Virginia police charged a Black lawmaker with damaging a Confederate monument. She reportedly left the protest hours before the vandalism began.

• Police in Portsmouth, Virginia, charged a Black state lawmaker, along with a number of other activists and public figures, over damaging a Confederate monument during a June protest.
• Local media reported that Sen. L. Louise Lucas wasn't even at the protests at the time the monument was vandalized.
• Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam sounded off on the charges, calling them "deeply troubling," and the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus called them "suspiciously timed and seemingly retaliatory."
• Lucas is the first Black woman to serve as the state's Senate Pro Tempore, and tweeted Tuesday she will soon be introducing a police reform bill.

A Virginia state Democratic lawmaker was charged Monday, alongside a slew of local activists and public figures, over damage to a Confederate monument during a protest in June.

Sen. L. Louise Lucas was charged with felony injury to a monument and conspiracy, Portsmouth Police Chief Angela Greene announced Monday at a press conference. Police also charged 13 other individuals in connection to the incident, including two local NAACP leaders, a school board official, and three public defenders, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

Lucas is the first Black woman to serve as the state's Senate Pro Tempore, according to Gov. Ralph Northam.

The Democratic governor called Lucas' arrest "deeply troubling," and her charges "highly unusual."

On Tuesday afternoon, Lucas thanked Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, who called the charges "politically motivated," on Twitter, and said she was looking forward to presenting her new bill on local police reform.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus said in a statement it "strongly condemns the suspiciously timed and seemingly retaliatory actions by the Portsmouth Police against Senate President Pro Tempore @SenLouiseLucas."

The charges stemmed from a June 10 demonstration where protesters beheaded several figures on the monument and pulled down another with a rope. The incident left one protester with life-threatening injuries.

"Several individuals conspired and organized to destroy the monument as well as summon hundreds of people to join in the felonious acts, which not only resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to the monument but also permanent injury to an individual," Greene told reporters Monday while announcing the charges.

But The Virginian-Pilot reported that though several of the people charged attended the protests during the daytime, it was unclear whether any of them were actually present when the monument was being vandalized.

The newspaper reported that Lucas had left the protest hours before the monument was damaged and the man was injured.

"She left at 1:00 p.m. and riots began at 9 in the evening," Virginia Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw told The Washington Post. "I just don't know how you incite a riot eight hours after you left the place. There's something that just does not make any sense."

The chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, Rich Anderson, told the Associated Press in a statement that Lucas should "immediately" turn herself in.

Her attorney, Del. Don Scott Jr. told The Post the charges against Lucas were "a political stunt meant to weaponize the criminal justice system against African Americans."

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