James Alex Fields Jr., 20, was arrested Saturday, and charged with the murder of Heather Heyer. Heyer, 32, was killed when Fields rammed his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, NC. A number of other people were injured, critically. The attack on the counter-protesters occurred during a white nationalist rally.
White supremacists gathered in Charlottesville this weekend to protest the removal of a confederate statue, but the gathering had wider social implications. Dubbed “Unite the Right,” protesters marched through the University of Virginia campus, where they were met by students who objected to their presence at the school.
Violent clashes followed and raged for hours. President Trump blamed both sides for the violence in a lukewarm acknowledgement of the clash, but never mentioned any of the racist groups by name and did not condemn white supremacy. His comments came only after his wife, Melania, deplored violence in a tweet she posted to the web.
