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On Monday, a judge appointed a lawyer for James Alex Fields Jr., the 20-year-old man accused of killing a woman whom he mowed down by driving a car through a group of counter protesters at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The woman, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, had been protesting the “Unite the Right” rally, which had drawn white supremacists and neo-Nazis to the event.
Fields, who appeared via video link to hear his charges and be read his rights, is being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death. Judge Robert Downer did not set bond for him and appointed him Charles Weber as his lawyer, with a hearing set for August 25. However, there could be a bond hearing before then.
Since the deadly violence broke out in Virginia, news outlets have learned more about Fields, who was described by Derek Weimer, who teaches social studies at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, as having “outlandish, very radical beliefs.”
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“It was quite clear he had some really extreme views and maybe a little bit of anger behind them,” Weimer told CNN. “Feeling, what’s the word I’m looking for, oppressed or persecuted. He really bought into this white supremacist thing. He was very big into Nazism. He really had a fondness for Adolf Hitler.”
Fields graduated in 2015 and went into the Army, but he left active duty after failing to meet training standards, according to a spokeswoman for the Army.
“As a result he was never awarded a military occupational skill nor was he assigned to a unit outside of basic training,” Lt. Col. Jennifer Johnson said.
Fields’ mother, Samantha Bloom, told the Toledo Blade in Ohio that she didn’t know her son was going to a white nationalist rally and that she didn’t even discuss politics with her son.
“He had an African-American friend,” she said.
