WEBVTT - Murder on Fourth Street 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Coo Zone Media. 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:12.520 On Friday, June sixth, twenty twenty five, ICE agents descended 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:17.400 on Los Angeles, California. The agents carried out immigration raids 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.000 at three separate locations, including a home depot in Westlake. 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:28.520 Dozens of men were snatched by masked armed agents. Ordinary 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:34.440 people bystanders and shoppers tried to intervene. They tried to 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.800 rescue the agent's targets, tried to pull them from the 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.320 grasp of the masked men. They put their bodies in 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.720 front of the unmarked SUVs. The detainees were shoved into. 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:51.559 Dozens of people were taken. As words spread, more crowds 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:57.360 began to gather. Protests sprang up organically. The people of 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.520 Los Angeles demanded an end to the immigration raids and 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:05.800 the unchecked violence by the ICE agents. Over one hundred 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:10.360 people were arrested that first night, including California SCIU President 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:15.839 David Huerta, but the raids continued, and so did the protests. 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.480 Nearly a weekend for the ongoing protests, on June eleventh, 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.120 twenty twenty five, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appeared on The 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.920 Reuben Report, a right wing political talk show hosted by 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:33.240 failed comedian turned YouTube commentator Dave Rubin. The pair were 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:39.280 discussing the situation in California, kind of DeSantis mostly used 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.559 the opportunity to brag about his commitment to preventing people 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.880 from freely exercising their civil rights, promising that anyone who 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:51.280 stepped out of line in Florida would be arrested. But 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.600 it's not just the police that protesters in Florida should 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:55.080 worry about. 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.200 And we also have a policy that if you you're 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.160 driving on one of those streets and a mob comes 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.560 and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.240 right to flee for your safety. And so if you 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.200 drive off and you hit one of these people, that's 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.240 their fault for impinging on you. You don't have to 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.799 sit there and just be a sitting duck and let 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.160 the mob grab you out of your car and drag 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.320 you through the streets. You have a right to defend 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.919 yourself in Florida. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.920 A day later, on June twelfth, Brivard County, Florida Sheriff 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.880 Wayne Ivy held a press conference. He echoed many of 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:40.720 the governor's warnings that protesters will face violence from both police. 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.920 And civilians if you try to mob rule a car 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.320 in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.560 driver leave. In our county, you're most likely going to 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.480 get run over and dragged across the street. 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.040 Desantiss comments came just a day after a hit and 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.720 run at a protest in Chicago injured sixty six year 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.600 old woman. In the days that followed, there were vehicular 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:09.840 attacks on protests in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Riverside, California, 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:13.839 and Culpeper, Virginia. By the time you hear this, there 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.760 may well have been more. This kind of attack isn't new, 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.480 and it isn't rare. It's become frighteningly common in recent 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.200 years and is now being openly encouraged by right wing 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:32.120 commentators and legislators alike. There are too many stories about 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.960 angry drivers using a car as a weapon because they're 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:40.160 unhappy with a protest. But there is one in particular 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:46.120 that I know all too well. I'm Molly Conger, and 0:03:46.280 --> 0:04:07.240 this is weird. Little guys. This is the story of 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:12.200 James Alex Fields Junior. I wish it weren't. I wish 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.280 his story was irrelevant, that it was over and he 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:20.760 didn't have to tell it again. On August twelfth, twenty seventeen, 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.080 James alex Fields Junior drove his Dodge Challenger into a 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:29.800 crowd of people on Fourth Street in downtown Charlottesville. The 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.839 attack took place two hours after police declared an unlawful 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.600 assembly and dispersed the crowd at nearby Market Street Park. 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.599 Both the white supremacist who were gathered there to attend 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.320 the United the Right rally and the counter protesters who'd 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.280 shown up to oppose them were cleared from the area. 