Rape reporting: Pulitzer Prize winner talks sexual-assault coverage post Rolling Stone

The participants at an upcoming April 28 panel likely would not cite Jackie’s unsubstantiated story of gang rape to Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely as the biggest issue facing journalists covering sexual assault. For ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller, it’s police not believing victims. His story, “An Unbelievable Case of Rape,” done in conjunction with […]

Bank of America to close downtown branch

Bank of America is closing its location on the Downtown Mall February 17, branch customers learned by letter April 20. “What, we’re closing?” a teller there asked this morning when she heard a colleague inform a customer on the phone. Built in 1916, the structure was originally Peoples National Bank and has housed Virginia National Bank, Sovran […]

Historic hire: Al Thomas is Charlottesville’s first black police chief

City Manager Maurice Jones announced Lexington Police Chief Al Thomas as his pick to head the Charlottesville Police Department, and City Council approved Thomas, who is the city’s first black police chief, April 18. Thomas was one of 63 applicants, says Jones, in a search that was “deep” and involved three rounds of interviews. And […]

Council split on Lee Park commission

City Council heard from around three dozen people at its marathon five-hour April 18 hearing on the statue of General Robert E. Lee and the forming of a blue ribbon commission on race, memorials and public spaces. Much like the citizens that spoke before them, the councilors found themselves split on how to move forward. […]

Jason Flom on rock ‘n’ roll and getting the innocent out of prison

Lava Records founder Jason Flom could be the most successful recording executive of this era. But it was his other great passion—for justice—that packed the Paramount at the Tom Tom Festival Founders Summit April 15. Flom, who said he lost his virginity at a Yes concert when he was 15, launched mega-performers like Katy Perry, […]

Felony charges in unlawful filming case stem from Bell bill

Forest Lakes resident Thomas Andrew Eagleson will remain in jail after his attorney, Rhonda Quagliana, told the judge in Albemarle General District Court this morning her client would not be seeking bond at this time. Eagleson, 45, appeared on video from the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, where he has been since his arrest April 11. […]

Teaching moment: Renaissance tradition v. Title IX

While Charlottesville debates a petition to remove the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, a quieter controversy has been ongoing at UVA about a prominent work of art. One day after Rolling Stone came out with its now discredited “A Rape on Campus” on November 19, 2014, the Cavalier Daily wrote about artist Lincoln […]

Beyond bathrooms: Transgender symposium to educate health care providers

Amid the firestorm North Carolina ignited March 23 with its bathroom laws and a Virginia court case that will determine which restroom a Gloucester teen can use, a daylong transgender symposium to provide education for health care providers will take place in Charlottesville April 27. “It’s the first event of its kind in Virginia that […]

Brown’s break-in: Perp in notorious gay-bashing case arrested again

Nineteen years ago, Charlottesville was horrified by the brutal assault on Evan Kittredge by assailants who beat, tortured and urinated on him, then left him to die in the trunk of his 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix. Kittredge survived, and the men who attacked him—Chad DePasquale, then 22, Billy Ray McKethan, who was 18, and Joseph […]