The Charlottesville car attack was a white supremacist terrorist attack perpetrated on August 12, 2017, when James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one person and injuring 35. Fields, who was 20 at the time, had previously espoused neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs, and drove from Ohio to attend the rally.
Fields's attack was called an act of domestic terrorism by the mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia's public safety secretary, the U.S. attorney general, and the director of the FBI.
Fields was convicted in a state court of the first-degree murder of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, eight counts of malicious wounding, and hit and run. He also pled guilty to 29 of 30 federal hate crime charges to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 419 years for the state charges, with an additional life sentence for the federal charges.
Background and attack
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia from August 11 to 12, 2017. Jason Kessler, the organizer of the rally, had been protesting for months against the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville.
The August rally had been preceded by a Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville on July 8, 2017. That motivated many concerned local residents to ally with activist protesters against the white supremacists' rally the next month.
Individuals and groups of different beliefs and tactics participated in a demonstration against the rally. Many counter-protesters turned out despite the potential threat of violence. Protesters and some militant counter-protesters attacked each other. According to a police report, on Saturday, August 12, 2017, "A school resource officer stationed at the intersection of 4th Street NE and Market Street was reassigned," after she radioed for assistance following violent skirmishes' breaking out causing her to feel unsafe." However, she was not replaced, thus leaving the intersection without a police presence.
According to the report, "unknown persons" displaced a sawhorse barricade set up to block traffic from moving down 4th Street South-East, away from the Downtown Mall—a pedestrian area spanning eight blocks along Main Street—toward East Water Street. Fields was driving south along Fourth Street behind two other drivers, Lizete Short and Tadrint "Tay" Washington, when they were impeded by a large group of counter-protesters heading towards Market Street. All three initially stopped their vehicles, a silver 2010 Dodge Challenger coupe, a maroon Honda Odyssey minivan, a silver Toyota Camry sedan, respectively. Fields then backed up over a block, idling for a moment on the other side of Downtown Mall (Main Street), still facing towards the crowd further down Fourth Street.
At around 1:45 p.m. on August 12, 2017, Fields revved the engine of the Dodge Challenger and accelerated rapidly towards the crowd of counter-protesters and the two other vehicles. Fields rammed his vehicle into pedestrians "with an audible thud," the impact reportedly sending people "flying through the air" over another car near the intersection of Fourth and Water streets. A police crash reconstructionist estimated Fields reached a top speed of before the crash. Fields's car then struck Washington's stationary Toyota at an estimated , accelerating Washington and her car to in . The struck vehicle also hit the maroon minivan ahead, "sending that vehicle into more pedestrians," including its driver Short, who had stepped out to record the protest. Seconds after the initial impact, Fields reversed his vehicle back up Fourth Street, striking more people in the process, his car's front bumper now dislodged and scraping the road. People who had avoided the attack chased after Fields and his vehicle.
After backing up at a high speed for several blocks, Fields then turned left and sped down Market Street. A Virginia State Police Bell 407 helicopter, which crashed about three hours later, followed the car and relayed its route to ground units. A deputy stopped and arrested Fields on Monticello Avenue, about from the attack. The deputy waited for backup to arrive, and detective Steven Young came from the police department. According to Young, Fields kept apologizing and asked if anyone was injured. When Young told him that a person had died, Fields appeared shocked and started to cry. Young said that the Dodge had holes in the rear window and heavy front-end damage; Young said that the car was "splattered" with blood and flesh. A reusable water bottle was lodged against the windshield and a pair of blue sunglasses were stuck in the spoiler on the car's trunk.
Immediate aftermath Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old woman, was fatally injured in the attack, and died at the University of Virginia Medical Center.Nora Neus / politico.com: Counter-Protesters Remember the Death of Heather Heyer (politico.com 12 August 2022) Initially, 19 injuries were reported, as 20 patients were taken at the University of Virginia Medical Center. In the evening, five people were in critical condition and 14 others were being treated for lesser injuries. Nine people had been discharged and ten remained hospitalized in good condition the next day. Testimony at the preliminary hearing in December 2017 revealed that a total of 35 people were injured.
The organizer of the Unite the Right rally, Jason Kessler, held a news conference near the Charlottesville City Hall the day after the car attack. A crowd of around 100 counter-protesters shouted him down, screaming "murderer." In February 2018, three were found guilty of assaulting Kessler at the news conference and a case against a person charged with spitting on Kessler was continued until February 2019 at the request of the prosecution.
