Charlottesville Rally: Hate Crime Charges For Driver Who Killed 1

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — The man accused of driving through a crowd of peaceful counter-protesters at a Charlottesville white nationalist rally last August, killing one person and injuring several others, has been indicted on hate crime charges, according to the Department of Justice. James Alex Fields Jr., 21, of Maumee, Ohio was indicted on 30 counts, including federal hate crime charges.

Fields was indicted by a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Charlottesville on Wednesday. Fields was charged with one count of a hate crime act resulting in the death of Heather Heyer and 28 counts of of hate crime acts causing bodily injury and involving an attempt to kill.

Heyer, 32, was a paralegal who joined the scores of counter-protesters in Charlottesville last August to demonstrate against the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who descended on the Virginia city to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Those who knew Heyer described her as compassionate and her mother, Susan Bro, said she had a very strong sense of right and wrong.

Fields was also charged with one count of "racially motivated violent interference with a federally protected activity (18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)), resulting in the death of Heather Heyer, for driving his car into a crowd of protestors on a downtown street in Charlottesville, Virginia."

The indictment alleges that after an unlawful assembly was declared, Field returned to this car and soon after drove to the vicinity of Fourth and East Market streets in downtown Charlottesville. He then drove his car onto Fourth Street, a "narrow, downhill, one-way street," the indictment says. The DOJ says a "racially and ethnically diverse crowd" was gathered at the bottom of the hill.

Fields slowly proceeded towards the crowd before he stopped and observed them while idling in his car, the indictment alleges.

"Many of the individuals in the crowd were chanting and carrying signs promoting equality and protesting against racial and other forms of discrimination," the DOJ said in a press release.

The indictment alleges Fields slowly reversed his car to the top of the hill and then "rapidly accelerated, ran through a stop sign and across a raised pedestrian mall, and drove directly into the crowd, striking numerous individuals, killing Heather Heyer, and injuring many others."

His car stopped when it struck another and then he fled the scene, the indictment says.

The rally in Charlottesville was marked with violence and deadly clashes that culminated with the car attack that left Heyer dead. As public figures and lawmakers condemned the bigotry and the hatred on the part of the neo-Nazis and white supremacists that arrived in Charlottesville for the rally, President Trump said his administration condemns such displays on "many sides." City officials said 35 people were injured in events related to the rally. Two Virginia State troopers were also killed in a helicopter crash as they helped monitor events at the deadly rally.

Jason Kessler, the organizer of the "Unite The Right" rally, was recently given a permit by the National Park Service for a "white civil rights" in Washington D.C. The rally would take place Aug. 11-12, on the anniversary of the Charlottesville rally.

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