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.280 The day was over. The group of people on Fourth 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:56.559 Street that afternoon were marching to celebrate the Nazis were gone, 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:03.280 the city was safe again. They were singing, enchanting. They 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:08.560 were peaceful, they were joyful. The street they were on 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.960 was closed to traffic that day. They had every reason 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:18.719 to believe they were safe. He accelerated as he approached them. 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:25.480 He injured dozens of people, he murdered one of them, 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.200 and he will be in prison for the rest of 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:31.679 his life. And because this is the story of James 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:36.880 Alexfield Junior, that's where I'll focus. This is the story 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.160 of a young man who loved Hitler and hated almost 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.960 everyone else. He hated black people, he hated Jewish people, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.000 he hated anyone who wasn't white, and he hated white 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.560 people who didn't share the hate that fueled him. It 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.000 was hate that drove him as he drove his car 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.920 into a crowd of people one hot August afternoon, eight 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:05.640 years ago. That's what we're talking about. We won't talk 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.000 too much about his victims, the dozens of people who 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.840 are badly injured and survived. Many of them are very 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:17.640 private people out of necessity, They've endured years of harassment 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.200 from the supporters of the man who tried to kill them. 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:23.440 For those who try to downplay the violence of what 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:28.679 happens in this story, fix your hearts. It's been nearly 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:32.520 seven years since Fields's trial, but the testimony of those 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:37.359 victims is seared into my soul. There are pages of 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:39.600 my notes where the ink is smeared from tears I 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:41.880 couldn't wipe away fast enough as I hunched over the 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.960 notebook in my lap in that courtroom. So I won't 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.880 tell you how many surgical screws are in their bones, 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.560 how many of them still can't run or jump, or 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.359 lift their children into their arms, or make a closed 0:06:55.400 --> 0:07:00.240 fist with hands once shattered to dust. Of them still 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.520 have nightmares and panic attacks and can't bear to look 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.760 in the mirror because the sight of their scars sounds 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:13.760 like screeching tires. Now isn't the time for that. And 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.360 we won't talk about Heather Higher, not really that was 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.920 her name, the woman that he murdered. I didn't know Heather. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.640 I wasn't there when she died. But I've met her mother, 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.040 and I've seen the pain in her eyes when she 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.720 talks about burying her daughter in secret in an unmarked grave, 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.360 because conspiracy theorists think she was a crisis actor and 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.480 neo Nazis talk openly about how they'd love to desecrate 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:47.280 her final resting place. And I've seen her smile with 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.040 tears in her eyes, remembering that one of the last 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.600 things they said to each other was I love you. 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:58.000 She's grateful for that. And I've heard her friends talk 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:02.920 about who she was. She was outspoken and compassionate, and 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.760 she was very much not a mourning person. She loved 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:11.880 her chihuahua violet, and her favorite color was purple. She 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.320 was loved. But this is a story about the man 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.520 who took her life. And now with vehicular attacks on 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.040 protesters on the rise. The story of Heather's murder bears 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:28.920 remembering not just because these attacks bear frightening similarities to 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.040 the one that took her life, but because the discourse 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:36.040 surrounding them is full of lies about her death, lies 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.040 used to justify more attacks and to call for the 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:45.839 release of her killer. On August twelfth, twenty seventeen, white 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:51.120 supremacists filled the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. The event they'd 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.560 all come to town for is one I've discussed several 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.720 times already on this show, the Unite the Right Rally. 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.600 James Alex Fields Junior was just one of thousands of 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.200 people who traveled here that weekend to hear speeches from 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.480 prominent neo Nazi and white supremacist activists. They never got 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.440 to hear those speeches. The violence in the streets started 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.760 hours before the event was scheduled to actually begin, and 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.360 an unlawful assembly was declared. By eleven thirty a m. 