LYNCHBURG, Va. – It was a heated and well-attended town hall meeting in Lynchburg on Monday night.
Two weeks ago, A Campbell County teen was found not guilty for killing an E.C. Glass student and shooting another in May.
The recent verdict stirred up controversy in the community which led to the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Lynchburg, Bethany Harrison, and police holding a town hall meeting to answer questions about the high-profile trial.
Many were upset and didn’t hold back their feelings that race may have played a role in the trial’s outcome. An all-white jury found 17-year-old Austin Rozdilski, also white, not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Dre’yon Browley. He was convicted of unlawful wounding.
“Do you now understand that in 2019 after this verdict, you just gave the appearance that in Lynchburg, Virginia, a Caucasian can shoot and kill an African American and get away with it?" said B.B. Shavers.
Harrison, members of the police department and members of One Community One Voice say they’ve received hundreds of phone calls with questions specifically about the all-white jury.
Harrison said the African American jurors were taken off the list of potential jurors because they said they couldn’t be fair and impartial if picked.
“So, to stand up and say that we don’t like the makeup of this jury, we would have no foundation in the law to ask for a mistrial on that basis,” said Harrison.
Students who knew Browley posed questions about the unlawful wounding conviction and why there weren’t additional charges.
“Why was Rozdilski not charged with possession of a firearm as a minor in addition to the charges that he received?” one student asked.
Harrison responded, “We wanted to focus on those felonies and build our case for that, instead of having these other charges out there that would potentially end up in the result that he’s convicted of only two misdemeanors.”
People in the audience also called out the Commonwealth for a perceived lack of diversity in the office.
“We have tried to recruit or maintain African American persons who were applying for the job," said Harrison.
In the end, there were emotional calls to action within the community, after some were wondering, “Where do we go from here?”
“We blacks, all of us, need to come together and help our children to be successful. Preachers get out of the church,” one woman said.
Organizers say they are planning another town hall meeting next month.