Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
3 DEAD IN DAY OF CHAOS AT ‘UNITE RIGHT’ RALLY IN VA.
3 dead, dozens hurt as racial tensions roil city
A man was arrested after driving into a crowd in Charlottesville, Va., leaving one dead as white nationalists and counterprotesters clashed. A police helicopter flying over the scene later crashed, killing two troopers.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Chaos and violence turned to tragedy Saturday as hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members -- planning to stage what they described as their largest rally in decades to "take America back" -- clashed with counterprotesters in the streets and a car plowed into a crowd, leaving one person dead and at least two dozen others injured.
Hours later, two State Police officers died when their police helicopter crashed on the outskirts of the city. Officials said the police deaths were linked to the rally earlier in the day. Corinne Geller, a Virginia State Police spokeswoman, says the pilot and a passenger were killed.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said at an news conference that he had a message for “all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today: Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth.”
But some of the white nationalists cited Trump’s victory as validation for their beliefs, and Trump’s critics pointed to the president’s racially tinged rhetoric as exploiting the nation’s festering racial tension.
Video recorded at the scene of the car crash shows a Dodge Challenger accelerating into a crowd on a pedestrian mall, sending bodies flying -- and then reversing at high speed, hitting more people. Witnesses said the street was filled with people opposed to the white nationalists who had come to town bearing Confederate flags and anti-Semitic epithets.
A 32-year-old woman was killed, police said, who said they were investigating the crash as a criminal homicide. The driver of one of the vehicles was taken into custody and charges were pending, said Al Thomas, the Charlottesville police chief.
Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail Superintendent Col. Martin Kumer said Saturday that James Alex Fields was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder, malicious wounding, failure to stop for an accident involving a death, and a hit and run. He's being held without bail.
Earlier, police had evacuated a downtown park as rallygoers and counterprotesters traded blows and hurled bottles and chemical irritants at one another, putting an end to the noon rally before it officially began.
Despite the decision to quash the rally, clashes continued on side streets and throughout the downtown.
"I am heartbroken that a life has been lost here," said Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer in a tweet. "I urge all people of good will -- go home."
Elected leaders in Virginia and elsewhere urged peace, blasting the white supremacist views on display in Charlottesville as ugly.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called their display "repugnant."
But Trump, known for his rapid-fire tweets, remained silent throughout the morning. It was after 1 p.m. when he weighed in, writing on Twitter: "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!"
In brief remarks at a late-afternoon news conference to discuss veterans' health care, Trump said that he was following the events in Charlottesville closely. "The hate and the division must stop and must stop right now," Trump said, without specifically mentioning white nationalists or their views. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. On many sides."
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, a Trump supporter who was in Charlottesville on Saturday, quickly replied. "I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists," he wrote.
Dozens of the white nationalists in Charlottesville were wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats.
Even as crowds began to thin Saturday afternoon, the city remained unsettled and on edge. Onlookers were shaken at the pedestrian mall, where ambulances had arrived to treat victims of the car crash.
Chan Williams, 22, was among the counterprotesters at the pedestrian mall, chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "Whose streets? Our streets!" The marchers blocked traffic, but Williams said drivers weren't annoyed. Instead, they waved or honked in support.
So when she heard a car engine rev up and the people in front of her ducking out of the way of a moving car, she didn't know what to think.
"I saw the car hit bodies, legs in the air," she said. "You try to grab the people closest to you and take shelter."
Williams and her friend, George Halliday, ducked into a local shop with an open door and called their moms immediately. An hour later, the two were still visibly upset.
"I just saw shoes on the road," Halliday, 20, said. "It all happened in two seconds."
Saturday's "Unite the Right" rally was meant to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The city of Charlottesville voted to remove the statue earlier this year, but it remains in Emancipation Park, formerly known as Lee Park, pending a judge's ruling expected later this month.
Tensions began to escalate Friday night as hundreds of white nationalists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia, chanting "White lives matter!" "You will not replace us!" and "Jews will not replace us!"
They were met by counterprotesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, who founded the university. One counterprotester apparently deployed a chemical spray, which sent about a dozen rally goers seeking medical assistance.
On Saturday morning, men in combat gear - some wearing bicycle and motorcycle helmets and carrying clubs and sticks and makeshift shields - had fought each other in the downtown streets, with little apparent police interference.
A large contingent of Charlottesville police officers and Virginia State Police troopers in riot gear were stationed on side streets and at nearby barricades but did nothing to break up the melee until around 11:40 a.m.