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.520 State police and riot gear pushed the rally goers out 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.400 of the park and into the streets, where violent altercations 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:30.800 with counter protesters continued. Maryland clansman Richard Preston had been 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.120 threatening to shoot people all morning, and as he exited 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.440 the park shortly before noon, he drew his gun, shouted 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.920 die nward, and fired a single shot into the dirt 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.480 at the feet of a young black man. As the 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.800 white supremacist begrudgingly began making the two mile trek back 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.880 to where they'd parked their cars, they encountered more counter 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:58.800 protesters walking down Market Street. Alex Ramos, Daniel Borden, Tyler Watkins, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.439 and Jacob Goodwin were all eventually convicted for the brutal 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.720 beating of another young black man. It was a vicious 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.240 assault that took place directly outside of the Charlesville Police station. 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.640 At least three other men who participated in the attack 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.440 were never arrested. Two of them have never been identified. 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:23.680 The third uncharged attackers identity is known, but he can't 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:28.400 be charged. I identified him myself, but I was a 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:33.160 little too late. It's a strange and terrible coincidence that 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.440 I was going back through the video of that assault 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.760 in February of twenty twenty three and I finally identified 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.640 Teddy von Neuwcomb as one of the attackers just two 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:47.240 weeks after he died. Teddy von Neucomb shot himself in 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.280 the heart the morning he was scheduled to go on 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:54.800 trial for fentanyl trafficking. But back to the morning of 0:10:54.800 --> 0:11:00.679 August twelfth. People got hurt that morning. The neo Nazi 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.960 street fighting gang the Rise Above Movement, punched, shoved, and 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.080 choked counter protesters standing on the sidewalk outside the park. 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.880 A feyalanx of uniformed fascists carrying home made shields shoved 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:16.000 their way through a line of peaceful counterdemonstrators. Members of 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:21.200 the clergy were assaulted by Nazis. The air was thick 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:28.240 with mace and screams. But that was the morning. By noon, 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.600 they were all retreating to their cars. They were disappointed, 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:38.000 They were hot and tired and frustrated. They were angry, 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:45.280 but they were leaving. James Alex Fields hadn't actually parked 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:50.640 his car at McIntyre Park. Most people had, but many 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:52.800 of them had come with a group of some kind. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:58.760 Fields came alone. He left his home in Maumi, Ohio 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.760 on the evening of Friday, August eleventh. He hadn't been 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.280 sure he'd be able to attend. He only secured the 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.240 weekend off from work a few days earlier, but he'd 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.160 known about the rally for months. On Twitter, he followed 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:16.000 rally organizers Richard Spencer and Augustus and Victus, as well 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.400 as other prominent white supremacists like David Duke and Brad Griffin. 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.960 He replied frequently to Richard Spencer's posts, though there's no 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:29.559 indication Spencer ever took any notice of him. In July, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.200 Fields retweeted a post containing a flyer for the rally. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:39.079 All summer, he enthusiastically posted, retweeted, and commented on posts 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:43.000 about violence at right wing rallies and other cities. He 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.240 seemed particularly thrilled by images of the violence at rallies 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.880 in California, pictures of members of the Rise Above movement 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.000 beating a man in Huntington Beach, a gift of Nathan 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.600 Dimigo punching a woman at Berkeley. He tweeted often at 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:03.640 Baked Alaska, write Internet celebrity. On one occasion, he tagged 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.760 Baked Alaska in a post that contained just fourteen words, 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.880 A very specific fourteen words. We must secure the existence 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:16.360 of our people and a future for white children. The 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.520 white supremacist slogan first penned by David Lane while he 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:21.200 was in prison, for his role in the murder of 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:26.240 Jewish talk radio host Alan Berg. Fields posted pictures of 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:31.520 Nazis marching in nineteen forties Germany, captioning it hashtag Tuesday motivation. 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.640 He posted often about his belief that black people were 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:40.080 genetically inferior, had low IQs, were predisposed to crime, and 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.319 were more eighth than human. He self identified as a 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.920 nationalist and expressed a willingness to kill anyone deemed to 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.600 be a threat, writing things like violence is our only 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.400 hope for survival as a people, and violence is the 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:59.800 only solution. Many of the men who attended the United 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.719 Stas Right rally would later claim that they'd only been 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:07.000 there because they love Confederate statues. Protesting the removal of 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.440 the statue of Robert E. Lee was allegedly the purpose 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.400 of the event. But Fields is not an outlier here. