'IT WAS TERRORISM'
ATTORNEY General Jeff Sessions has branded the car attack on demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virgina on Saturday, "domestic terrorism".
The Trump cabinet member told Good Morning America of the attack: "It does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute.
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"We are pursuing it in the [Department of Justice] in every way that we can make a case."
Sessions added that: "You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought because this is unequivocally an unacceptable evil attack."
The Attorney General confirmed terror cops and civil rights officers from the FBI were currently looking into the car attack.
Sessions went on to say that President Trump had already roundly condemned the attack which claimed the life of Heather Heyer, 32, who was protesting against a white nationalist march in the city.
Vice President Mike Pence, travelling in South America, also condemned "these dangerous fringe groups" and said they "have no place in American public life and in the American debate."
Yesterday the man charged with ploughing his car into a group of protesters during a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville was “very infatuated with Nazis” — and once in the US Army, according to his former high-school teacher and military records.
A 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 others injured in the motorist’s deadly attack on Saturday.
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Derek Weimer, who taught history to suspected killer James Alex Fields Jr. at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Ky., told WCPO-TV that Fields had “radical ideas on race.”
Weimer said Fields always wanted to join the Army. Military records show that Fields entered the Army on Aug. 18, 2015 — with his mother writing on Facebook about him beginning boot camp — then dropped out Dec. 11, the New York Times reported. The US Army said Fields "failed to meet standards" and that he was then "released from active duty."
But Weimer said his discharge was due to Fields having been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs.
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“It was because of a history of anti-psychotic medication that was prescribed,” Weimer said.
“And when you bring that into the picture, and you bring the views … of Nazism and white supremacy — and who knows what he was experiencing once he left this area and went up north in Ohio — like who he was hanging around with and stuff, you start to see how it is like this perfect storm. It comes together, and you get an incident like this.”
A now-deleted Facebook page believed to have belonged to Fields included several photos reflecting his white supremacist views.
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One was an image of Adolf Hitler as a baby and another showed “Pepe the Frog,” an anthropomorphic frog character that has been used as an alt-right symbol.
Still another shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — for whom some alt-right activists have recently expressed support — with the word “undefeated” in capital letters.
Fields allegedly plowed his silver Dodge Challenger through the masses gathered at Emancipation Park in opposition to the rally Saturday afternoon.
Horrifying footage shows the rampaging car knocking bodies into the air while accelerating through the placard-waving crowd as onlookers scream in terror.
Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 others were hurt, five critically.
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The 32-year-old had been marching near a mall in the town after nationalists dispersed from the scene.
Today Heather’s mum, Susan Bro, told the Huffington Post that her daughter's death should be a "rallying cry for social justice".
She said: “Heather was not about hate, Heather was about stopping hatred.
“Heather was about bringing an end to injustice.
"I don’t want her death to be a focus for more hatred, I want her death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion.”
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A woman who has identified herself as as the mother of suspect James Alex Fields has revealed she was cat sitting for him when he left for the rally.
In the clip, the stunned mum says she had no idea what her son was going to do: "I just knew he was going to a rally... I try to stay out of his political views. I don't really get too involved."
"I don't really understand what the rally was about or anything," she added. "I didn't know it was white supremacists."
Fields was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count of hit and run attended failure to stop with injury, police said.
Disturbing video shows the Dodge ramming into the back of a Toyota resulting in a woman being thrown on top of the Japanese-made vehicle while others lie crumpled on the street screaming in pain.
Another video has emerged showing the rogue car accelerating towards the crowd before smashing into the demonstrators and the white Toyota.
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President Donald Trump has spoken following the deadly car attack condemning the violence "on many sides."
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides," Trump said from Bedminster, New Jersey, where he is on a working vacation.
"The hate and the division must stop right now," he said. "We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation."
The president later tweeted: "Condolences to the family of the young woman killed today, and best regards to all of those injured, in Charlottesville, Virginia. So sad!"
White supremacists armed with rifles, shields and helmets clashed with counter protesters at the Unite the Right rally despite a state of emergency being declared after the first violent clashes last night, when the far-right demonstrators marched on the University of Virginia wielding wooden torches.
Organisers of the Unite the Right rally claim that white people in America are being persecuted and that white history is being erased from the American identity.
They could be heard chanting racist slogans including one belonging to the Nazis using the words "blood and soil".
President Trump earlier slammed the rally on Twitter insisting the country must "come together as one."
He tweeted: "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!"
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Last night counter-white supremacist protesters took to the streets of Oakland in response to the deadly violence that erupted at the rally in Charlottesville.
Protests blocked both directions of the Interstate 580 freeway as they chanted anti-racism slogans.
Wielding flags and megaphones they decried the killing in Charlottesville and the ideology of the alt-right .
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