35 Injured in Virginia After White Supremacist Drives Car Into Protesters

The “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally held this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent after a man rammed his car into a group of counter-demonstrators.

A group of protestors representing several white extremist groups gathered in Charlottesville Friday and Saturday, protesting against the removal of the statue of Confederate icon General Robert E. Lee, while counter-demonstrators grouped together to confront them.

The confrontation between the two groups lead to violent clashes between the two groups.

On Saturday afternoon, a man driving a speeding car rammed into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, leading to the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer and the injury of 35 people, said Al Jazeera.

The car driver, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., was shortly arrested and charged with second degree murderer, one count of hit and run, and three counts of malicious wounding, reported BBC, who said that Fields held “Nazi sympathies.”

After the incident, local police intervened and broke up the protests, while the Charlottesville governor declared a “state of emergency.”

On August 12, US president Donald Trump issued a statement about the protests on Twitter, saying that “we all must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!”

Trump has since come under fire for not specifically denouncing the white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the deadly violence was “the definition of domestic terrorism,” and that the Justice Department was opening an investigation into the event.

He also said that FBI agents from the terrorism and civil rights divisions have also launched investigations.

Source: BNA