A year after a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol 260 miles away, a quiet community in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains is still reckoning with the fallout and ties to its Confederate past.
This Jan. 6, 2021 photo from a complaint and arrest warrant shows Rocky Mount Police Department officer Jacob Fracker and Sgt. Thomas Robertson at the Capitol.
It was seven months before the riot that Fracker and Robertson were celebrated by local African American residents for standing in solidarity with demonstrators at the town’s first protest for Black Lives Matter. Cellphone video even shows the cops holding signs for racial justice and dancing the Electric Slide with organizers.
Both now-former officers have pleaded not guilty to federal charges of disorderly and disruptive conduct and obstruction of Congress. In local media interviews the men have insisted they didn’t participate in violence and that their message is not incompatible with support for black lives. Trial dates have not yet been set.
By many accounts, healing has been slow going, and beneath the surface in Rocky Mount, emotions are still raw. “Trump did not radicalize these people,” she added of the rioters, “he took advantage of what was already here in Franklin County and America.”Rocky Mount, Va., population 4700, sits in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where moonshine and bluegrass are king and symbols of Donald Trump and the Confederacy are immortal.Town voters last fall broke heavily forfor Virginia governor in a campaign dominated by debate over Critical Race Theory.
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Cops' role in Jan. 6 attack divides Virginia town with ties to ConfederacyA year after a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol 260 miles away, a quiet community in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains is still reckoning with the fallout and ties to its Confederate past and conservative politics. Rocky Mount, which is predominantly white and staunchly Republican, was thrust into the national spotlight on Jan. 6 after two of its active police officers were spotted among the crowd rampaging through the halls of Congress. Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson, both milit
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