Police issue arrest warrant for white supremacist leader featured in Charlottesville documentary

An arrest warrant have been issued for Christopher Cantwell, one of the white supremacists who advocated for violence featured in the Vice News documentary on Charlottesville, after he was accused of pepper-spraying counterprotesters.

In addition to being a public speaker and radio host of his show "Radical Agenda," Mr Cantwell is also known for a YouTube video he posted in which he cries about possibly being arrested and how "terrified" he is over death threats received after the airing of the documentary.

A total of four warrants have been issued for “illegal use of gases and injury by caustic agent or explosive," according to the Boston Globe.

These are both felony charges in the state of Virginia, and could result in a prison term of more than a year if he was found guilty. Mr Cantwell has reportedly offered to turn himself over to police in his town of Keene, New Hampshire, but has not yet been placed under arrest.

The arrest warrants appear to be based on the police report filed with the University of Virginia police by transgender rights activist and Charlottesville resident Emily Gorcenski.

She told the New York Times she was standing next to Mr Cantwell on the night of 12 August when he allegedly used "some kind of pepper spray" against counter-protesters in the immediate area.

“He sprayed basically the whole group."

The UVA police have not yet responded to a request for comment, but Ms Gorcenski said she thought one of the charges could be in response to her report, though not all four of them.

For his part, Mr Cantwell told the paper that he does not feel he "did anything wrong, and I’m looking forward to my day in court."

After the violence erupted, a total of at least six people were arrested according to the Charlottesvile Police, Virginia State Police, and campus police. One woman was killed. A 20-year-old man from Ohio has been charged with her murder.

In the Vice News documentary, Mr Cantwell also criticised Donald Trump for allowing daughter, Ivanka Trump, to convert to Judaisim and marry Jared Kushner, and said that the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer was "justified".

“I think that a lot more people are going to die before we’re done here" he said, walking about torch-bearing neo-Nazis, Klu Klux Klan members, and others protesting to keep a statue of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee in place.

Even Mr Lee opposed these monuments to the losing side of the secessionist, pro-slavery movement, seeing them as leaving the wounds of the bloodiest war in American history open as the country began to heal.

At many points in the documentary, Mr Cantwell said he and other protesters would kill people "if we have to".

Mr Cantwell initially thought the documentary had “worked out magnificently" because of the visceral reaction from so many people, especially "liberals" and the political left.