A
32-year-old woman was killed while walking across the street,
Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said. Police were still in the
process of notifying her family.
Two
Virginia State Patrol troopers were killed in a helicopter crash while
"assisting public safety resources with the ongoing situation in
Charlottesville," the agency said in a news release. The pilot, Lt. H.
Jay Cullen, 48, and Trooper Berke M.M. Bates, who would have turned 41
on Sunday, died in the crash.
Virginia
Gov. Terry McAuliffe had a pointed message for the right-wing groups
that flocked to Charlottesville on Saturday: "Go home. ... You are not
wanted in this great commonwealth. Shame on you."
In
addition to the one death and 19 injuries in the car-ramming incident,
the city said there were at least 15 other injuries associated with the
scheduled rally.
Federal authorities said a civil rights investigation into the deadly crash was opened hours after it happened.
Attorney
General Jeff Sessions said U.S. Attorney Rick Mountcastle is leading
the investigation and has the full support of the Deparment of Justice.
"The
violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American
law and justice. When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred,
they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated," Sessions said in a
statement. "Justice will prevail."
"The
FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and as this is an
ongoing investigation we are not able to comment further at this time,"
said a statement from the Richmond, Virginia FBI field office.
"I
am heartbroken that a life has been lost here. I urge all people of
good will -- go home," Mayor Mike Signer wrote on Twitter.
Virginia's
governor had earlier declared an emergency, and police worked to
disperse hundreds of protesters in the college town after clashes broke
out ahead of the rally's scheduled noon ET start.
Fistfights
and screaming matches erupted Saturday, barely 12 hours after a scuffle
Friday night at the nearby University of Virginia between torch-bearing
demonstrators and counterprotesters.
Saturday's
rally was the latest event drawing white nationalists and right-wing
activists from across the country to this Democratic-voting town -- a
development precipitated by the city's decision to remove symbols of its
Confederate past.
Demonstrators clash late Saturday morning in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Here are the latest developments:
•
The suspect being held in a Virginia jail in connection with a deadly
crash near a scheduled rally of white nationalists has been identified
as James Alex Fields Jr.,
20, of Maumee, Ohio, according to Superintendent Martin Kumer with the
Albermarle-Charlottesville County Regional Jail. Fields is being held on
suspicion of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and failure to
stop in an accident that resulted in death.
• Fields' mother, Samantha Bloom, told the Toledo Blade,
a CNN affiliate, that he told her last week he was going to an
"alt-right" rally, but she didn't get involved in his political views.
"I told him to be careful ... if they are going to rally, to make sure
he is doing it peacefully," she told the newspaper. CNN's attempt to
reach Bloom were unsuccessful.
•
Angela Taylor, a spokeswoman for the University of Virginia Medical
Center, said there were five patients from the crash in critical
condition, four in serious condition, six in fair condition and four in
good condition.
• Video of the incident
shows a gray Dodge Challenger driving quickly down a narrow side street
lined with walking protesters. The sports car rams into the back of a
silver convertible, which hits the van in front of it. Soon the Dodge
driver slams the car in reverse, going back up the street at a high rate
of speed, dragging its front bumper. Several people chase the car. As
the sports car retreats, a red and white athletic shoe falls off the
bumper.
Another video shows at
least one person being thrown over the rear of the car onto the roof of
the silver convertible then sliding down onto the hood.
•
Witness Chris Mahony said he and a friend, who shot one of the videos,
were walking down the street when he saw the gray car on the other side
of the street.
"It just sat there,
looking down the road," he said. "I thought that's a bit strange. There
didn't seem to be any other cars stopping him from going. And then a
couple moments we heard a car going incredibly fast down the road and
then it plowed into the crowd."
•
Three other people were arrested Saturday, Virginia State Police said.
Two of the men were from out of state. One of the out-of-state men faces
a charge of carrying a concealed handgun and the other is charged
disorderly conduct. A Virginia man was arrested on suspicion of assault
and battery.
• President Donald
Trump told reporters: "We are closely following the terrible events
unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia. We condemn in the strongest
possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on
many sides, on many sides. It has been going on for a long time in our
country -- not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a
long, long time. It has no place in America."
•
Former President Barack Obama, quoting Nelson Mandela, wrote on
Twitter: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of
his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate,
and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love
comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
•
Sen. Ted Cruz called on the US Justice Department "to immediately
investigate and prosecute today's grotesque act of domestic terrorism."
