Police have arrested 20-year-old Maumee, Ohio, resident James Alex Fields, Jr. in connection with the car crash that killed one woman and injured 19 more at the “Unite the Right” rally on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, CNN reports.
Fields has been 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,” according to Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas.
Groups of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, and were met by counter-protesters, leading to violence that began Friday night.
Unrest intensified on Saturday, as a vehicle plowed into a group of counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally, killing Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal from Virginia, and injuring 19 others. More than 30 were hurt in total as a result of events at the rally.
Video footage shows a silver Dodge Charger racing down the narrow street, plowing into pedestrians before slamming into two cars. The Charger then threw it into reverse to escape the scene.
Fields, whom police say was driving the car, was taken into custody not far from the crash site.
Two Virginia State Police troopers were also killed when a police helicopter assisting with the melee crashed outside of Charlottesville. That incident is under investigation.