Perpetrator
James Alex Fields Jr. (born April 26, 1997) drove the car.
Fields's father had been killed in a car crash on December 5, 1996, five months before he was born. Fields was born in Kenton, Kentucky, and grew up with his mother, Samantha Bloom, who was paraplegic, in Florence, Kentucky. After living in southwest Florence for ten years, Bloom and Fields moved to Monclova Township, Lucas County, Ohio, for her job in late 2016.
According to Fields' high-school history teacher, Derek Weimer, Fields was diagnosed with schizophrenia and prescribed an antipsychotic medication for anger management. Fields later told a judge that he was receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). His attorneys also brought up his difficult upbringing and history of mental illness ahead of his sentencing. It was highlighted by his lawyers that he was brought up by a single paraplegic mother and suffered from trauma growing up knowing that his Jewish grandfather murdered his grandmother before committing suicide.
Until his arrest in Charlottesville, Fields worked for about two years as a security guard in Ohio. Fields's mother told the Toledo Blade that he had "recently moved out on his own." According to acquaintances, Fields "filled his time" playing video games and working at a local grocery store.
Biography Fields threatened his mother with violence on multiple occasions. In November 2010, she locked herself in a bathroom, afraid of her son. She told the police that he took her phone, struck her head, put his hands over her mouth, and threatened to beat her after she told him to stop playing video games.
In February 2011, Fields's mother reported to the police at 5:20 a.m. that he had not come home; she said that he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Two hours later, she reported to the police that Fields "was home and acting lethargic;" he threatened to run away "if police came to the condo." In October 2011, Fields threatened her with a knife; she called the police the next day to say that her son had been "very threatening" toward her and that she was scared and did not feel in control of the situation because she was in a wheelchair. In November 2011, Fields spat in his mother's face and threatened her, and a woman requested that the police help Fields's mother get him to a hospital for assessment; the log for the call reads, "Mom is scared he is going to become violent here." Fields was subsequently arrested and held in juvenile detention.
When he was a senior in high school, Fields applied to join the U.S. Army. Weimer, his history teacher and a former Ohio National Guard officer, helped him because Weimer believed that the military "would expose Fields to people of different races and backgrounds and help him dispel his white supremacist views." Fields was eventually rejected, which Weimer called a "big blow."
Fields graduated from Randall K. Cooper High School in 2015.
Fields entered the Army on August 18, 2015, and was released from active duty "due to a failure to meet training standards" on December 11 the same year. Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Jennifer Johnson said that Fields "was never awarded a military occupational skill nor was he assigned to a unit outside of basic training." Weimer lost contact with Fields after he had graduated and was "surprised" when he heard that Fields had managed to enlist in the army.
Fields purchased his first car, the 2010 Dodge Challenger used in the attack, from a car dealership in Florence, Kentucky, in June 2015. The car was last registered in Ohio, and Fields updated its title in Maumee, Ohio, in July 2015. In May 2017, local court records show, the Maumee police cited him for expired or unlawful license plates.
Ideology An ex-schoolmate of Fields said that Fields would draw swastikas and talk about "loving Hitler" as early as middle school. Fields' high school history teacher said that Fields was "deeply into Adolf Hitler and white supremacy". The teacher, Derek Weimer, reportedly taught Fields in three classes at Randall K. Cooper High School and "had regular interaction with him after classes and during free time". He told The Cincinnati Enquirer, "I'm sure if you would ask James he would say I was his favorite or one of his favorite teachers." Weimer said that Fields was "a very bright kid but very misguided and disillusioned". Weimer said, "Once you talked to James for a while, you would start to see that sympathy towards Nazism, that idolization of Hitler, that belief in white supremacy. It would start to creep out."
Weimer said that he had done his best to steer Fields away from those interests and had thought that he had succeeded in doing so. He said that he felt like he failed as a teacher because of the attack, but that "this is definitely a teachable moment and something we need to be vigilant about, because this stuff is tearing up our country". Weimer said that another teacher had filed a report during Fields' freshman year because he had written something that was "very much along the party lines of the neo-Nazi movement". He said that it "would have been standard procedure" to notify Fields' mother and that the school administrators "were very good about keeping parents in the loop".