Charlottesville driver accused of killing 1 person and injuring others faces federal hate crime charges
- The Department of Justice has indicted the driver of a car involved in a deadly accident in Charlottesville, Virginia on federal hate crime charges.
- He faces over 30 other charges related to the incident, which killed one person and injured many others.
- The accident occurred at the white nationalist "Unite The Right" rally that took place in summer 2017.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal hate crime charges have been filed against a man accused of plowing a car into a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing a woman and injuring dozens more.
The Department of Justice announced that an indictment returned Wednesday charges 21-year-old James Alex Fields of Ohio with 30 crimes, including one count of a hate crime resulting in the death of Heather Heyer, and 28 other hate crimes involving an attempt to kill other people who were injured.
Fields already faces state charges of first-degree murder and other crimes.
Along with the death of Heyer, 32, 19 people were additionally injured in the car accident, which took place on August 12th, 2017.
The car drove into a crowd demonstrating against the "Unite the Right" rally led by white nationalist and alt-right activists. The events in Charlottesville resulted in the deaths of three people, including two state troopers, and at injuries of at least 30 others from the violent clashes between the demonstrators.
Fields was photographed hours before the attack with a shield bearing the emblem of one of the hate groups taking part in the rally. He has been in custody since then.