Listen to Captain Mooney’s Story

“I kind of felt this in this picture that I could stand with, you know, people that share the love of this community that I did and hated what happened to it.”

- Jim Mooney

Jim Mooney 

So my name is Jim and I'm–I obviously was a Charlottesville police officer for some time. But before that, I was born in Charlottesville. Raised in Charlottesville. I've been a part of this community, you know, at that point for over 50 years. Yeah, and when you showed me this picture again, the emotions really came flooding back. A lot of sadness, disappointment. And I would say, you know, even some pride there because I've kind of felt the community really just–that was Charlottesville the day after. You know, that was the community coming together to start the healing process. This was really–this was true Charlottesville. We didn't see it the day before. We saw a lot of people come from the outside and rip our community apart. You know and unfortunately, I had to wear a few hats those those days. I'm always a member of this community, but I was also a police officer and I was kinda–felt like I was always in a position on that day of guarding the bad guy and not not being where I truly wanted to be, which is among the members of the community. And I kind of felt this in this picture that I could stand with, you know, people that share the love of this community that I did and hated what happened to it. You know, unfortunately, even on that day, there was a lot of people that looked at me with disgust and with disappointment. And that's you know, that's hard to–hard to accept. But it was a reality. And I think since that day, we've started the healing process, but we're a long way from where we need to be. I think when people think of Charlottesville, they think about that worst day in our history and not the not the rest of it. And, you know, I wish we could get past that.

Music credit: Heath Cantu / Waning Winds / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com