Free Republic

CHARLOTTESVILLE — A man accused of plowing a car into a crowd of protesters here — killing one person and leaving 19 injured — has long sympathized with Nazi views and had stood with a group of white supremacists hours before Saturday’s bloody crash. The accused driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, had espoused extremist ideals at least since high school, according to Derek Weimer, a history teacher. Weimer said that he taught Fields during his junior and senior years at Randall K. Cooper High School in Kentucky. During a class called “America’s Modern Wars,” Weimer said that Fields...

Weimer also said that Fields Jr. wanted to go into military service but was rejected on mental health grounds. “His senior year, he was real gung-ho about joining the Army,” Weimer said. “And he, towards the end of the year, found out that he was denied, and it was because of a history of anti-psychotic mediation that he was prescribed.”

James Alex Fields Jr., the driver charged with killing a woman at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, was previously accused of beating his mother and threatening her with a 12-inch knife, according to transcripts from dramatic 911 calls released Monday. Samantha Bloom, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, repeatedly called police about her son, in 2010 and 2011, telling officers he was on medication to control his temper, transcripts from 911 calls show. Records show that Fields was arrested and put in juvenile detention after his mother reported in 2011 that he stood behind her wielding a knife. Earlier...

Published on Aug 12, 2017 Man who caught the incident on video describes the events