Charlottesville Residents Wonder What Happened to Their Police on Saturday

"Why the police didn't do anything?"Originally from the South coast of Turkey, Serhat Peker has lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, for 11 years and has never felt threatened, never experienced racism as a Muslim or as an immigrant. Until Saturday morning. At around 11 am, a crew of heavily armed camo-clad wannabe stormtroopers stood along the bank of windows outside the new location of the Turkish restaurant that he and his partners have run for several years. They were there for the Unite the Right rally scheduled for the nearby Emancipation Park and its controversial Robert E. Lee statue. But they were also there to start a fight. The restaurant, at the fringes of the historic downtown, is within sight of the historically black neighborhood just south of the area.When he first heard rumors about the Ku Klux Klan coming to town, Peker thought it was a joke. Seeing the militia with his own eyes, he said, he felt goosebumps. When he heard a cry of "Heil Trump," it didn't sound like a joke any more.  Continue reading...