Catie Ratliff

All eyes are once again on the Free Bridge encampment, with Charlottesville police investigating reports of a sexual assault and Mayor Juandiego Wade announcing that efforts to clear the area are underway. On the evening of July 9, officers were dispatched to the encampment, where a victim reported being raped by someone potentially known to them. According to a July 10 news release from Charlottesville Police Department, detectives and forensic investigators were sent to the scene.

On the fifth anniversary of the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue, Swords Into Plowshares announced the design concept for the next stage of the project: ROOTED, by Model of Architecture Serving Society and Dana King. The former monument’s melted-down bronze will be transformed into a new public artwork at the center of a redesigned Market Street Park.

The mass detentions that hit Ruckersville on June 23 were not the beginning of an effort to expunge undocumented immigrants from our area. According to eyewitnesses and family members of people detained, they were an escalation of a campaign that began weeks or months earlier. The operation, a joint effort between the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had been active since at least June 2, one detained motorist says.