Trump condemns white supremacists following criticism of his response
14 Aug 2017 5:59 PM GMT
Washington: President Trump denounced groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis by name and announced that the Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation into the death of a counterprotester at a white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend as he sought to tamp down mounting criticism of his initial response to the violence.
"Anyone who acted criminally in this weekend's racist violence, you will be held accountable," Trump said in brief remarks at the White House.
The statement came two days after he failed to specifically condemn the rally after Heather Heyer was killed and as many as 19 were injured by a driver who reportedly espoused racist and pro-Nazi sentiments and had come to the city for the the "Unite the Right" march.
Meanwhile, the young man accused of plowing a car into a crowd of people protesting a white supremacist rally was fascinated with Nazism, idolised Adolf Hitler, and had been singled out by school officials in the 9th grade for his "deeply held, radical" convictions on race, a former high school teacher said on Monday.
James Alex Fields Jr. also confided that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger and had been prescribed an anti-psychotic medication, Derek Weimer said in an interview with The Associated Press.
In high school, Fields was an "average" student, but with a keen interest in military history, Hitler, and Nazi Germany, said Weimer, who said he was Fields' social studies teacher at Randall K Cooper high school in Union, Kentucky, in Fields' junior and senior years.
Next Story
