‘ THEY TRIED TO KILL MY CHILD TO SHUT HER UP’
Memorial held for woman killed at Virginia rally
CHARLOTTESVILLE, V. A. • The mother of a woman killed while protesting a white nationalist rally urged mourners at a memorial service Wednesday to “make my daughter’s death worthwhile” by confronting injustice and channelling “anger into righteous action,” stirring applause from the hundreds of people who packed into a downtown theatre wearing the victim’s favourite colour, purple.
“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what? You just magnified her,” said Susan Bro, as her audience gave her a standing ovation.
The white nationalists who had pledged to show up and potentially disrupt services for Heather Heyer were nowhere to be seen among those who gathered outside the Paramount Theatre to remember her. Heyer was among the hundreds of protesters who had gathered Saturday in Charlottesville to decry what was believed to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in a decade — including neo-Nazis, skinheads and Ku Klux Klan members.
They descended on the city for a rally prompted by the city’s decision to remove a Confederate monument.
Counter- protesters had converged for a march along a downtown street when suddenly a Dodge Challenger barrelled into them, hurling people into the air. The Ohio man whom police say was driving, 20- year- old James Alex Fields Jr., was described by a former high school teacher as an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. He was quickly taken into custody and has been charged with second- degree murder and other counts.
Heyer’s family members and friends said her death would only inspire them to fight harder for justice.
President Donald Trump tweeted for the first time Wednesday about Heyer, calling her “beautiful and incredible” and a “truly special young woman.” He said “she will be long remembered by all!”
Trump told reporters Tuesday that he planned to reach out to Heyer’s family. The White House did not respond to questions Wednesday about whether Trump has contacted Heyer’s family.
In the wake of the tragedy, Confederate monuments in Baltimore were quietly removed and hauled away on trucks in darkness early Wednesday.
Mayor Catherine Pugh said crews began removing the city’s four Confederate monuments late Tuesday and finished around 5: 30 a.m. Wednesday. Pugh made the decision Tuesday morning to remove the statues that night, her spokesman Anthony McCarthy said at a news conference Wednesday.
I’M ANGRY AND VERY SAD AT THE SAME TIME.
“As soon as I realized they were easy to move,” Pugh said.
Pugh said the removal was done overnight deliberately, in order to avoid attention. “It was important that we move quickly and quietly,” Pugh said, “and that’s what we did.”
Elliott Cummings, a member of the Maryland Sons of Confederate Veterans, denounced Pugh’s “barbarism and Taliban- esque actions” in tearing down the statues. “I’m angry and very sad at the same time.”
Workers used cranes to lift the towering monument to Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson onto a flatbed truck in the dark.
Pugh has said she wants the statues to be placed in Confederate cemeteries elsewhere in Maryland.
“I did what was right for my city,” Pugh said.
Protesters i n Durham, N. C., toppled a monument to Confederate veterans on Monday night. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a stone monument at Hollywood Forever Cemetery commemorating Confederate veterans was taken down Wednesday.