DeAndre Harris: Black man beaten at Charlottesville rally cleared of assaulting white supremacist

A black man who was beaten at a white supremacist rally this summer – and later charged with assault – has been acquitted on all charges.

DeAndre Harris made national headlines when he was attacked in a parking garage following the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August. Supporters were shocked when one of his alleged assailants – white supremacist Harold Ray Crews – responded by filing his own assault charges against Mr Harris.

More than 100 of Mr Harris's supporters turned out to hear Charlottesville General District Court Judge Robert Downer read out his verdict on Friday, according to NBC. The judge found the 20-year-old not guilty, sparing him up to 12 months in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Rhonda Quagliana, a defence attorney for Mr Harris, said she was “happy and relieved” at the outcome.

“DeAndre is a 20-year-old young person and the things that happened to him on that day, and the difficulties that he’s endured after the last several months, have been nothing short of overwhelming for someone his age,” she told The Independent.

Mr Harris and several friends travelled to Charlottesville last summer to counter-protest the right-wing rally, which was billed as the largest white supremacist gathering in decades.

Mr Harris, Mr Crews and several other people engaged in a scuffle after the event, in which the counter-protester struck the white supremacist with a flashlight. A group of people then followed Mr Harris into a nearby parking garage and attacked him, leaving him with a spinal injury and head lacerations that required 10 stitches.

Video of the assault circulated online, adding to national outrage about the rally, where protesters carried confederate flags and chanted “Jews will not replace us”.

Another counter-protester, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was killed at the rally when she was struck by a car –one allegedly driven by white supremacist James Fields.

In a Charlottesville courtroom on Friday, Mr Downer told anxious observers that Mr Harris was not guilty of assault because he did not mean to strike Mr Crews. Instead, the judge said, he was attempting to protect his friend, whom he thought Mr Crews was attacking.

Ms Quagliana, who took the case pro-bono, called Mr Harris’s defence a “group effort”. Students from the University of Virginia, where the rally took place, volunteered their time to work on the case, she said. A court reporter also volunteered her services during the trial.

Three men accused of assaulting Mr Harris after the rally will stand trial in late April and early May. A fourth man’s trial has yet to be set.