The “Crying Nazi” from Vice’s Charlottesville documentary has turned himself in
Christopher Cantwell, subject of a Vice News documentary on the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, has surrendered to police. Dubbed the “Crying Nazi” by the internet, Cantwell posted a video of himself tearfully talking about how he was terrified after the violence that accompanied the white-supremacist gathering.
Police at the University of Virginia issued a warrant for his arrest on two counts of illegal use of tear gas and other gas types, according to CNN, as well as a count of malicious bodily injury with a caustic substance. The charges are felonies, and are tied to the events of the night of Aug. 11, when white nationalists held a torch-lit march. Cantwell, who turned himself in late yesterday (Aug. 23) to police in Lynchburg, Virginia, is awaiting transfer to Charlottesville.
Vice News followed Cantwell throughout Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, for their widely-viewed documentary “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” In the footage, he emerges as an unapologetic, belligerent racist, who shouts “Jews will not replace us” during the nighttime march. In a follow-up interview with Vice after the rally, Cantwell says the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer, who police say was killed when white nationalist James Alex Fields Jr. rammed a crowd with his car, was “more than justified.”
In a video he posted online in the aftermath of the events, Cantwell says that he feels beleaguered, attacked, and is willing “to be peaceful and law-abiding” and to surrender to the police, even giving what he says is his phone number for law enforcement to contact him.
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