On Saturday afternoon, a counter protest at a controversial Charlottesville, Virgina, white nationalist "Unite the Right" rally turned deadly when a car plunged into a crowd of pedestrians. According to investigators, the driver of that car was 20-year-old James Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio. Just hours before the horrific vehicle attack, suspect James Fields had been spotted engaging in some very different activity, apparently on behalf of a known white supremacist group.
As New York Daily News reports, one of their photographers snapped a picture of Charlottesville suspect James Fields on the front lines of the white nationalist rally. At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, the suspect was photographed proudly brandishing a shield featuring the well-known and divisive black-and-white insignia of the Vanguard America hate group.
Alongside Fields, who appears near the center of the Daily News photo were other white men dressed in nearly identical attire: khaki slacks and polo shirts.
The Anti-Defamation League describes the Vanguard America hate organization as one that focuses on "white identity." However, the League went on to say that the divisive group's members have "increasingly demonstrated a neo-Nazi ideology." According to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the black and white double ax emblem is widely recognized as a common version of the white supremacist group's insignia while Charolottesville suspect James Fields' attire in the Saturday morning photograph is "standard" among the group.
