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Charlottesville Neo-Nazi Sentenced to Life in Prison

Reuters

   A federal judgeimposed a life sentence on the self-described neo-Nazi
   whokilled Heather Heyer by crashing his car into a crowd
   ofcounterprotestersin Charlottesville, Va., after a whitesupremacist
   rally, saying release would be "too great a risk."

   James Fields, 22, of Maumee, Ohio, wassentenced to life without the
   possibility of parole. He hadsought a lesser sentence, apologizing
   after the court viewedvideo of him plowing his car into a crowd after
   the Aug. 12,2017, "Unite the Right" rally, also injuring 30 people.

   U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski, was unmoved by his
   plea, saying he had to avert his eyes while the court viewed
   graphic video of the attack that showed bodies flying into theair as
   Fields crashed into them.

   "Just watching them is terrifying," Urbanski said. "The
   release of the defendant into a free society is too great a
   risk."

   Alt-right

   The rally proved a critical moment in the rise of the
   "alt-right," a loose alignment of fringe groups centered on
   white nationalism and emboldened by President Donald Trump's2016
   election.

   Trump was criticized from the left and right for initially
   saying there were "fine people on both sides" of the dispute
   between neo-Nazis and their opponents at the rally.

   Subsequentalt-right gatherings failed to draw crowds the size of
   theCharlottesville rally.

   After the sentencing, Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, said she
   hoped her daughter would be remembered as a regular person whostood up
   for her beliefs.

   "The point of Heather's death is not that she was a saint --
   and, Lord, my child was never a saint --but that an ordinary
   person can do a simple act ... that can make all the differencein the
   world," Bro said in an interview.

   Ahead of Friday's sentencing hearing, prosecutors noted that
   Fields had long espoused violent beliefs. Less than a month
   before the attack he posted an image on Instagram showing a carplowing
   through a crowd of people captioned: "you have the rightto protest but
   I'm late for work."

   Fields remained unrepentant afterward, prosecutors said,
   noting that in a December 2017 phone call from jail with his
   mother, he blasted Bro for her activism after the attack.

   "She is a communist. An anti-white liberal," Fields said,
   according to court papers filed by prosecutors. He rejected hismother's
   plea to consider that the woman had "lost her
   daughter," replying, "She's the enemy."

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