Just one day after white supremacists and Nazis filled the streets of Charlottesville, VA to spew hate and incite violence, new details have emerged about the terrorist responsible for the fatality linked to the rally.
On Saturday, James Alex Fields was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count of hit and run intended failure to stop with injury after plowing into a group of counter-protesters, leaving one dead and 19 others injured.
According to The New York Post, James Alex Fields was an Army dropout-turned-terrorist, who was “very infatuated with Nazis.” Fields reportedly enrolled back in 2015, but dropped out after four months for reasons that remain unknown. However, Fields’ former history teacher shared a few reasons of his own, as to why he may have dropped out to become a terrorist two-years later.
Derek Weimer, told WCPO-TV that Fields had very “radical views on race,” during his time at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Ky. He said, Fields struggled with mental issues that forced him to leave the military, adding that medication combined with white supremacist views is a recipe for disaster.
“It was because of a history of anti-psychotic medication that was prescribed,” Weimer said.
“And when you bring that into the picture, and you bring the views … of Nazism and white supremacy — and who knows what he was experiencing once he left this area and went up north in Ohio — like who he was hanging around with and stuff, you start to see how it is like this perfect storm. It comes together, and you get an incident like this.”
His mother, on the other hand, had a different recollection of her son.
Samantha Bloom spoke to the Associated Press about her son’s actions, as she revealed the two recently moved to Ohio from Kentucky. She said Fields grew up in Kentucky in a single parent home after his father was killed by a drunk driver, shortly after he was born.
Bloom revealed that she knew Fields was going to the rally but she was unaware of his intent.
“I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump’s not a supremacist,” said Bloom, “He had an African-American friend so … ,” she added, visibly confused of her son’s views.
Fields is due in court on Monday.
