Source: Anadolu Agency / Getty
Here’s what we know…. a Unite the Right rally was planned by a group of white nationalists which included neo-Nazis, skinheads and Ku Klux Klan members. The gathering was prompted by the city’s plans to remove a Confederate statue from a local park. The rally was met by hundreds of counterprotesters when chaos kicked off including pepper spray, street brawls, clases and more. The clash prompted the Governor, Terry McAuleffe to declare a state of emergency.
In the midst of the chaos a group of counterprotesters were marching along a downtown street when a silver Dodge Challenger came barreling through the crowd. The impact tossed people into the air, and left a 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, dead.
The suspect
The driver is James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old who recently moved to Ohio from where he grew up in Kentucky. A former teacher said Fields had a keen interest in military history, Hitler and Nazi, Germany.
Fields is charged with second-degree murder and other counts after authorities say he drove into the crowd, fatally injuring one woman and hurting 19 others. Fields is set to make his first court appearance.
The victims
32-year-old, Heather Heyer, single mother, was killed while marching with the crowd hit by the car allegedly driven by Fields. There were also two other fatalities related to the rally: A Virginia State Police helicopter crashed into woods nearby, killing two officers. Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates died at the scene.
Local vigil
A candlelight vigil is planned for 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Martin Luther King Memorial Gardens at 1500 Martin Luther King Boulevard in Raleigh for the victims of this weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Read more at ABC11.com
