At 3:05 today, members of the Nevada City Police Department along with Nevada County Sheriffs, the Nevada County District Attorney’s Office, and the Grass Valley Police Department, arrested Nevada County resident James Steven Smith as one of the primary aggressors of the attack on BLM marchers in downtown Nevada City and on Buckeye Road last Sunday.
According to an official in the Wayne Brown Correctional Facility in Nevada City, Smith was charged with felony robbery and felony assault and booked into the jail on Saturday afternoon. Bond is set at $100,000.
Nevada City Police Department said in a press release that many victims and witnesses came forward with video taken with cell phones as evidence of the assaults.
In a statement from Nevada City Chief of Police Chad Ellis, “The actions demonstrated by the counter-protesters cannot and will not be tolerated in any of our local communities. There is no place for the hatred and violence which occurred in our town last Sunday, and we as a community need to stick together and flush it out.”
The investigation is active and ongoing. Additional charges and prosecution of other suspects involved is still imminent, according to police officials.
See a video of the attacks last Sunday and hear an audio an interview with the journalist who recorded and produced the video.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
