Some 20 people were injured in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed. Image from: Flickr/susanmelkisethian
Not with a bang, but a whimper. That’s how suit-and-tie white nationalists like Richard Spencer finally disappear from public view.
The think tank operated by Spencer, the white nationalist godfather of the alt-right and at one time its predominant public figure, was ordered by a federal judge this week to pay $2.4 million to a man severely injured during the deadly “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, 2017. The judgement, however, is likely never to be paid, because Spencer’s organization is now apparently defunct, and he has almost completely withdrawn from public view over the past two years and now will have severe difficulty ever returning.
Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images
In the wake of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, Republican lawmakers are advancing a a number of new anti-protest measures at the state level including multiple bills that specifically make it easier for drivers to run down protesters.
The most recent example of such a law came Wednesday, when Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a new law that effectively allows drivers to hit people with a car in a specific set of circumstances.
Under the new law, an Oklahoma driver will no longer be liable for striking or even killing a person if the driver is “fleeing from a riot . under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death.”
Robyn PennacchiaApril 16, 2021 12:18 PM
Screenshot of James Alex Fields driving into protestors at Unite the Right Rally.
On August 12, 2017, neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors at the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. In 2019, Fields was sentenced to life in prison plus 419 years.
But if it were up to Republicans in the Florida legislature, he d be free. Not because they believe in prison abolition (this is, after all, Florida) or are concerned about the wider effects of inflating prison sentences beyond a natural human life nope! They just want what he did to not be a crime