A few weeks ago Vice put together a documentary called Charlottesville: Race and Terror, and in it protestor/neo-Nazi Christopher Cantwell confidently stated that he was trying to make himself capable of more violence, and also said of counter-protesters, "We'll fucking kill these people if we have to."
Then, a few days later, the public persona he was trying to craft did a complete 180 when he sent out a video of himself holding back tears because he learned he was wanted for arrest after he had pepper-sprayed opposition protesters in Charlottesville on Friday, August 11:
Well, as it turns out, being dubbed the "Crying Nazi" is not an image Cantwell has embraced with open arms. We learned that on Wednesday when he sat down and talked to the Daily Beast for his first interview from jail, where he currently remains on "two charges of illegal use of tear gas, phosgene, and other gases, as well as one count of malicious bodily injury."
"When I come down here for a permitted demonstration, championed by the ACLU, where the police are supposed to be clearing our enemies from our path, and then I find myself involved in a riot facing 20 years in prison, I got emotional, shockingly enough," he told the media outlet. "One minute I'm a fucking white supremacist terrorist and the next minute I'm a fucking crybaby? I'm a goddamn human being."
He added that he's being held in solitary confinement at the jail due to concerns for his safety, and claimed that he used the pepper spray as an act of self-defense. "That guy is coming directly at me, and I'm spraying him directly in the face," he contended. "I used the least amount of force possible to prevent that man from harming me in a brawl that my enemies started." Not surprisingly, that account was disputed by Emily Gorcenski, who was one of two people who swore to a magistrate that Cantwell attacked them.
"It was 300 against 30, and they had us surrounded," Gorcenski said to the Daily Beast. "If anyone has a self-defense claim, it's us who were at the statue."
Anyway, each of the three felonies Cantwell has been charged carries a five-year sentence, which would seem to be a far worse fate than the rep he's acquired from the dumb video or getting his ass kicked off of OkCupid.
