Portsmouth officer who charged state Sen. Louise Lucas and protesters sent message condemning them before investigation started

Portsmouth — The day after protests and vandalism at the city’s Confederate monument, a Portsmouth police sergeant emailed the city manager and council members to defend the police chief and take aim at Sen. Louise Lucas, the city’s top prosecutor and public defenders.

“For a Senator to try to inject any of us into her agenda is repulsive,” he wrote of Lucas.

Two months later, that same officer, Sgt. Kevin McGee, went before a magistrate to take out felony charges stemming from those protests against Lucas and 13 others, including local NAACP leaders, a school board member and three public defenders.

The existence of the email was first reported Thursday by the Huffington Post. The Virginian-Pilot obtained a copy of it Thursday.

McGee did not respond to an email seeking comment Thursday afternoon. In his email to council members, McGee wrote that his message was “not authorized or approved by anyone” and was his “personal opinion as a property owner in, and employee of, the City of Portsmouth.”

McGee told the Huffington Post he wasn’t involved in investigating the protests when he wrote to the City Council and that he and his department investigate “without bias and only present the facts as they are found.”

But his June 11 email, sent about 24 hours after the events, suggests he’d made up his mind — long before any investigation — that Lucas and others who McGee said condoned or encouraged vandalism were responsible for the destruction and a man’s serious injury that ensued hours later.

The charges announced Monday were instantly condemned by many activists and Democratic elected officials, including Gov. Ralph Northam. They also led Portsmouth City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton to tell city council members that city police should not have been investigating the case at all because of a conflict of interest. She did not say what that conflict is.

[ Previous coverage: Portsmouth police should not have investigated Confederate monument case because of chief’s conflict, city manager says ]

In a written statement Thursday, Police Chief Angela Greene said she tried to have an outside agency investigate because of a potential conflict involving “elected city officials” who were at the protests. Greene said after “all efforts were exhausted” to have an outside group investigate, it was left up to her department to do it.

During the Portsmouth police investigation, Greene said, no conflicts of interest for her department “were revealed.”

“As the head of the primary law enforcement agency in the City of Portsmouth, it is my obligation to investigate all crimes that have occurred, and when probable cause exists, present that evidence for the prosecution, which is what was done in this matter,” Greene wrote.

Many advocates and officials called the charges racist and their timing suspicious, noting they were filed the day before Lucas and other lawmakers went to Richmond to begin considering police reform proposals in a special session. Sen. Mamie E. Locke, D-Hampton, called the charges a “thinly veiled attempt to intimidate and silence the most powerful Black woman in the Virginia legislature.” McGee is white, and Greene is Black.

In the afternoon on June 10, protesters started gathering and spray painting the Confederate monument at Court and High streets ahead of a rally planned for that night. As protests continued, the City Council postponed a vote on a long-standing debate over whether or not to move the monument, which sits on the site of what used to be a slave whipping post. The council has since voted to move it.

Later that night, demonstrators beheaded four statues of soldiers attached to the monument, and one of them fell on a protester, Chris Green, seriously injuring the 46-year-old.

In his email to the City Council and city manager, McGee said he was the “first line, front line” supervisor for much of the June 10 protests and was writing them because Lucas had called for the firing of the police chief.

“For anyone to attempt to place blame on Chief Greene or the men and women of the Portsmouth Police Department or to continue to try to use us as pawns on their political agenda is absolutely disgusting and offensive,” he wrote. “The blame for the events of June 10th rest squarely on the shoulders of several elected and appointed officials. Not on us.”

Lucas has denied doing anything wrong. In a flyer circulated at a rally in support of her a week after the protest, she said, “I do not condone destruction of public or private property. If you believe otherwise, you don’t know anything about me as a human being or elected official.”

But McGee said in his June 11 email that Lucas gave protesters the “green light to do whatever they wanted to do,” and that public defenders “left after they lit the fuse” and “had their photo op.”

“I was also told by the participants that the Commonwealth Attorney told them they would not be prosecuted,” wrote McGee, who said he’s been with the Portsmouth department for 16 years, seven of those as a sergeant.

The day after the protests, prosecutor Stephanie Morales’ office issued a statement saying they gave no direction or instruction to police about enforcing the law for destruction of property. Since then, Morales said police have not brought an investigative file to her office.

In his email, McGee estimated there were 150 people there and “at least 40 armed civilians” — but five police officers.

Amid protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, officers across the U.S. “have been suspended, fired, and charged with crimes without due process and without investigations simply for doing their jobs …,” McGee wrote.

He wrote that Greene was “the only thing holding this department together” and that she and the police prevented property damage and saved lives that night.

“If Senator Lucas wants to place blame on anyone for this incident, she should start by looking in the mirror,” McGee wrote.

Greene said Monday that Portsmouth police started their investigation only after a state police investigation of Green’s injury concluded July 22.

In a probable cause summary presented to a magistrate this week, McGee said Lucas arrived at the monument June 10 shortly after NAACP president James Boyd and vice president Louie Gibbs were released after being charged with trespassing at the monument. (Those misdemeanor charges have since been dismissed by a judge.)

Lucas approached a group of police officers, told them she spoke with the mayor and city manager and said, “They are going to put some paint on this thing, and y’all can’t arrest them,” McGee wrote in his summary, a copy of which was obtained by The Pilot Thursday.

A sergeant told Lucas she couldn’t tell people to do that, and she replied, “I’m not telling them to do anything, I’m telling you, you can’t arrest them,” according to McGee’s summary.

Lisa Lucas-Burke, the city’s vice mayor and Lucas’ daughter, tried to explain to protesters the process the city was taking to move the monument once a new law went into effect July 1.

Louise Lucas then said, “The city has had three years to cover it.” She gestured to those gathered: “Let them cover it,” McGee wrote.

People shook cans of spray paint and shouted, “cover it!” Someone yelled: “Y’all heard her! Go, cover it!” People climbed over the fence around the monument and began spray painting, McGee wrote.

“No state or local elected official, or any other person or entity had any legal authority to direct or allow any citizen to go upon, damage or deface the monument and neither the City Manager or Mayor told Senator Lucas anyone had permission to paint, damage or otherwise alter the monument …,” McGee wrote.

At the end of the document, McGee wrote that he was notifying the court, “for conflict of interest purposes,” that several people have been identified as “potential material and eyewitnesses who are likely to be called to testify by either the prosecution or defense.” Those listed:

Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales

Sheriff Michael Moore and “other employees of the Sheriff’s Office”

Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke

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Councilman Shannon Glover

City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton

Police Chief Angela Greene and “other employees of the Portsmouth Police Department”

“Public Defenders office employees”

Portsmouth General District Judge Douglas Ottinger

Staff writers Ana Ley and Gary Harki contributed to this report.

Margaret Matray, 757-222-5216, margaret.matray@pilotonline.com