|
Susan
Bro,
center,
mother
of
Heather
Heyer,
is
escorted
down the
steps of
the
courthouse
after a
guilty
verdict
was
reached
in the
trial of
James
Alex
Fields
Jr.,
Friday,
Dec. 7,
2018, at
Charlottesville
General
district
court in
Charlottesville,
Va.
Fields
was
convicted
of first
degree
murder
in the
death of
Heather
Heyer as
well as
nine
other
counts
during a
"Unite
the
Right"
rally in
Charlottesville
. (AP
Photo/Steve
Helber) |
|
Virginia
city
seeks
healing
after
man’s
murder
conviction
By
DENISE
LAVOIE
APNews.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE,
Va. -
Civil
rights
activists
in this
Virginia
city say
they
hope the
first-degree-murder
conviction
of a man
who
drove
into a
group of
counterprotesters
at a
white
nationalist
rally in
2017
will
help
with
healing
their
violence-scarred
community.
In
convicting
James
Alex
Fields
Jr. of
first-degree
murder,
a state
jury on
Friday
rejected
defense
arguments
that the
21-year-old
defendant
had
acted in
self-defense
during a
“Unite
the
Right”
rally in
Charlottesville
on Aug.
12,
2017.
Jurors
also
convicted
Fields
of eight
other
charges,
including
aggravated
malicious
wounding
and hit
and run.
The
jury
will
reconvene
Monday
to
recommend
a
sentence.
Under
Virginia
law,
jurors
can
recommend
from 20
years to
life in
prison
on the
first-degree
murder
charge.
Fields
is
eligible
for the
death
penalty
if
convicted
of
separate
federal
hate
crime
charges.
No trial
has been
scheduled
yet.
During
trial,
jurors
heard
that
Fields
drove to
Virginia
from his
home in
Maumee,
Ohio, to
support
the
white
nationalists.
As a
large
group of
counterprotesters
marched
through
Charlottesville
singing
and
laughing,
he
stopped
his car,
backed
up, then
sped
into the
crowd,
according
to
testimony
from
witnesses
and
video
surveillance
shown to
jurors.
Prosecutors
said
Fields
was
angry
after
witnessing
violent
clashes
between
the two
sides
earlier
in the
day. The
violence
prompted
police
to shut
down the
rally
before
it even
officially
began.
Heather
Heyer, a
32-year-old
paralegal,
was
killed,
and
nearly
three
dozen
others
were
injured.
The
trial
featured
emotional
testimony
from
survivors
who
described
devastating
injuries
and
long,
complicated
recoveries.
After
the
verdict
was
read,
some of
those
who had
been
injured
embraced
Heyer’s
mother,
Susan
Bro. She
left the
courthouse
without
commenting.
Charlottesville
City
Councilor
Wes
Bellamy
said he
hopes
the
verdict
“allows
our
community
to take
another
step
toward
healing
and
moving
forward.”
Charlottesville
civil
rights
activist
Tanesha
Hudson
said she
sees the
guilty
verdict
as the
city’s
way of
saying,
“We will
not
tolerate
this in
our
city.”
“We
don’t
stand
for this
type of
hate,”
she
said.
White
nationalist
Richard
Spencer,
who had
been
scheduled
to speak
at the
Unite
the
Right
rally,
described
the
verdict
as a
“miscarriage
of
justice.”
“I
am sadly
not
shocked,
but I am
appalled
by
this,”
he told
The
Associated
Press of
Field’s
conviction.
“He was
treated
as a
terrorist
from the
get-go.”
Spencer
popularized
the term
“alt-right”
to
describe
a fringe
movement
loosely
mixing
white
nationalism,
anti-Semitism
and
other
far-right
extremist
views.
He said
he
doesn’t
feel any
personal
responsibility
for the
violence.
“Absolutely
not,” he
said.
“As a
citizen,
I have a
right to
protest.
I have a
right to
speak.
That is
what I
came to
Charlottesville
to do.”
The
far-right
rally
had been
organized
in part
to
protest
the
planned
removal
of a
statue
of
Confederate
Gen.
Robert
E. Lee.
Hundreds
of Ku
Klux
Klan
members,
neo-Nazis
and
other
white
nationalists
—
emboldened
by the
election
of
President
Donald
Trump —
streamed
into the
college
town for
one of
the
largest
gatherings
of white
supremacists
in a
decade.
According
to one
of his
former
teachers,
Fields
was
known in
high
school
for
being
fascinated
with
Nazism
and
idolizing
Adolf
Hitler.
Jurors
were
shown a
text
message
he sent
to his
mother
days
before
the
rally
that
included
an image
of the
notorious
German
dictator.
During
one of
two
recorded
phone
calls
Fields
made to
his
mother
from
jail in
the
months
after he
was
arrested,
he told
her he
had been
mobbed
“by a
violent
group of
terrorists”
at the
rally.
In
another,
Fields
referred
to the
mother
of the
woman
who was
killed
as a
“communist”
and “one
of those
anti-white
supremacists.”
Prosecutors
also
showed
jurors a
meme
Fields
posted
on
Instagram
three
months
before
the
rally in
which
bodies
are
shown
being
thrown
into the
air
after a
car hits
a crowd
of
people
identified
as
protesters.
He
posted
the meme
publicly
to his
Instagram
page.
But
Fields’
lawyers
told the
jury
that he
drove
into the
crowd on
the day
of the
rally
because
he
feared
for his
life and
was
“scared
to
death”
by
earlier
violence
he had
witnessed.
A video
of
Fields
being
interrogated
after
the
crash
showed
him
sobbing
and
hyperventilating
after he
was told
a woman
had died
and
others
were
seriously
injured.
Wednesday
Bowie,
who was
struck
by
Fields’
car and
suffered
a broken
pelvis
and
other
injuries,
said she
was
gratified
by the
guilty
verdict.
“This is
the best
I’ve
been in
a year
and a
half,”
Bowie
said.
|
|
|
|
|
|