Weltschmerz à GogoPatriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau has pleaded down to a disorderly conduct conviction in his tiki torch trial in Charlottesville. He's now the third participant in the big march on the weekend of Unite the Right to have done so (several others have been convicted, but I've lost track of how many). All were charged under Virginia's anti-KKK statute that bars using fire to intimidate.
The judge accepted the plea "because of Rousseau's lack of a criminal record and the fact that he didn't make physical contact with any counterprotesters" at the Rotunda on the University of Virginia campus on the night of the march. It's true that Rousseau has never been convicted. But he (along with Patriot Front at large and several of its members) has a trial pending in Boston for an assault that took place when they marched there a couple of years ago, and he was lucky to get his personal "conspiracy to riot" charges dropped in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, late last year (although a bunch of other PF members were convicted, including one for having child porn on his phone). It's not a coincidence that the assault in Boston targeted a Black man and the march they were plotting in Coeur d'Alene was targeting a pride event. So sure, Rousseau has a clean record, but it seems completely bonkers for a judge to pretend they don't know that he's obviously going to go out and keep doing the same shit. This is what he does. It's actually his full-time job.
It's not that I'm a fan of putting people in cages. It's just the logic at work here is, well, foolish.
#PatriotFront #ThomasRousseau #fascism #UniteTheRight #UTR #NeoNazis #fcknzs
