PD is on now.
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Chris Graham
