The victim of the horrific terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday has been identified as 32-year-old local paralegal Heather Heyer.
Heyer and other counterprotestors leaving a Unite the Right rally were mowed down by a white supremacist in a Dodge Challenger, believed to be 20-year-old Ohio man James Alex Fields Jr. Fields was charged with second degree murder and three counts of malicious wounding earlier today.
A GoFundMe campaign has already raised almost $43K to assist Heyer’s family.
The campaign’s creator quotes Heyer’s mother as saying: “She died doing what was right. My heart is broken, but I am forever proud of her.”
Vigils and shows of solidarity for Heyer and for Charlottesville have been – and continue to be – held across the United States this weekend.
The alt-right rally, possibly the largest gathering of white nationalists in recent years, was called to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee from the former Lee Park, since renamed Emancipation Park.
Protestors and counterprotestors violently clashed in the park, before police called an end to the ‘unlawful assembly’, clearing the park and arresting those left behind.
The FBI has launched a civil rights investigation into the “deadly vehicular incident“, which injured 19 others. Their injuries ranged from minor to life-threatening, with many being taken to hospital for treatment.
