The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Driver described as bright but misguided
20-year-old charged with second-degree murder in Virginia.
James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio was charged with second-degree murder in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday after authorities said he smashed a car intoaline of cars in an episode that left a 32-year-old woman dead and injured at least 19 other people who were protesting a rally staged by white nationalists.
Background
■ Fields, 20, was born in Kenton, Kentucky, to Samantha Lea Bloom.
■ He was living with his mother until “five or six months ago” when he moved to his own apartment in Maumee, Ohio, according to an interview Bloom gave to The Toledo Blade. They moved to Ohio from Kentucky about a year ago because of her job, she said.
■ Field s ’ father died before he was born, an aunt, Pam Fields, said in an interview Sunday.
■ Pam Fields said she had not seen her nephew, whom she remembered as a “very quiet little boy,” more than five times in the past 10 years.
■ A friend and former neighbor of Bloom’s in the condominium complex where she lived until last year remembered her son as a quiet teenager who “kept to himself a lot.”
“He had some trouble in school making friends,” said the friend, who requested anonymity because she said she feared for her safety.
“(His mom) had struggled with him during his teen years, but he came around toward the end of school,” she said, adding, “she was always trying to do the best for her son.”
■ In an interview with The Associated Press, Bloom said she knew her son was going to a rally, but she tried to “stay out of his political views.” She said she thought the rally “had something to do with Trump,” adding, “Trump’s not a supremacist.”
■ Derek Weimer, 45, told The Cincinnati Enquirer that Fields was one of his students when he taught history at Randall K. Cooper High School. He described Fields as “a very bright kid but very misguided and disillusioned.”
When Fields was a freshman, he wrote a report for another class that was “very much along the party lines of the neo-Nazi movement,” Weimer said.
Military records show that Fields entered the Army on Aug. 18, 2015, around the time his mother wrote on Facebook that he had left for boot camp. Less than four months later, on Dec. 11, his period of active duty concluded. It was not immediately clear why he left.