In a posting on Facebook,
Cruz said it was "tragic and heartbreaking to see hatred and racism
once again mar our great nation with bloodshed." Cruz called the white
supremacists "repulsive and evil."
Photos: Violence erupts at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia
• Police began to break up crowds shortly before noon, after city officials declared the gathering an "unlawful assembly."
• Some protesters fired pepper spray at other demonstrators, state police said.
• Gov. McAuliffe declared a state of emergency "to aid state response to violence," according to a post on his Twitter account.
Police in riot gear stood
shoulder to shoulder behind shields early Saturday afternoon, at times
advancing toward crowds, CNN video shows.
By 1 p.m. ET, police had cleared the park where the rally was to be held.
It
wasn't immediately clear what led to the fights, though tensions and
rhetoric were running hot. At one point, a few dozen white men wearing
helmets and holding makeshift shields chanted, "Blood and soil!" Later,
another group chanted slogans such as, "Nazi scum off our streets!"
Demonstrators gather Saturday ahead of a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
People
punched and kicked each other during various scuffles, which often were
broken up from within crowds, without police intervention, CNN video
shows.
Police presence was heavy,
with more than 1,000 officers expected to be deployed, city officials
said. Police anticipated the rally would attract as many as 2,000 to
6,000 people, and the Southern Poverty Law Center said it could be the
"largest hate-gathering of its kind in decades in the United States."
Counterprotesters gather Saturday morning in Charlottesville, Virginia, ahead of a "Unite the Right" rally.
White
nationalists carrying torches surround protesters Friday night at the
foot of a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the University of Virginia's
campus.
Charlottesville,
once home to Thomas Jefferson, is known as a progressive city of about
47,000 people. During last year's presidential election, 80% of its
voters chose Hillary Clinton.
But
far-right activists and Ku Klux Klan members have come here in recent
months, outraged by the city's intention to remove traces of its links
to the Confederacy -- including plans to remove a statue of Confederate
Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The effort
developed amid a push by communities across the South to remove
Confederate iconography from public property since the 2015 rampage
killings of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, by a self-described white supremacist.
Ahead
of Saturday's planned rally, tensions roiled Friday night as white
nationalists -- some holding what appeared to be backyard tiki-style
torches -- marched onto the University of Virginia's campus.
White nationalists and others march Friday night through the University of Virginia campus.
Chanting,
"Blood and soil" and "You will not replace us," the group rallied
around a statue of Thomas Jefferson before they clashed with
counterprotesters, CNN affiliate WWBT reported. The group left the university's grounds when police arrived and declared the gathering an unlawful assembly.
City and UVA officials condemned Friday's march.
"In
my 47 years of association with @UVA, this was the most nauseating
thing I've ever seen. We need an exorcism on the Lawn," Larry Sabato,
director of the university's Center for Politics, tweeted.
Signer, the Charlottesville
mayor, released a statement referring to Friday's rally as a "cowardly
parade of hatred, bigotry, racism, and intolerance march down the lawns
of the architect of our Bill of Rights."
"Everyone
has a right under the First Amendment to express their opinion
peaceably, so here's mine: not only as the Mayor of Charlottesville, but
as a UVA faculty member and alumnus, I am beyond disgusted by this
unsanctioned and despicable display of visual intimidation on a college
campus," he added.
Friday's march took place
shortly after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction allowing
right-wing activists to hold Saturday's rally.
City
officials had tried to "modify" the rally's permit to move the
demonstration from the park with the Lee statue more than a mile away to
McIntire Park, citing safety concerns.
In
February, the city council voted to remove the Lee statue, but that is
on hold pending litigation. The council also voted to rename two city
parks that had been named for Confederate generals; one of those,
Emancipation Park, was due to be the site of Saturday's rally.
Jason
Kessler, who organized Saturday's "Unite the Right" rally, said he
doesn't consider himself to be a white nationalist. But, he said, "we're
going to start standing up for our history."
"The
statue itself is symbolic of a lot of larger issues. The primary three
issues are preserving history against this censorship and revisionism --
this political correctness," he told CNN Friday.
"The
second issue is being allowed to advocate for your interests as a white
person, just like other groups are allowed to advocate for their
interests politically. And finally, this is about free speech. We are
simply trying to express ourselves and do a demonstration, and the local
government has tried to shut us down."
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