Driver that plowed into Charlottesville, Va. crowd charged with murder

(Updated)  Skirmishes between white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and counter-protestors attending a “Unite the Right” rally in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent and then deadly on August 12 resulting in one dead and 19 injured after a speeding car plowed into a crowd of the counter-protestors.  After slamming into the crowd and striking another vehicle, that car backed up and continued to slam through the crowd as it fled the scene.  The driver of the vehicle, 20-year-old Ohio resident James Alex Fields, Jr., was pursued by police and arrested, according to CNN. Fields has since been charged with second-degree murder and a variety of additional charges, according to Buzzfeed.

Matt Korbon, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, said several hundred counter-protesters were marching when “suddenly there was just this tire screeching sound.” A silver sedan smashed into another car, then backed up, barreling through “a sea of people.”  Brennan Gilmore, a former staffer for gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello filmed the panic at Water and 4th Streets in downtown Charlottesville. His 45-second cell-phone video captured the gray Dodge Charger with Ohio plates racing toward the crowd — hitting it, then reversing away with a damaged windshield and front end.  ~  USA Today

The New York Daily News has identified the woman killed  yesterday as Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal from a Charlottesville law office.  A gofundme page has been started in her memory.  Three others were arrested in connection with yesterday’s violent protests in Charlottesville.  Buzzfeed shared a statement from the Virginia State Police identifying the three individuals arrested as “Troy Dunigan, 21, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, charged with disorderly conduct; Jacob L. Smith, 21, of Louisa, Virginia, charged with misdemeanor assault & battery; and James M. O’Brien, 44, of Gainesville, Florida, who was charged with carrying a concealed handgun.”

Violence broke out in the normally quiet college town of Charlottesville around 10 a.m. between the groups over a dispute concerning the removal of a General Robert E. Lee statue from a public park. According to the Charlottesville Police Department, by 11:30 a.m. the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County declared a local state of emergency, which allowed local officials to request additional resources to respond to the ongoing events in downtown Charlottesville. An unlawful assembly was declared a short time later and law enforcement officials began dispersing rally participants from the park. The Virginia National Guard was active to assist law enforcement in its effort to restore order. At 11:55 a.m., Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in Charlottesville “to aid in the response to violence” at the rally.

The FBI announced on the evening of August 12 that they were opening a civil rights investigation into the deadly car crash and would be looking at the woman’s death as a possible hate crime.  From his working vacation in Bridgewater, New Jersey, President Donald Trump spoke out against the violence in Charlottesville saying, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”  The president has been criticized for not specifically singling out the white supremacist factions. The BBC shared a portion of a statement from the  governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, who said that his only message for the white supremacists who brought chaos to the city of Charlottesville is “Go home”.

https://youtu.be/A6m32JnSBPU

Written by:  Ace News Today Staff

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