Man holding sign with racial slur arrested on VCU's campus

Lloyd returned to campus in the afternoon and was again arrested and charged with a second misdemeanor count of trespassing.

Lloyd is not a VCU student though he was enrolled in fall of 2015, police said. He studied English literature, according to his Facebook page.

VCU police officers were called to the “Compass,” a student commons-like area in front of the entrance to the James Branch Cabell Library, where the crowd surrounding Lloyd had grown to about 200 people.

“Police stood between the man and the crowd to maintain order and ensure safety,” VCU police said in a statement.

One officer told the crowd to try to ignore the man with the sign.

“I understand you are upset, I totally understand,” the officer said. “But at the same time … You’re fueling this. That’s all you’re doing.”

Yasmeen Galvez, who captured the arrest on video, said the man is a constant fixture on campus holding up inflammatory signs — earning him the nickname “Sign guy.” The campus paper, The Commonwealth Times, wrote an editorial in October also encouraging students to ignore him. The paper didn’t identify the man, but said he’d been there every day for nearly two weeks.

“He was just screaming that everybody is racist,” Galvez, a freshman from Virginia Beach, said. Galvez said she’s tried talking with the man, but that he’s not interested in dialogue. “He’s basically inciting a riot each time he comes.”

Galvez said two or three weeks ago confrontations between the man and others got so heated police were also called then. Police said they’ve never detained or arrested Lloyd before.