While Democrats cheered Governor Ralph Northam’s decision to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman attacked the decision as symbolism over solutions.
Fifth District Congressman Denver Riggleman admits he didn’t hear what the governor said in announcing plans to remove confederate statues in the capital, but he didn’t like the idea.
“If you erase history, that’s the first step towards going down a line where anything that offends you is something you just don’t want to see,” he explains.
And, frankly, he questioned Northam’s moral authority to make the decision.
“I just know I don’t like to be lectured by somebody that had issues with a yearbook.”
Riggleman said he despises bigotry and has no sympathy for what he called bad apples on a police force, but he called for more data before concluding racism is a problem in law enforcement.
“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of law enforcement are people I’d go to war with. I’d trust them with my life.”
And he attacked those citizens who recorded the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“Did the person behind the camera realize what they were taping? That has been the thing that I have laid awake. If it was me behind the camera I would have been like, ‘What are you doing? You’re killing that individual.’
Riggleman also called for new efforts to stop demonstrators he said had weaponized this situation, describing them as looters, criminal elements and domestic terrorists.
