A 20-year-old man from Ohio has been charged with attempted murder after a car was driven into a group of protesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday.
Police charged James Alex Fields Jr. with second-degree murder and other counts after the silver Dodge Challenger they say he was driving barrelled through a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman and wounding at least 19 others.
Above: Car rams into protesters at white nationalists rally in Charlottesville
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Fields is to be arraigned Monday.
Who is James Fields Jr.?
Fields was raised by a single mother, Samantha Bloom, as his father was killed by a drunk driver, an uncle told the Washington Post.
Fields was left with some money by his father, who managed the funds in a trust.
“When he turned 18, he demanded his money, and that was the last I had any contact with him,” the uncle said.
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Derek Weimer, a teacher at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, says he was aware of Fields’ politics during his freshman year,
He told the Cincinnati Enquirer another teacher reported his student for an assignment “that just went beyond the pale.
“It was very much along the party lines of the neo-Nazi movement,” Weimer said.
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According to the New York Times, Fields joined the U.S. military for a few months in 2015. He went to boot camp on August 18th but was finished active duty on December 11.
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Fields moved from Kentucky to Ohio just over a year ago.
Bloom told the Toledo Blade the family moved to Maumee, OH for her job.
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Bloom said she received a text message from her son Friday saying he had dropped his cat at her apartment so he could head to an alt-right rally in Virginia.
She told the Associated Press she believed the rally was in support of President Donald Trump.
“I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump’s not a white supremacist,” Bloom said.
Fields’ photo from event surfaces
A photo from the event taken by the New York Daily News appears to show Fields standing with a group of neo-Nazis, holding a shield which was handed out by the Vanguard America group.
The Anti-Defamation League says Vanguard America “is a white supremacist group that opposes multiculturalism and believes America is an exclusively white nation.”
Vanguard Group issued a statement denying having any ties to Fields.
“The shields were freely handed out to anyone in attendance,” the organization said.
The New York Daily News said the photo was taken around 10:30 a.m., just a few hours before the crash, which occurred at around 1:42 p.m.
James Fields on social media
Several media organizations are reporting Fields was on Facebook as “Conscious Ovis Aries.”
The New York Daily News reported that the page was deactivated at around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
The page reportedly contained alt-right and Nazi imagery.
— With Files from the Associated Press
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