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.520 He was not alone in the months that he spent 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.280 watching the violence at other rallies that summer months, posting 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.720 violent fantasies of killing for the white race. He was 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.720 here because he was a Nazi, as were many of 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:34.120 the men in the park that day. On Friday afternoon, 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.600 he dropped his cat Buddy off at his mother's house 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.120 for the weekend, and he texted her to let her know. 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:47.400 She replied, as mothers do, be careful. He texted her 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:52.840 back a picture of Adolf Hitler. Along with the image, 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.960 he typed, we are not the ones who need to 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:02.000 be careful. He didn't get here in time for the 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:06.000 Torch March that night. He drove through the night, arriving 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:10.760 in Charlottesville around two or three AM. Sitting alone in 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:15.360 his car in McDonald's parking lot, he scrolled through social media. 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.680 He saw a tweet from David Duke with pictures of 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:23.200 the Torch March. Duke wrote, our people on the march, 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.280 will you be at Unite the Right tomorrow? Field saved 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.760 the pictures onto his phone and then he texted them 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:36.040 to his mother. He also asked about his cap. He 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.040 knacked a little bit in his car in the McDonald's 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.440 parking lot, drove to waffle House to eat breakfast alone, 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.880 and then returned to that McDonald's parking lot downtown early 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:49.920 Saturday morning, as other attendees gathered in McIntyre Park, nearly 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.680 two miles from the location of the rally, he was 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:58.440 already downtown, just a few blocks from his destination. I know, 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.960 that's a lot of seemingly extreme raeous information about where 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.600 people were parking their cars, and it probably means nothing 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.960 to you unless you live here and you can picture 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.600 in your mind how close the McDonald's on Ridge Street 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.880 is to that park downtown. But getting back to various 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.760 parked cars becomes a key piece of this timeline, I promise. 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:24.920 So Fields's car is downtown at the McDonald's, but most 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.760 of the attendees have parked their cars at a different park, 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.280 one that was far away from the park where the 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.560 rally would be. Fields had probably planned to sit there 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.240 in his car until closer to noon, when the rally 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.440 was scheduled to begin, but from where he was parked, 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.280 he could see that people were starting to walk in 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:47.600 that direction, so he joined them. By around nine am, 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.240 he was among the first attendees to arrive at Market 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.840 Street Park. Photos taken that morning show Field standing with 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.760 members of Vanguard America. That's a now defunct neo Nazi 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.360 group that later that year would morph into what we 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.240 now know as Patriot Front. There had been an ongoing 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.720 power struggle within Vanguard America that summer, and the group's 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:13.840 official leader, Dylan Hopper didn't actually attend the event. In 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.159 Hopper's absence, the group was commanded on the ground that 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.479 day by the man who was trying to wrest control 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.200 of it from Dylan Hopper. It was an eighteen year 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:26.320 old whose name you might already know was a young 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:33.240 Thomas Rousseau, the current leader of Patriot Front. Everyone involved 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.879 has always maintained that James Alex Fields was not a 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:41.199 member of Vanguard America. They claimed they'd never met him before, 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.960 but there he was, marching in their ranks, dressed identically 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.199 to their members and holding a round wooden shield with 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:55.800 their logo on it. According to deposition testimony from Dylan Hopper, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.800 it was Thomas Rousseau himself who handed Fields the shield. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:00.359 Morning. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.840 From his deposition, he told me that he let James 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.080 Fields into Vanguard America's formation at Charlottesville when nobody knew 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.720 who he was. He didn't come with anybody, and they 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.280 just gave him a shield and said, hey, march with us. 