Local law enforcement spent nearly $70,000 on salaries, logistics and other expenses related to last month’s deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the city’s police department said Monday.
The Charlottesville Police Department spent $50,346.54 on salaries, $14,176.35 on logistics and $5,280.14 on miscellaneous expenses in connection with the Aug. 12 rally, totaling a grand total of $69,803.03, according to a list of expenditures released by law enforcement and published Monday by local media.
The salaries figure includes nearly $44,000 spent on CPD officers working overtime in addition to the salaries of Albemarle County Sheriff’s deputies and Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail staffers hired to work during the rally, as well as $750 paid to a local psychologist, the document said.
“I was asked to work with the officers prior to the Aug. 12 demonstration — just in terms of psychological preparation,” Dr. Jeffrey Fracher told The Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I’m not comfortable saying more than that.”
Logistics costs include over $2,400 spent lodging officers at a Hampton Inn & Suites during the weekend of the event in addition to $1,600 on IT equipment purchased from Best Buy, among other related expenses, while the more than $5,000 in “quartermaster” costs resulted from buying miscellaneous items like cases of water, bags of ice, sunscreen, pens, legal pads and hand soap, according to law enforcement.
The nearly $70,000 price tag doesn’t take into account any costs incurred by the Virginia State Police, which separately deployed upwards of 600 state troopers to assist local authorities during last month’s rally.
Participants of last month’s “Unite the Right” rally had planned to protest Charlottesville’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, but their demonstration was canceled when Gov. Terry McAullife declared a state of emergency after attendees began clashing with counterprotesters on the morning of the event.
According to police, James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old Ohio man, later drove an automobile into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one and injuring 19 others. Two state troopers were also killed in a helicopter crash while attempting to monitor the demonstrations.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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