James Alex Fields Jr.

Fields Jr.

The car in question.

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James Alex Fields Jr. (born 1997) is an American neo-Nazi domestic terrorist. He was convicted of first-degree murder in December 2018 for driving a car into a crowd, killing 32-year-old Charlottesville, Virginia resident Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others who were protesting a rally staged by various alt-right groups called "Unite the Right" in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017.

Early life

Fields was born in Kenton, Kentucky, to Samantha Lea Bloom. By the time he was attending Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, his extremist views were well-known by his fellow students. He drew swastikas everywhere, according to several of his former classmates, and by his senior year, he was known as "the Nazi of the school".

He had a number of aggressive incidents at his childhood home, resulting in the Boone County Kentucky Sheriff's Office and the Florence Police Department responding nine times from November 2010 to February 2013 to the condominium of his mother, where he lived at the time.

Fields then tried his hand at army life. Military records show Fields entered the army on August 18, 2015, but his active duty ended just months later on December 11. The army said Fields was released from active duty in December 2015 due to "a failure to meet training standards."

After this auspicious start in life, one can maybe assume he then found a bunch of fellow /pol/ members with whom he felt he could join in the coming race war.

Blocking of Market Street

Tadrint "Tay" Washington, the driver of the Toyota Camry which Fields rear-ended, testified that there was a police car and barrier on Market Street preventing her from driving anywhere but down 4th Street.

Ramming of the BLM crowd

After being photographed attending the "Unite the Right" rally marching with (and wielding a shield distributed by) neo-Nazi hate group Vanguard America earlier in the day, Fields drove his silver Dodge Challenger into a crowd of people who had been protesting the assembly of white nationalists, white supremacists, fascists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, Identitarians, Neo-Confederates, Anti-Semites, self-proclaimed "Kekistanis", Anticom members, very fine people, and others according to authorities. Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer, 32, was killed in the car attack perpetrated by Fields and at least 19 others were also injured.

Upon publication of photos of Fields standing with members of neo-Nazi hate group Vanguard America, the group released a statement on Twitter saying that Fields had no association with the group. Of course, even that tweet was deleted by the group. As a footnote to all of this, in a brief victory for sane Twitter users, Twitter finally seemed to disable Vanguard America's account only to allow them to set up a brand new one just a few days later.

Heyer's DNA was found on the windshield of Fields' car, ruling out alt-right conspiracy theories that she wasn't run over by that monster's car. Other bullshit theories concocted up by apologists include that Fields couldn't have possibly been driving at speeds possible of causing Heyer's death, despite the fact that he was driving at such a speed (specifically 28 mph) that sent victims flying when he rammed them through.

Police description

On 12 August 2017, the Charlottesville police reported the incident as follows:

The three-vehicle crash occurred on 4th Street. A Dodge Challenger was traveling south on 4th Street at a high rate of speed when it rear-ended a sedan headed south on 4th Street. The impact of that crash pushed the sedan into the minivan in front of it. The minivan had slowed for a crowd a people crossing through the intersection. The impact of the crash pushed the vehicles into the crowd of pedestrians. The Dodge Challenger fled the scene, but was located and stopped a short time later by Charlottesville Police.

Visuals

The visual evidence that Fields drove his car into the counterprotest is overwhelming, as documented below:

Claims that Dwayne Dixon chased James Fields with an AR-15

Dwayne Dixon claimed that he chased James Fields with a semi-automatic rifle before the crash. Far-right sources used this to claim Fields was therefore under duress or acted out of fear. For example, Gateway Pundit writes:

Dwayne Dixon, a University of North Carolina anthropology professor and leader of the armed Antifa group Redneck Revolt, has admitted to chasing James Alex Fields Jr. with a rifle just before he drove into a group of protesters — killing Heather Heyer.

However, these claims were shown to be incorrect.

What's true: Dwayne Dixon is a member of the far-left group Redneck Revolt. Dixon was in the vicinity of 4th street (he was photographed in Justice Park, on Park Street). In a 7 January Facebook post, Dixon asserted that he "chased off" Fields' car before Fields killed Heather Heyer.

What's false: if we're willing to trust Dixon's 7 January Facebook post, then we should also trust his 3 February speech. Dixon asserted that [1] Fields circled around the Redneck Revolt area several times, [2] Dixon "waved him off" with his AR15, [3] in Fields' final circle (not the same as the one where he was waved off), Fields accelerated into the crowd. In fact, the area where Dixon was stationed (Justice Park) is 4 blocks (about 0.25 miles) away from the crash site. Fields would've had ample time to brake before reaching the intersection and also had the option of turning at Market St. to avoid the crowd. Moreover, as the street footage shows, Fields increased his acceleration towards the intersection even when he could see that his path was blocked -- and then, after the crash, he backed up straight towards Justice Park (where Dixon was allegedly chasing him). The far-right claims also ignore the facts laid out in court by police detective Steven Young, who was investigating the attack, that Fields' car first arrived near the intersection slowly and idled for a time before backing up and accelerating at the crowd at high speed. This is proven by footage taken via police helicopter and a security camera outside a restaurant near the intersection that was shown before the court.

Field's defense team raised Dixon's statements as a defense at trial. However, evidence obtained from cell phone geolocation data and presented by the prosecution showed that Dixon and Fields weren't even close to one another.

The timeline and evidence are presented below:

Trials

Fields was charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count related to leaving the scene of the wreck according to The Associated Press. Investigators also investigated whether Fields crossed state lines with the intent to commit violence according to NPR's Carrie Johnson.

At his first hearing, Fields appeared in court via a video conference from the local jail and did not enter a plea. He was denied bail. After the hearing, white nationalist Matthew Heimbach approached a group of reporters and accused them of being "liars" and insisted Fields was "scared for his life". He painted himself and the other white supremacists as the actual victims, like any white supremacist "leader" would.

On 27 June 2018, Fields was charged with 30 counts of federal hate crimes for his alleged role in the attack.

On 14 December 2017, Fields was charged with first-degree murder in Virginia and was indicted by a grand jury in Charlottesville on 18 December 2017. Fields' Virginia State trial began on 26 November 2018. On December 7, 2018, after several hours of deliberation by the jury, he was convicted of first-degree murder, multiple counts of aggravated malicious wounding and malicious wounding, and leaving the scene of an accident. The jury later called for the judge to enforce a sentence of life plus 419 years for the crimes.

On March 27, 2019, Fields pleaded guilty to 29 of the 30 counts against him in exchange for federal prosecutors not seeking the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison in June 2019 in federal court. In July 2019, the sentence for the state charges was entered as life without parole for the murder and 419 years on the rest.