White Supremacist Will Serve Life In Prison For Charlottesville Car Attack

An avowed white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in Virginia has been sentenced to life in prison on hate crime charges. James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty in March to federal hate crime charges.

Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and civil rights activist, was killed in the attack. Nearly three dozen others were injured.

Fields will be sentenced next month on separate state charges. He apologized before the judge handed down his sentence.

The Unite the Right rally on Aug. 12, 2017, drew hundreds of white nationalists to Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Fields admitted deliberately driving his car into counter-protesters who showed up to demonstrate against the white nationalists.

The case stirred racial tensions around the country.

[via WWAY TV]