Charlottesville trial: video shows driver sobbing after learning he killed woman

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters


White nationalist James Fields drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters at Virginia rally last year, killing activist Heather Heyer
Reuters
Tue 4 Dec 2018 18.01 EST

The white nationalist who drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a Virginia rally last year began sobbing and whimpering after his arrest when police told him he had killed someone, according to video played at his trial on Tuesday.

Prior to the rally he had sent his mother an image of Adolf Hitler, the court in Charlottesville heard on Tuesday.

But within minutes of the mayhem at the tail end of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville on 12 August 2017, James Fields could be heard on footage recorded by a detective’s body-worn camera saying he acted in self-defense.

“I didn’t want to hurt people, but I thought they were attacking me,” Fields told the police, according to the video footage played to the jury, which is now expected to opine sooner than expected on whether to convict Fields on 10 charges, including murder.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/04/charlottesville-trial-james-fields-video-sobbing-heather-heyer

[Corgigal]

1. After his arrest,

shit just got real. Should have stayed online Nazi.

[BarbaRosa]

2. Always the victim.

[Judi Lynn]

6. That's so true among all of the big-mouthed bullies when they get in trouble. n/t

[Squinch]

3. May he rot in hell.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

4. " . . . I thought they were attacking me."

You were in a car, driving at a high rate of speed, closing in on them from behind.

They were on foot, walking.

Yeah, I can totally see that.

[drray23]

5. He is sobbing because of his fate, not the victim's demise.

He just realizes he will spend the rest of his life in prison after he got arrested.

[paleotn]

7. Bingo.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Exactly!

He got caught...the tears are for himself. I hope he gets life for this. Make an example for the other Nazi in training.

[dalton99a]

14. +1

[keithbvadu2]

9. Sobbing? Academy award time.

[Grokenstein]

10. "But Marge, look at that hangdog expression! He's learned his lesson!"

"...Let's get him a present!"

[workinclasszero]

11. The killer Nazi was having compassion

for his own evil and wasted life.

I’m sure he wished he could’ve killed hundreds of anti fascist protesters.

He was just crying cause he got caught and will spend the rest of his useless life behind bars.

So as he was driving full speed into a crowd of people, he didn’t think that was going to kill someone?

Give me a ****ing break!

[SergeStorms]

12. What a crock of shit.

“I didn’t want to hurt people, but I thought they were attacking me”... BULLSHIT!

You don't back your car up, in order to gain more speed, then put the car in drive and plow into the middle of a crowd, and then back up again in order to avoid a crowd of people you "think are attacking you". What a lying scumbag. He got caught, and he knew his ass was grass when they told him he'd killed someone. Baby ass. These guys are all punks.

[mpcamb]

13. Sounds like we came to a unanimous decision on this one.

Can't help but agree, too.

[Princess Turandot]

15. Here's a bit more info from a Virginia paper:

After the prosecution rested, the defense moved to have the first degree murder and other charges dismissed. With the jury out of the room, the judge (Richard E. Moore) said 'no' and then offered this:

“I’m not sure what else his intent could have been by driving [into the crowd] at that speed,” Moore said while the jury was out of the courtroom.

Moore said evidence presented over the last week and testimony about how Fields idled his vehicle after backing the car away from the crowd, when he could have left the scene unimpeded, could be enough to determine his guilt.

“His explanation that he felt threatened is contrary to the evidence of the case,” Moore said.

There's also a discussion of phone calls between Fields and his mother, made from the jail.

He showed no sympathy for Heather Heyer, the Charlottesville resident who was killed, as he and his mother talked last December about how Heyer’s own mother, Susan Bro, was coping with the tragedy.

“She’s one of those anti-white communists,” Fields said of Bro. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not up for questioning. She’s the enemy.”

https://www.richmond.com/news/local/crime/updated-defense-begins-to-present-its-case-at-james-fields/article_300134ff-6401-5f05-bb1e-ce62e3f0a5af.html