US City of Charlottesville Shrouds Confederate Statues After Violence

Workers in the US city of Charlottesville, Virginia covered two Confederate statues in black fabric after protests over the monuments turned violent earlier this month, media reports said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – A crowd of onlookers erupted into cheers as workers draped black shrouds over a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee, video broadcast from the scene showed.

The Charlottesville City Council voted unanimously on Monday to cover the statues of Lee and Confederate general Stonewall Jackson to signal the city's mourning for Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old woman who was killed when a car slammed into a crowd protesting a white nationalist rally.

The city will also begin the process of memorializing Heyer by renaming a street after the slain activist, among other measures, officials said at Monday's city council meeting, which was broadcast online.

White nationalists took to the streets in Charlottesville on August 12 to protest against authorities' plans to remove the statues of Lee and Jackson from a downtown public park.

During the rally, protesters clashed with counter-demonstrators, leaving several injured. A man believed to be a Nazi supporter plowed his car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing Heyer and injuring 19 others.