A TOWN CAUGHT IN CROSSFIRE.
‘WHY ARE THESE NAZIS ABLE TO COME INTO OUR CITY?’
At the scene where a suspected far-right extremist mowed down anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville, Anna Quillom spent Sunday laying dozens of carnations along the street.
“I grew up here but this doesn’t feel like my home anymore. The lid’s come off it,” said Quillom, 36, who runs wine tours in the historic college town.
Welling up with tears, she added: “It was the best place in the world, inclusive, everyone cares about each other. Why are these Nazis able to come into our city?”
Nearby, at a makeshift memorial, a sign read: “No Place For Hate!” A red shoe, lost by one of the victims, had been stuffed with roses.
Charlottesville, a town of 47,000 with a university very much at its heart, was shattered by Saturday’s events when hundreds of extremists descended and violence erupted.
Questions abounded. Had Donald Trump helped foster an atmosphere that has led to their home becoming the new ground zero in America’s race war? Why were groups that once operated in the shadows now connected across America by social media, becoming increasingly emboldened to launch public displays of hate?
In Charlottesville, where the city council is seeking to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, they have found a cause celebre. Fascists, nationalists, anti-Semites, and Hitler enthusiasts marched openly in the streets shouting the Nazi slogan “Blood and Soil” and displaying the kind of insignia normally locked secretly in extremists’ basements.
After they left, an elderly woman cried as she tried to clean detritus from the redbrick pavement.
“We need to look at the 25th Amendment again,” she whispered, referring to the U.S. Constitution’s provision for removing a president “unable to discharge the duties of his office.” She added: “This is the summer of madness in the White House.”
It was on a blistering hot Saturday afternoon that the driver of a silver Dodge sped down Charlottesville’s narrow 4th Street before crashing into two stationary cars.
Anti-fascist protesters were sent flying into the air. One woman died and 19 other people were injured. Moments afterward people were seen desperately running away, screaming and crying. One shouted: “It’s a terrorist attack!” On 4th Street, several people lay injured at the edge of the road.
Amid chaotic scenes police arrived in an armoured car. “Why are you bringing guns? We need ambulances,” one man shouted angrily.
The arrested man was James Alex Fields Jr, from Ohio. He had been pictured earlier marching with a shield handed out by the far right group Vanguard America. The group later issued a statement saying he was not one of their members.
It emerged that Fields, who has been charged with murder, had dropped off his cat with his mother, Samantha Bloom, before attending the rally. Bloom said: “I thought it (the rally) had something to do with Trump. Trump’s not a white supremacist.”
Michael Signer, Charlottesville’s mayor, said Trump should “look at himself in the mirror.”
“He should think very deeply about who he consorted with in his campaign, and the forces they chose to work with in their quest for political advancement.
Appearing openly at the rally, flanked by a security team clad all in white, David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard: said: “We are going to fulfil the promises of Donald Trump.”