Virginia suspends use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine mendation of the Federal Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those agencies are investigating reports that six women developed blood clots after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. A Virginia woman died in March after receiving the vaccine, according to reports.
Currently, more than 6.8 million people across the nation have been given the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. A vast majority of people have reported no or mild side effects. Please turn to A4
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VOL. 30 NO. 16
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Virginia has suspended the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after federal health agencies warned that the single-dose inoculation may cause a rare, and potentially fatal, blood clot disorder. A nationwide halt was announced Tuesday upon the recom-
APRIL 15-17, 2021
Double dose of wrong State Police, FBI and civil rights investigations launched into treatment of 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario during traffic stop in Windsor Free Press wire report
Virginia State Police and the state Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights are investigating the traffic stop of 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario in rural Isle of Wight County, where two police officers, screaming with their guns drawn, threatened him, peppersprayed him in the face and demanded he get out of his SUV without giving him an explanation for the stop. Lt. Nazario, an Army Medical Corps officer with the Virginia National Guard, was in uniform after leaving training when he was stopped the night of Dec. 5 on U.S. 460 by two police officers in the town of Windsor. He drove to a well-lighted BP gasoline station where the 27-year-old graduate of Virginia State University ultimately was pulled out of his vehicle by police, struck multiple times with “knee-strikes” to his legs and knocked to the ground. He then was handcuffed and interrogated. On the police body camera footage, Lt. Nazario calmly and repeatedly asked the officers why he was stopped. The video shows him complying with their commands to hold his hands in the air outside the driver’s side window. He told the armed officers, “I’m honestly afraid Please turn to A4
Jim Mone/Associated Press
Katie Wright, center, attends a news conference Tuesday with attorney Benjamin Crump, who spoke about the death of her son, Daunte Wright, who was shot and killed by police Sunday afternoon in a Minneapolis suburb. Also attending the news conference were other members of the Wright family and the family of George Floyd, who was killed at the hands of police last May in Minneapolis.
Minnesota police officer charged in shooting death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright after Sunday traffic stop Free Press wire report
Photo by Rudolph Powell
2nd Lt. Caron Nazario, who was an ROTC student at Virginia State University, is shown as he is commissioned during the university’s 2016 commencement.
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. Once again, the killing of a Black motorist is grabbing the attention of Richmond and the nation. And once again it has occurred in Minnesota, this time in Brooklyn Center, a suburb located 10 miles Daunte from Minneapolis where the highprofile murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd is nearing completion. This latest incident involved a white female police officer shooting and killing 20-year-old Daunte Wright, who had been stopped Sunday
afternoon. Police said he was stopped for an expired vehicle registration, while Mr. Wright, who called his mother from his cellphone after he being stopped, said it was for having air freshener dangling from his rearview mirror. As in the Floyd case, the public reaction has been swift, with three Wright nights of protests, civil unrest and some looting in Brooklyn Center. Public outrage has not triggered the widespread protests spawned by the disturbing video of Mr. Floyd’s death. Seeking to restore calm, the official response Please turn to A4
UR faculty votes for rector’s removal as board outlines new plan By Jeremy M. Lazarus
The University of Richmond Board of Trustees this week took a first step to organizing a commission that would “establish principles on renaming” buildings at the private, 4,000-student school. The board launched its new effort a week after dumping a previous plan to keep the building names of two historic white individuals who supported slavery and racial segregation. The board decided to re-evaluate its decision following backlash from students, faculty, staff and alumni over the plan to keep the names. The board’s latest move came Monday, the same day the UR faculty overwhelmingly approved a resolution of “no confidence” in Paul Queally, the board’s rector, after his meetings with members of the university community appeared to further inflame the issue. Mr. Queally was described as dictatorial and insensitive by opponents of the names, though trustees who were present at the meetings disputed such claims as inaccurate and misleading. As reported Monday, 306 members of the faculty voted for the no-confidence resolution that calls on Mr. Queally to quit as rector and resign from the board. Forty-six faculty members
either opposed the resolution or abstained from voting. The total pool of 352 participants represented 82 percent of the 428 eligible voters, the Free Press was informed. “Nearly 100 percent of us agree the Board of Trustees and our rector have violated our trust and confidence in their recent decisionmaking imposed on our community from the tyranny of their minority judgment,” Dr. Mr. Queally Mari L. Mitford, a professor of rhetoric and women, gender and sexuality studies, said before the vote. The campus buildings in question are named for the Rev. Robert Ryland, the school’s slave-owning and Confederate-supporting first president, and Douglas Southall Freeman, an alumnus, longtime rector, historian and advocate of white supremacy as a newspaper editor and radio commentator. Without commenting on the vote, the Board of Trustees announced that two of its members have been tasked to start creating the commission “that will be inclusive and will ensure a fresh start with respect to renaming decisions.” The two board members are Dr. S. Georgia Nugent, president of Illinois Wesleyan University, and Dr. John A. Roush, president emeritus of Centre College in Kentucky.
The two members, in consultation with UR’s current president, Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher, and senior university leadership, are to provide to the board a proposal on the commission’s membership and the process it would follow, according to the board’s statement. Former UR President Edward L. “Ed” Ayers and Dr. Julian Please turn to A4
Free COVID-19 testing Free community testing for COVID-19 continues. The Richmond and Henrico County health districts are offering testing at the following locations: • Thursday, April 15, 1 to 3 p.m., Hotchkiss Field Community Center, 701 E. Brookland Park Blvd. in North Side. • Thursday, April 22, 2 to 4 p.m., Eastern Henrico Health Department, 1400 N. Laburnum Ave., Eastern Henrico. Drive-thru testing. Appointments are encouraged by calling the Richmond
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Confederate chair found in New Orleans; alleged bandits nabbed By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press
Dads’ day out A new weekly PopUp Market at The Diamond became an outing for these dads and their sons last Saturday as they walked among the dozens of vendors featuring locally grown products, food, art and children’s games and activities. Justin Everson, left, wheels his 3-year-old son, Maddox, while Zlatan Hadzic, wheels his 17-month-old son, Kian. The PopUp Market is sponsored by River City Festivals in conjunction with the Richmond Flying Squirrels. It will be held 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each Saturday in the Blue Lot of the ballpark at 3001 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd. Details: RiverCityFestivals.com.
The stolen chair dedicated to Confederate President Jefferson Davis has been recovered in New Orleans, and the owners of a tattoo parlor in the “Big Easy” have been arrested on related felony charges, though their attorneys are calling their arrests “a mistake.” The bottom line: The Richmond-based United Daughters of the Confederacy never had to pay the unusual ransom demanded for their carved limestone chair — raising a banner bearing a quote from former Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur. In a 12-month period in which at least 160 Confederate memorials were taken down in Richmond and cities across the country, the story of the chair theft garnered widespread attention.
Mugshots of Jason Warnick, Kathryn Diionno and Stanley Pate
The ornate, 500-pound Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair was snatched from the Confederate section of the Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Ala., early on March 19. The chair, owned by the UDC, had been in place for nearly 120 years. A still-anonymous group calling itself White Lies Matter sent a ransom message April 5 to the UDC and media outlets including the Richmond Free Press. The message stated the group had possession of
the chair valued at $500,000. The message also included a demand that the UDC hang the banner outside its Richmond headquarters on Arthur Ashe Boulevard on April 9, the 156th anniversary of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Confederate Army to the Union at Appomattox in 1865, ending the Civil War. White Lies Matter stated the banner should read: “The rulPlease turn to A4