A member of a pro-Confederate group has been found guilty of simple assault after punching an anti-Silent Sam protester at a rally around the base of the Confederate monument on the UNC campus earlier this year.
The Durham Herald-Sun reported the conviction on Monday afternoon after a trial in Orange County District Court.
The statue was pulled down from its pedestal at a rally on August 20. Several rallies over the next 10 days brought opposing groups face-to-face on the Chapel Hill campus. There were more than two dozen arrests over the course of those protests.
At a rally on August 25, a group of Silent Sam supporters came to the campus and were met by opponents of the Confederate monument leading to confrontations throughout the day.
In one instance, Barry Brown – a supporter of Silent Sam and member of local pro-Confederate group Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County, otherwise known as ACTBAC – was approaching a group of anti-Silent Sam protesters who were blocking off access to a smaller group of Confederate supporters near the monument’s base.
After Brown was blocked from reaching the other supporters, he punched one of the Silent Sam opponents in the face. Brown was arrested, and video of the incident was quickly posted to social media.
The newspaper reported that the court will not punish Brown as a result of the conviction. Instead, the outlet reports District Court Judge Beverly Scarlett directed her attention to UNC as the “proximate cause of this conflict.”
Many of the court cases of those arrested at Silent Sam rallies are still winding their way through the county court system.
UNC history graduate student Maya Little was arrested and charged with defacing the statue this spring after pouring what she said was a mixture of red paint and her own blood on the statue. District Court Judge Samantha Cabe found Little guilty of the charge after a trial last week. But Cabe continued judgment and waived all costs associated with the case, meaning Little will not face any punishment on the criminal charge.
Little is still facing an honor court charge at the university, which is scheduled to be heard later this week.
Meanwhile, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt and the campus Board of Trustees are facing a November 15 deadline to develop a plan regarding the future of the monument to present to the UNC System Board of Governors.
These judges need to be voted out of their office. Since they will not follow the law and protect public property. What happens one day when a church artifact is vandalized because someone claiming to be an atheist is offended by a statue of Jesus Christ.