CHARLOTTESVILLE VICTIM CHOSE LIFE OF ACTIVISM

ping people a lot better,” Blair said.

Heyer’s only flaw, Wilson said with a laugh, was that she liked to sleep late. “I had to change my office work hours just to meet her schedule,” he said.

Heyer worked to improve herself by taking classes and studying.

“If she’s going to do something, she made sure she understood it,” Wilson said

Heyer lived alone with her Chihuahua, Violet, who was named after her favorite color.

For Heyer, activism was about more than just “sitting behind your computer screen,” Blair said. “You got to get out in your community and do things.”

Heyer and her friends were walking together at the protest when a car crashed into the crowd.

Blair, 27, saw it unfold.

Blair said her fiancé pushed her out of the way. She had a scrape on her arm and a bruise on her leg.

She began to look for him, and spotted his red baseball cap on the ground, covered in blood. “It terrified me,” she said. They two were reunited — he had a broken leg — and taken to a hospital, all the while wondering what happened to Heyer.

A detective broke the news that Heyer had been killed.

“I kind of knew and didn’t want to believe it,” Blair said. “When the cop told me, I cried and sank to my knees.”

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, Ohio, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failing to stop at the scene of a crash that resulted in a death, police said.

Charlottesville, in a statement about Heyer, said: “This senseless act of violence rips a hole in our collective hearts. While it will never make up for the loss of a member of our community, we will pursue charges against the driver of the vehicle that caused her death and are confident justice will prevail.”

A Gofundme campaign created to support Heyer’s family raised more than $225,000 in the hours after the tragedy before it reached its goal.

“I’ve never had a close friend like this be murdered,” Blair said. “We thought, ‘What would Heather do?’ Heather would go harder. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to preach love. We’re going to preach equality, and Heather’s death won’t be in vain.”