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.800 And Thomas Rousseau's reasoning was to make Vanguard look like 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:22.640 a larger organization in front of the news media. Vanguard 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.919 America's official position was that James Alex Field was not 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.879 a member of their organization, but they also claimed that 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:32.800 they didn't actually have any kind of list of their 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.440 members that they could show that didn't have his name 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.920 on it, because there was no list. The organization was 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.439 one of many named defendants in a lawsuit filed by 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.639 people who were hurt that day, and over the years 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.479 of litigation in that suit, Vanguard America never produced a 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.440 single document. They expect us to believe that they didn't 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.080 have a single text message, email, organizational communication, or internal 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.960 document that was responsive to the discovery request. Hopper claimed 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.720 they kept no records of any kind and he didn't 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.000 even know the real names of most of the group's members. 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.320 So they're able to swear under oath that they know 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:16.720 for sure that Fields wasn't a member, but they couldn't 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:21.639 actually tell you who was. For what it's worth, I 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.719 do think it's pretty plausible that a teenage Thomas Russo 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.560 was foolish enough to hand a shield to a stranger. 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.840 He really to make himself look more important, so that 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:33.040 it looked like he was commanding a larger group of 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:37.399 Nazis in front of a TV camera. Videos show Field 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:39.840 standing with the Vanguard America shield wall at the perimeter 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.679 of the park. He's joining in racist, sexist, homophobic, and 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.800 anti Semitic chants, and he seems to be having a 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:52.480 pretty good time. When the police cleared the park at 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.960 eleven thirty, Field's left with everyone else. There was some 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.640 hope that the rally would regroup back at McIntyre Park 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.680 and they could still hear the scheduled speeches, So even 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.160 though he was so close to his parked car, which 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.879 again was downtown, he walked with the crowd back to 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:15.880 McIntyre Park two miles away. At trial, an FBI analyst 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:21.000 testified about the geolocation data extracted from Peels's cell phone. 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:25.439 This shouldn't matter. This is tedious, and it's boring, and 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:29.560 it's nitpicky, and it shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter where 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.800 he was from minute to minute between eleven thirty am 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.439 and one forty pm. It should be enough for me 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.040 to tell you that he left the park around eleven 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.240 thirty and by one forty pm he was committing a murder. 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.159 But two hours in between are just a long hot walk. 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.920 Why does it matter? But unfortunately it matters a great deal. 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.600 A conspiracy theory has broken containment and I feel compelled 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:04.160 to try again to set the record straight. When people 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.199 like Rond De Santis or Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivy 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:11.359 encourage people to run protesters over, they claim they're talking 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.240 about self defense, but the self defense that exists in 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.800 their imaginations doesn't really have any relationship with reality. It's 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.160 the same self defense that James Alex Fields would claim 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.760 after his crime, the same self defense his supporters have 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:32.840 cooked up elaborate imaginary scenarios to justify what Fields did 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:39.320 was not self defense. He was convicted by a jury. 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.440 He eventually pled guilty to similar charges in a federal court. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:48.720 But the recent popular enthusiasm for murdering protesters has broken 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.439 free from the confines of hardcore violent extremist chat rooms. 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:58.200 It's gone mainstream, and the conspiracy theories about Fields's crime 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.439 are spreading now too. And I want to give you 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:03.840 the facts you might need to combat those lies if 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.919 you encounter them out there in the world. Some of 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:12.000 those lies are easy to debunk quickly. There are people 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.920 who will tell you that Heather Higher didn't even get 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.240 hit by the car, that her death was from a 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:23.000 heart attack. To that, I offer you the testimony of 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.000 a DNA analyst from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.960 She performed testing that confirmed that a piece of human 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:36.000 flesh that was embedded in the car's broken windshield was 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:40.800 a DNA match to Heather. Higher testing performed on bloodstains 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.040 found on the vehicle showed at least ten distinct profiles. 