A white supremacist rally-goer accused of driving a car into a crowd and killing a counterprotester in 2017 is headed to trial.
James Alex Fields Jr., 21, will be in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Monday, reported the Associated Press. Fields, an Ohio resident, is charged with murder in the death of Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and civil rights activist.
Heyer was killed when a car, allegedly driven by Fields, plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The rally was organized by far-right groups in protest of the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and was attended by neo-Nazi, militia, and white nationalist groups, among others.
Attorneys for Fields, who was reportedly fascinated with Nazism and idolizing Adolf Hitler as a high school student, declined to comment to the AP and have provided no information about his defense.
More than 30 people were injured during the rally, both in the car crash incident and in violent clashes between protesters and counterprotesters, and two state police officers were killed in a helicopter crash.
A subsequent rally in Washington, D.C., drew only a few dozen protesters.
