US white nationalist rally turns ugly
Car ploughs into peaceful counter-protesters, killing one and hurting 19
The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice.
Jeff Sessions
CHARLOTTESVILLE (Virginia): A car ploughed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally in a Virginia college town, killing one person, hurting more than a dozen others and ratcheting up tension in a day full of violent confrontations.
Shortly after, a Virginia State Police helicopter that officials said was assisting with the rally crashed outside Charlottesville, killing the pilot and a trooper.
The chaos boiled over on Saturday, at what is believed to be the largest group of white nationalists to come together in a decade. The governor declared a state of emergency, and police dressed in riot gear ordered people out.
The group had gathered to protest plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and others arrived to protest the racism.
Matt Korbon, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, said several hundred counter-protesters were marching when “suddenly there was just this tyre screeching sound”.
A silver Dodge Challenger smashed into another car, then backed up, barreling through “a sea of people”.
The impact hurled people into the air. Those left standing scattered, screaming and running for safety in different directions.
The driver was later identified by police as James Alex Fields Jr of Ohio. Police say Fields, 20, has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count related to leaving the scene. A bond hearing is scheduled for today.
Field’s mother, Samantha Bloom, said on Saturday night that she knew her son was attending a rally in Virginia but didn’t know it was a white supremacist rally.
“I thought it had something to do with (US President Donald) Trump.
“Trump’s not a white suprema- cist,” Bloom said.
“He (Field) had an AfricanAmerican friend so ...” she said before her voice trailed off. She added that she’d be surprised if her son’s views were that far right.
Bloom, who became visibly upset as she learned of the injuries and deaths at the rally, said she and her son had just moved to the Toledo area from the northern Kentucky city of Florence. She said that’s where Fields grew up. She relocated to Ohio for work.
Late on Saturday, the Department of Justice announced the opening of a federal civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack. AttorneyGeneral Jeff Sessions said the FBI’s Richmond field office and Rick Mountcastle, the US Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, would lead the investigation.
“The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice,” Sessions said in a statement.
“When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.”
The turbulence began on Friday night, when the white nationalists carried torches though the University of Virginia campus. It quickly spiralled into violence on Saturday morning. Hundreds of people threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemi- cal sprays. At least three more men have been arrested in connection to the protests
The Virginia State Police announced late on Saturday that Troy Dunigan, a 21-year-old from Chattanooga, Tennessee, was charged with disorderly conduct; Jacob L. Smith, a 21-year-old from Louisa, Virginia, was charged with assault and battery; and James M. O’Brien, 44, of Gainesville, Florida, was charged with carrying a concealed handgun.
City officials said they treated 35 patients altogether, 19 of whom were injured in the car crash.
State Police said in a statement that the helicopter was “assisting public safety resources with the ongoing situation” when it crashed in a wooded area.
The pilot, Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen, 48, of Midlothian, Virginia, and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates
of Quinton, Virginia, died at the scene.
Right-wing blogger Jason Kessler had called for what he termed a “pro-white” rally in Charlottesville, sparked by the monument decision. White nationalists and their opponents promoted the event for weeks.
Oren Segal, who directs the AntiDefamation League’s Center on Extremism, said multiple white power groups gathered in Charlottesville, including members of neo-Nazi organiszations, racist skinhead groups and Ku Klux Klan factions.
The white nationalist organisations Vanguard America and Identity Evropa; the Southern nationalist League of the South; the National Socialist Movement; the Traditionalist Workers Party; and the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights also were on hand, he said, along with several groups with a smaller presence.
On the other side, anti-fascist demonstrators also gathered in Charlottesville, but they generally aren’t organised like white nationalist factions, said Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Many others were just locals caught in the fray.
Colleen Cook, 26, stood on a curb shouting at the rally attendees to go home.
Cook, a teacher who attended the University of Virginia, said she sent her son, who is black, out of town for the weekend.
“This isn’t how he should have to grow up,” she said.
Kessler said this week that the rally was partly about the removal of Confederate symbols but also about free speech and “advocating for white people”.
“This is about an anti-white climate within the Western world and the need for white people to have advocacy like other groups do,” he said in an interview.
Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer said he was disgusted that the white nationalists had come to his town and blamed Trump for inflaming racial prejudices.
“I’m not going to make any bones about it. I place the blame for a lot of what you’re seeing in American today right at the doorstep of the White House and the people around the president,” he said.— AP