page_title: Charlottesville car attack
section_title: Memorial service
hierarchical_section_title: Charlottesville car attack / Reactions / Memorial service
caption_attribution_description: English: Tim Kaine inspects a makeshift memorial to Heather Heyer at the site of her killing
context_page_description: On August 12, 2017, James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people who had been peacefully protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring 19. The 20-year-old Fields had driven from Ohio to attend the rally. Fields previously espoused neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs. He was convicted in a state court of hit and run, the first-degree murder of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, and eight counts of malicious wounding, and sentenced to life in prison with an additional 419 years in July 2019. He also pled guilty to 29 of 30 federal hate crime charges to avoid the death penalty, which also resulted in another life sentence handed down in June 2019.
  A memorial service and vigils were organized. The Mayor of Charlottesville, the Virginia Secretary of Public Safety, the Attorney General and the FBI director called the attack an act of domestic terrorism.
context_section_description: A memorial service was held at the Paramount Theater, two blocks from the attack location, on August 16. More than a thousand people attended the service, many of them wearing sashes and ribbons. Present were Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA), Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) and former Counselor to the President Ed Gillespie (R-VA).
  Heyer's mother Susan Bro delivered a speech calling for people to fight "as Heather would do." A standing ovation lasted nearly a minute and a half after Bro said, "They tried to kill my child to shut her up, but guess what, you just magnified her." Bro said that she had received hundreds of messages from people inspired by Heyer asking for advice. A woman played "Amazing Grace" and "America the Beautiful" on a saxophone. Heyer's father Mark Heyer said that Heather had been "defiant, strong-willed and compassionate" and that she "always argued for what she thought was right."
  Several people with purple shields, pink bats and pink helmets with a heart drawn on each were observing outside the theater to stop any "fascist groups" that might disrupt the event. No problems were reported outside the theater. As the service ended, Bro asked someone in the audience to stop criticizing President Trump.
  Politicians were confronted outside the memorial service. After being asked about it, McAuliffe told a man that Virginia law leaves the removal of Confederate statues to local communities. Kaine was asked why the Charlottesville police "had failed to head off the weekend's violent clashes" and he said that, "city officials had promised an independent review of the police response."
caption: Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia visits a makeshift memorial to Heather Heyer at the site of the attack.
exif: {}