Man charged in Charlottesville car attack was seen attending hate rally,
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.— The man accused of plowing a car into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally in Virginia had been photographed hours earlier carrying the emblem of one of the hate groups that organized the “Take America Back” campaign.
Vanguard America denied on Sunday any association with the suspect, even as a separate hate group that organized Saturday’s rally pledged on social media to organize future events that would be “bigger than Charlottesville.”
The mayor of Charlottesville and political leaders of all political stripes vowed to combat the hate groups and urged U.S. President Donald Trump to forcefully denounce the organizations that had promoted the protest against the removal of a Confederate statue. Some of those groups specifically cited Trump’s election after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric as validation of their beliefs.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced late Saturday that federal authorities would pursue a civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash.
Police charged James Alex Fields Jr. with second-degree murder and other counts after the silver Dodge Challenger they say he was driving barrelled through a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a woman and wounding at least 19. Hours later, two state troopers were killed when the helicopter they were flying in as part of a large-scale police effort crashed outside the city.
In a photo taken by the New York Daily News, Fields was shown standing with a half-dozen other men, all wearing the Vanguard America uniform of khakis and white polo shirts. The men held white shields with Vanguard America’s black-and-white logo of two crossed axes. The Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee was in the background.