Conflicting 911 reports seem to debunk a Republican Virginia state Senate candidate’s claim that she and her 12-year-old daughter were attacked by Black Lives Matter demonstrators in 2020.
Police records show that while she complained about protesters harassing her, multiple people identified her as an aggressor, taunting the group by apparently driving her car into the crowd.
This new finding, made public after Huffington Post journalist Jen Bendery filed a Freedom of Information request for the calls, presents a very different narrative than what Tara Durant has been pushing as she seeks an elected office.
Durant, a current member of the Virginia House of Delegates, claims that she was a victim.
“I got in politics a few years ago because, as many of you know my story, that the personal safety of my daughter and me were threatened. That has been a key issue in my campaign because we saw what became the ‘defund the police’ movement,” Durant said in a debate in September 2023.
The allegation picked up steam and became a viral story that many right-wing media outlets like Fox repeated, pushing the idea that the BLM movement was violent and poised to assault good Americans. Carlson Tucker, who had a show on the network, said a “violent mob” was chasing Durant and her daughter, and this was one example of how many in the country felt “intentionally abandoned by the state that promised to protect them” during the 2020 summer of civic unrest.
But Bendery’s report paints a different picture of what happened to the conservative provocateur.
The police report, based on what Bendery received, described the protest as peaceful, noting there were “no arrests or property damage.”
Also, in her 911 call, Durant tells the operator she is prepared to run protesters over. When she is told by the officer on the line not to hit any of the people she sees at the demonstration, she does not acquiesce to his wishes. Instead, she says, “Well, I will. I absolutely will.”
Filmmaker Emily Adams, who was present at the intersection where everything transpired, says Durant was the disrupter and clarified what happened.
“She was trying to kind of drive through our protesters,” she said, according to the HuffPost. “When that happens, people form a line around the front of the car, so she can’t do that. It’s more of a protection of our protesters rather than intimidation.”
Adams also called Carlson’s reporting on the incident “misinformed,” declaring, “We weren’t an angry mob.”
The state Senate candidate reported that a person jumped atop her car’s hood.
It was confirmed that while this did happen, the person involved was a 13-year-old who was not part of the Black Lives Matter group. When the protesters noticed his reckless actions, they removed him and checked him for his behavior.
Durant later accused two teenagers of damaging her car. It was determined that one of them wasn’t even present during the incident.
She took local civil rights activist Taylor Johns to court but had to drop the case when Johns provided proof of being at work during the protest.
Johns went on to sue Durant for malicious prosecution. Although a judge denied Durant’s attempt to dismiss the case, the case wound up being dropped anyway, as the 18-year-old did not have a lawyer and had to drop the case due to emotional and financial stress.
“I don’t think it’s fair that she was able to get away with it and become an elected official, and is still running to be an even higher elected official,” Johns said.
The other teenager, who faced a Class 1 misdemeanor charge based on Durant’s complaint, was found not guilty. His name was redacted from the court records.
As Durant prepares for the Virginia state Senate election on Nov. 7, Adams says people should definitely not consider her to represent them — because her version of the truth is warped.
“She is exaggerating, and she’s taking Tucker Carlson’s version of the story and I think running more so with that, which is even more highly exaggerated. Nothing about what happened makes her a worthy political candidate. That’s what’s really shocking to me,” Adams said.
Carlson was fired in April from his talk show at Fox. His termination was not connected to his reporting on Durant’s alleged harassment.
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