The predictable violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia, when police channeled opposing groups into the same confined space and then failed to intervene, requires explanation.  Given the alacrity with which Democrat office-holders and the MSM exploited the violence for political gain, reasonable suspicions arise over whether this was intentionally set up as political theater.

It already looks as though the official local investigation is shaping up as a whitewash.  The man chosen as the "independent" investigator is a Democrat who reportedly donated to the Charlottesville mayor's election.

That is why a civil suit may be necessary to get to the bottom of matters.  Believe it or not, civil litigators have certain advantages over prosecutors and government investigations in that constitutional protections against government abuses less directly apply in litigation.  In depositions, for instance, testimony can be compelled and its relevance later determined prior to be shown to a jury.  That's why this report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch is a reason for hope:

A Verona-based law group is planning to file a lawsuit against Charlottesville, its police chief and the Virginia State Police for not protecting citizens in the Aug. 12 white nationalist rally .

Officials with Nexus Caridades Attorneys say they will sue city and state officials for "standing down" and not intervening in the violence, during which their client, Robert Sanchez Turner, was injured.

Attorneys did not specify in which court the lawsuit would be filed. State and federal laws allow civil rights cases to be filed in either local courts or U.S. District Court.

The organization will officially announce the lawsuit at an 11 a.m. news conference Friday in Emancipation Park, the site of the rally.

"Mr. Turner was assaulted while police officers watched but failed to act to keep him safe or arrest those responsible for the attacks," Jen Little, public relations director for the organization, wrote in an email.

"As reported by Mr. Turner and confirmed by footage from dozens of media cameras and hundreds of handheld cameras and phones, police stood down. This stand-down enabled neo-Nazis to inflict a modern-day race war in the streets of Charlottesville," Little wrote.

My understanding is that it can be very difficult to enforce a "responsibility to protect" obligation on law enforcement.  But if this lawsuit is allowed to proceed to the deposition stage, we may end up learning a lot of facts about the preparations and orders given now that we know that local authorities were fully warned about the potential for violence.

Update: Add another planned lawsuit, this one apparently from the left, as the law firm specializes in immigration (an SJW favorite).  Andrea Noble writes in the Washington Times:

A man who was assaulted during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is suing the city and state police, alleging that officers were ordered to stand down and failed to act even as they witnessed the attack.

According to the federal lawsuit, Robert Sanchez Turner was sprayed in the eye with pepper spray and beaten with canes, and had urine thrown on him during the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, as police officers stood less than 10 feet away and did nothing to stop the assault or arrest the assailants.

"By commanding their subordinates to stand down while hundreds of white supremacists and their sympathizers assaulted and seriously injured counterprotesters, these defendants were essentially accessories to, and facilitators of, unconstitutional hate crime," states the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

Nexus Caridades Attorneys, which filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, is expected to announce additional details about the case Friday.

Hat tip: Mark J. Fitzgibbons