The 20-year-old man accused of driving a car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally Saturday, James Alex Fields Jr., was denied bail in court Monday morning.
Judge Robert H. Downer Jr. said at a Monday morning hearing that he would appoint a lawyer for Fields, who faces charges of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and failure to stop at the scene of an accident, after the deadly car attack in Charlottesville, Va. Fields did not enter a plea in his video appearance at a General District Court in Charlottesville.
As crowds began dispersing in the aftermath of a “Unite the Right” rally, Fields allegedly drove a gray Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters. The Dodge rear-ended a sedan, which crashed into a minivan in front of it. A 32-year-old woman, Heather D. Heyer, died and at least 19 others were injured, according to authorities. The Dodge sped from the scene, but Charlottesville police later found and stopped the vehicle, and took Fields, who lives in Maumee, Ohio, into custody.
The incident marked the highest point of tension during Saturday’s rally, which saw violent clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters. The rally had been planned in protest of the removal of a Confederate monument from a public park and attracted hundreds of white supremacists. President Trump, who condemned “many sides” for the violence, had been
criticized for his failure to explicitly denounce white supremacists until Monday.
Fields’ court-appointed attorney, Charles Weber, did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News. The judge said that Fields was not assigned a public defender because a relative of an employee in the public defender’s office was involved in Saturday’s incident.
Born and raised in Kentucky, Fields caught the attention of his high school teachers for his fascination with Nazi Germany. Social studies teacher Derek Weimer, who taught Fields in three classes at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Ky., told the
Cincinnati Enquirer that Fields had written an assignment that “was much along the party lines of the neo-Nazi movement” and so alarming that another teacher filed a report on it.