Rosedale KKK Wizard Charged In Charlottesville Shooting: Report

TOWSON, MD - A Rosedale man who allegedly fired a weapon during the Aug. 12 riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, is being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center, according to reports.

Richard Wilson Preston, 52, of the 5800 block of Cedonia Avenue, was arrested Saturday on a warrant out of Virginia, court records show. He was detained as a fugitive from justice.

Preston was charged in Virginia with shooting a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school on Aug. 12, according to a statement from the Charlottesville Police Department published by the Charlottesville NBC affiliate.

Police filed the charge Thursday against Preston related to shots that were fired in the 100 block of West Market Street in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12 after riots broke out as white nationalists protested the city's decision to take down a statue of General Robert E. Lee.

Preston is reportedly an imperial wizard with the Confederate White Knights in Rosedale, a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Virginia ACLU sent police a video that shows Preston shooting a gun at a counter-protester during the Charlottesville demonstration, according to a statement from the civil rights organization.

Warning: The video contains profanity and violence.

The white nationalists' demonstration was targeted at the city's decision to remove the Lee statue, after the city council voted in February to take it from a public park and sell it in April. The removal is on hold since a judge issued a six-month injunction in May. A trial is expected on Sept. 1, court records show.

Similar rallies in support of keeping the Lee statue up included a Ku Klux Klan rally in July and a gathering of other groups of white nationalists in May.

Since the deaths on Aug. 12, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe asked the General Assembly and local governments to consider taking Confederate statues down, while Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has overseen the removal of a statue at the state house in Annapolis depicting the judge who upheld slavery in the Dred Scott case. Baltimore City also removed four statues with ties to the Confederacy, and Howard County removed a memorial honoring Confederate soldiers from its courthouse grounds.

Before the debate began in Charlottesville, Baltimore County changed the name of Robert E. Lee Park off Falls Road to Lake Roland. That occurred in 2016.

This article includes reporting from Patch Editor Emily Leayman.

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