James Alex Fields Jr. Indicted on 30 Counts Including Hate
Crime Resulting in the Death of Heather Heyer
A federal grand jury sitting in the U.S. District Court for
the Western District of Virginia in Charlottesville today charged an Ohio man
with federal hate crimes, including a hate crime act that resulted in the death
of Heather Heyer, for his actions during the Aug. 12, 2017 “Unite the Right
Rally” in Charlottesville. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director
Christopher Wray, Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore of the Civil
Rights Division, United States Attorney Thomas T. Cullen of the Western
District of Virginia, and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Richmond
Division Adam S. Lee, made the announcement.
James Alex Fields Jr., 21, of Maumee, Ohio, was charged in
an indictment returned earlier today with:
one count of a
hate crime act resulting in the death of Heather Heyer (18 U.S.C. § 249);
28 counts of hate
crime acts causing bodily injury and involving an attempt to kill (18 U.S.C. §
249); and
one count of
racially motivated violent interference with a federally protected activity (18
U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)), resulting in the death of Heather Heyer, for driving his
car into a crowd of protestors on a downtown street in Charlottesville,
Virginia.
“At the Department of Justice, we remain resolute that
hateful ideologies will not have the last word and that their adherents will
not get away with violent crimes against those they target,” Attorney General
Jeff Sessions said. “Last summer’s violence in Charlottesville cut short a
promising young life and shocked the nation. Today’s indictment should send a
clear message to every would-be criminal in America that we aggressively
prosecute violent crimes of hate that threaten the core principles of our
nation. I want to thank the FBI as well as our fabulous prosecutors Stephen
Curran, Christopher Kavanaugh, and Rachel Kincaid for their hard work on this
case.”
“As this case indicates, our office will aggressively
prosecute hate crimes and other civil-rights offenses committed because of the
actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any individual
or group,” U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen stated. “We are grateful to the FBI
and our state and local law-enforcement colleagues who conducted the parallel
federal and state investigations in a cooperative fashion, enabling us to
vindicate this critical federal interest.”
"Hatred and violence have no place in our
communities," said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “The investigation of
hate crimes is a top priority of the FBI, and we will continue to work with our
partners to ensure those who perpetrate such despicable acts are held
accountable.”
“The events of Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville are a grim
reminder of why the FBI prioritizes its investigations of civil rights
violations among the top of its criminal programs. I hope today will also be a
reminder to those who are motivated by hate and intent on committing violence;
we are going to be there, just as we were in this case,” said FBI Special Agent
in Charge Adam S. Lee of the Richmond Division, who also oversees the office in
Charlottesville. “I want to thank the Civil Rights Division and the United
States Attorney’s Office for their outstanding partnership, my team of FBI
agents and analysts who worked tirelessly to put the case together, and the
business owners and residents of Charlottesville who worked with us and
provided a massive volume of evidence in this case.”
According to the indictment, on or before Aug. 8, 2017,
Fields decided to attend the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville,
Virginia. The Unite the Right rally was scheduled to occur on Aug. 12, 2017, at
Emancipation Park and was widely publicized on social media and internet sites
associated with white supremacist individuals and groups.
On the morning of Aug. 12, 2017, Fields arrived in and around
the vicinity of Emancipation Park in Charlottesville. Multiple groups and
individuals, including Fields, engaged in chants promoting or expressing white
supremacist and other racist and anti-Semitic views. After an “unlawful
assembly” was declared, rally participants, including Fields, dispersed the
area. Fields returned to his vehicle and soon after drove to the vicinity of
the intersection of Fourth and East Market streets in downtown Charlottesville.
As alleged in the indictment, Fields drove his car onto
Fourth Street, a narrow, downhill, one-way street in downtown Charlottesville.
At around the same time, a racially and ethnically diverse crowd of individuals
was gathered at the bottom of the hill, at the intersection of Fourth and East
Water streets. The indictment alleges that Fields slowly proceeded in his
vehicle toward the crowd, stopped, and then observed the crowd while idling in
his vehicle. Many of the individuals in the crowd were chanting and carrying
signs promoting equality and protesting against racial and other forms of
discrimination. With no vehicle behind him, Fields slowly reversed his vehicle
to the top of the hill near the intersection of Fourth and Market streets.
Fields then rapidly accelerated, ran through a stop sign and across a raised
pedestrian mall, and drove directly into the crowd, striking numerous
individuals, killing Heather Heyer, and injuring many others. Fields’s vehicle
stopped only when it struck another vehicle near the intersection of Fourth and
Water streets. He then rapidly reversed his vehicle and fled the scene.
The investigation of the case was conducted by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. United States Attorney Thomas T. Cullen, Assistant
United States Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh and Stephen Curran and Rachel
Kincaid, trial attorneys with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of
Justice, are prosecuting the case for the United States.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct,
not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
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