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Charlottesville car attack

2017 in Virginia2017 murders in the United States2017 road incidentsAlt-right terrorismAugust 2017 crimes in the United States
Filmed killingsHistory of Charlottesville, VirginiaMurder in VirginiaNeo-fascist terrorist incidents in the United StatesPolitics and race in the United StatesProtest-related deathsRacially motivated violence in the United StatesTerrorism deaths in VirginiaTerrorist incidents in VirginiaTerrorist incidents in the United States in 2017Terrorist incidents involving vehicular attacksUnite the Right rallyUse American English from August 2020Use mdy dates from April 2020Vehicular rampage in the United StatesWikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages

The Charlottesville car attack was a white supremacist terrorist attack perpetrated on August 12, 2017, when James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one person and injuring 35. Fields, 20, had previously espoused neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs, and drove from Ohio to attend the rally.Fields' attack was called an act of domestic terrorism by the mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia's public safety secretary, the U.S. attorney general, and the director of the FBI. Fields was convicted in a state court of the first-degree murder of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, eight counts of malicious wounding, and hit and run. He also pled guilty to 29 of 30 federal hate crime charges to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 419 years for the state charges, with an additional life sentence for the federal charges.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Charlottesville car attack (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Charlottesville car attack
Heather Heyer Way, Charlottesville

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N 38.029491666667 ° E -78.479525 °
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Heather Heyer Way 115-117
22902 Charlottesville
Virginia, United States
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Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia)
Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia)

The Robert E. Lee Monument was an outdoor bronze equestrian statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller located in Charlottesville, Virginia's Market Street Park (formerly Emancipation Park, and before that Lee Park) in the Charlottesville and Albemarle County Courthouse Historic District. The statue was commissioned in 1917 and dedicated in 1924, and in 1997 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was removed on July 10, 2021, and melted down in 2023.In February 2017, as part of the movement for the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials, the Charlottesville City Council voted 3–2 for the statue's removal, along with the Stonewall Jackson statue, and for the Lee Park to be renamed. The removal proposal generated controversy. A lawsuit was filed on March 20, 2017, and in May 2017 a temporary injunction against its removal was granted by a judge, citing a Virginia state law that blocked the removal. White supremacists organized the Unite the Right rally for August 2017 to protest the proposed removal that drew numerous far-right groups from across the United States; this rally in turn caused counterdemonstrations, which in turn caused serious clashes; the event took a deadly turn when a white supremacist rammed a car into a crowd of counterdemonstrators, killing one and wounding 35. On August 23, 2017, the council had the statue shrouded in black, which in February 2018 a judge ordered removed. In July 2019 a permanent injunction was granted and in July 2020 the state law was amended to remove the grounds for objection raised by the judge. The Virginia Supreme Court lifted the injunction in April 2021, holding that the state law thought to restrict the removal did not apply retroactively to statutes passed before its effect (the law was applied to Virginia cities in 1997, but the statue had been erected in 1924). However, rather than immediately remove the statute, the city opted to employ the new removal process authorized under the law's 2020 amendments, which entails public notice, a public hearing after thirty days, and thirty days to field offers for relocation of the statue.On July 9, 2021, the City Council announced that the Lee Monument would be removed the following day, and, on July 10, 2021, both the Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues were removed by the city. In October 2023, the Lee statue was cut into pieces and melted down, with the intention of later turning the metal into a new artwork.