Man accused of ramming rally crowd in Charlottesville charged with hate crimes
The Justice Department charged Toledo man James Alex Fields Jr., the driver accused of murdering a counterprotester at last year’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, with multiple hate crime counts Wednesday.
The charges include one hate crime act that led to the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, a counterprotester who was run over when Fields allegedly drove his car into a throng of anti-racist marchers. The Justice Department also charged Fields, 21, with 28 counts of hate crimes “causing bodily injury and involving an attempt to kill.” Those charges are related to the dozens of people injured in the same event.
“At the Department of Justice, we remain resolute that hateful ideologies will not have the last word and that their adherents will not get away with violent crimes against those they target,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “Last summer’s violence in Charlottesville cut short a promising young life and shocked the nation. Today’s indictment should send a clear message to every would-be criminal in America that we aggressively prosecute violent crimes of hate that threaten the core principles of our nation.”
As Fields was preparing to leave his Toledo home Aug. 11 to travel to Charlottesville, a family member sent him a text message urging him to be careful, according to the indictment. He reportedly replied that “we’re not the ones who need to be careful,” followed by an image of Adolf Hitler.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi organizations and far right white nationalist groups converged on Charlottesville last year take part in a torchlight march through the University of Virginia campus Aug. 11 and the Unite the Right rally the following day. Both events were marked by racist and homophobic slurs and chants including “Jews will not replace us” and “Our blood, our soil!” And both events rapidly descended into violence as marchers and counterprotesters clashed on the streets of the typically placid college town.
White supremacist leaders Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler, both University of Virginia graduates, organized the weekend events to protest the decision by the city of Charlottesville to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a downtown park and rename the park Emancipation Park and, they said, to protect white heritage and white civil rights.
But the marchers at the Saturday rally, many armed with guns, clubs and bats, met fierce opposition from community members and anti-fascist protesters. Clashes erupted at the park and across the city. Law enforcers did not act immediately to break up altercations and stood by while armed groups battled in front of them. Eventually the police declared the rally an unlawful assembly, and it was not allowed to go on.