A young man who drove his car into a crowd in Charlottesville, killing one person, was obsessed with Nazis, his teacher said.
“James Fields Jr. was very obsessed with the Nazis and Adolf Hitler in high school. He was interested in history, especially in German military history and the Second World War," said his former professor Derek Weimer for the Washington Post, as quoted by Index.hr.
As he says, Fields "was a person who respected others" at school, but he also points out that he had "radical ideas about race".
Also, Weimer revealed that Fields wrote a paper in high school about the Nazi army during World War II that was "full of love for the German army and the SS."
"He had views on white supremacism. He really believed in those things," his professor revealed to the Washington Post.
He emphasized that he tried to dissuade his student from those views, but he also admits that he failed.
"I tried my best. This is definitely a lesson and something we should be vigilant about because it is destroying our country," Weimer pointed out.
Fields drove his car into a crowd protesting the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the announcement of the removal of a monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed in the attack, and 19 people were injured.
Watch the disturbing footage of the moment Fields drives his car into a group of people here.
In a separate incident surrounding a right-wing protest in Charlottesville, two members of the security forces were killed after their helicopter tasked with monitoring the riots from the air crashed.
Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870) was a US general and later commander of Confederate forces in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Lee is considered one of the most important military commanders in US history.
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