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:51.320 Ten people's blood was on that car, including Heather's. The 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.359 medical examiner who performed Heather's autopsy showed the jury X 0:22:55.440 --> 0:23:00.800 rays of a displaced fracture to Heather's right femur, broken ribs, 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:07.680 cut her lungs, and her liver. Her aorda was completely transsected. 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:12.719 The doctor's exact words, according to my notes, were, it 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:17.840 was snapped in half. The aorda is the largest artery 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:20.840 in the human body, taking blood directly from the heart 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.840 out into the body. Completely severing the aorda is not 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:30.280 a survivable injury. She bled to death internally very quickly. 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:34.560 The official cause of death was blunt force trauma to 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:38.480 the Torso anyone who was stuck arguing that the car 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.120 never struck her, or that she died of anything other 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:43.880 than being struck by that car is willfully ignorant. 0:23:44.960 --> 0:24:01.880 These facts are quite concrete. 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:05.960 The other persistent lie is a little more complicated. I 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:08.680 mean the facts are there. I don't mean there's actually 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:13.199 any lingering confusion. It's just a more convoluted narrative, and 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.120 the average conspiracy theorist isn't going to sit quietly long 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:20.160 enough to have it explained to them. The story goes 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:25.760 like this, He had to do it. Fields was terrified 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:30.000 of Antifa. He didn't want to hurt those people. He 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:32.840 was trying to escape from a man who was threatening 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:36.320 him with a rifle. He was afraid for his life. 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:41.840 That people who repeat this story often don't know or 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:45.480 don't care to know, any more than that the specifics 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:50.080 aren't important, only the feeling. They feel it must be 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:53.440 true because it affirms their existing belief that left wing 0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:58.000 protesters are violent and that right wing white men are persecuted. 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:05.119 The problem is this never happened. This was a lie 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:11.639 born by accident. A leftist counter demonstrator made an understandable mistake. 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:15.600 You see, there were members of left wing groups in 0:25:15.680 --> 0:25:20.480 Charlottesville that day who carried guns. This is Virginia. It's 0:25:20.560 --> 0:25:24.280 legal to open carry a rifle in public, regardless of 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:26.800 how you feel about that. In terms of God laws 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:31.800 in general, protest tactics specifically, whatever, that's just the situation. 0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:34.919 It is legal for people to open carry a rifle 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:39.080 in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Members of an anarchist gun 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:42.080 club were in a different downtown park, Court Square Park, 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:44.480 which is about two blocks from the Market Street Park 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:48.919 where the rally was held. In the days after that rally, 0:25:49.880 --> 0:25:52.600 one of those counter demonstrators, who had been legally carrying 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:57.000 his rifle that day, posted online that he'd seen Fields 0:25:57.000 --> 0:26:01.639 that afternoon before the attack. He wrote, I used this 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:04.159 rifle to chase off James Fields from our block of 0:26:04.200 --> 0:26:07.080 Fourth Street before he attacked the marchers to the south. 0:26:09.119 --> 0:26:12.680 And when he posted that he believed it to be true, 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:19.680 he was traumatized. He had survivor's guilt. He truly believed 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:24.119 that he had seen James Fields driving around hunting for 0:26:24.280 --> 0:26:29.199 victims and the hour before the attack happened, but he 0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:34.240 was wrong. After his Facebook post, a Charlesville police detective 0:26:34.320 --> 0:26:36.919 drove to his home to interview him, and I've obtained 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:41.240 a copy of that police interview. He said that around 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:44.879 one pm that afternoon, he saw a dark gray muscle 0:26:44.960 --> 0:26:50.160 car with very dark tinted windows circling Court Square Park. 0:26:51.960 --> 0:26:55.080 The car was driving slowly, as though the driver were 0:26:55.119 --> 0:26:59.320 trying to observe the people in the park. The third 0:26:59.359 --> 0:27:02.080 time the card drove past, it came to a complete stop, 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:06.399 level with where he was standing inside the park, and 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:08.639 at that point, he says, he stepped down off the curb, 0:27:09.040 --> 0:27:11.880 standing between two parked cars, so not all the way 0:27:11.880 --> 0:27:14.680 out into the road, but off the curb, and he 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:17.880 yelled at the car something like get out of here. 0:27:19.240 --> 0:27:22.439 And he says the interaction was brief. The driver did 0:27:22.480 --> 0:27:26.440 not roll down the window. They didn't exchange words. His 0:27:26.560 --> 0:27:30.280 rifle remained slung across his body, muzzle pointing at the ground, 0:27:31.240 --> 0:27:33.040 and he never put his hand on the pistol grip. 0:27:34.400 --> 0:27:37.919 He did not raise his weapon, he didn't step all 0:27:37.920 --> 0:27:40.080 the way out into the road, and he was the 0:27:40.119 --> 0:27:42.080