James Alex Fields, Jr. is being charged with second-degree murder after he allegedly rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors outside a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Image by Albermarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail

By Aiden Pink August 13, 2017

The man accused of killing a woman by plowing his car into a crowd of counter-protesters outside a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday is a Nazi sympathizer dating back to high school, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

James Alex Fields, Jr., age 20, who drove to the rally from Ohio, wrote a high school research project on World War II that was a “big lovefest for the German military and the Waffen-SS,” his former history teacher, Derek Weimer, told the Post.

“It was obvious that he had this fascination with Nazism and a big idolatry of Adolf Hitler,” Weimer said. “He had white supremacist views. He really believed in that stuff.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Online photographs of Fields show him wearing the regalia of the “alt-right” group Vanguard America, including a shield, but the organization denied that Fields was a member.

According to police, Fields’s minivan came to a stop behind a sedan on a street packed with anti-fascist protesters. He allegedly slammed his car into the sedan, causing a collision with people, then hit more people by reversing his vehicle at high speed.

His alleged actions led to the death of Heather Heyer, age 32. Fields is being charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and an additional vehicular charge. The FBI and the local district attorney are opening a civil rights investigation into the events in Charlottesville, which were precipitated by a 500-strong white nationalist protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a public park.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount