NAZI MOB’S DEADLY RAMPAGE
Trump under fire for refusing to condemn white supremacists
VIOLENCE has erupted in the US as bloody clashes between white supremacists and protesters left three dead.
Brandishing swastika banners and chanting ‘Jews will not replace us’, hundreds of white nationalists fought counter-demonstrators as police armed with tear gas failed to quell the violence.
One woman was killed when a car ploughed into protesters opposing the far-Right marchers at high speed – sending protesters flying through the air – while two police officers monitoring the trouble in Charlottesville, Virginia, died after their helicopter crashed.
Donald Trump was last night accused of condoning white-supremacist violence with a mealy-mouthed response to the trouble.
Paralegal Heather Heyer was killed on Saturday when the Dodge Challenger accelerated into a crowd, sending bodies flying and knocking other vehicles into them, before reversing at high speed.
The 32-year-old’s mother said: ‘She died doing what was right. My heart is broken, but I am forever proud of her.’
Prosecutors charged James Fields, 20, with second-degree murder and three counts of malicious wounding over the incident.
Photos revealed Fields, of Ohio, had marched in Charlottesville on Saturday with white-nationalist group Vanguard America. It last night insisted he was not a member.
Marcus Martin’s leg was broken in the crash after he pushed his fiancee Marissa Blair out of the car’s path.
The 26-year-old was thrown over the vehicle before it backed over him as it reversed. Ms Blair, 27, said: ‘He saved me then he was under the car.’
The violence was sparked by the removal of a statue of Robert E Lee, commander of pro-slavery Confederate forces in the Civil War. White supremacists exploited the row to campaign to ‘save white culture’.
Similar memorials have been taken down across the South amid protests they are offensive to African-Americans.
Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan were among those in Charlottesville, carrying sticks, riot shields and holstered pistols.
Ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke claimed protesters at the Unite The Right rally were ‘going to fulfil the promises of Donald Trump’ to ‘take our country back’. As a state of emergency was declared in Virginia, Mr Trump was criticised for his failure to single out white nationalists.
He told a press conference: ‘We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, violence, on many sides. The hate and division must stop, and must stop right now.’
But Republican strategist Ana Navarro said: ‘This is not “many sides”.
‘It’s white supremacist terrorism. The President of the United States does not have the spine to say so. Shameful.’
Republican senator Marco Rubio said the president needed to be more decisive in denouncing the white nationalists. But the White
House said Mr Trump had condemned ‘all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred’, and ‘of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups’.
Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka tweeted: ‘There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazis.’
The department of justice has opened a civil-rights investigation into the car attack. Attorney general Jeff Sessions said: ‘The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice.’
National security adviser HR McMaster said he considered Miss Heyer’s death to be an act of terrorism.