Unite the Right rally turns deadly

Charlottesville: A gathering of hundreds of white nationalists in Virginia took a deadly turn when a car ploughed into a group of counter-protesters and killed at least one person.

The violent day left three dead, dozens injured and this usually quiet college town a bloodied symbol of the nation's roiling racial and political divisions. Two police officers died when their helicopter monitoring the rally, crashed near the protest site.

The state's Governor blamed neo-Nazis for sparking the unrest on Saturday in Charlottesville, where rival groups fought pitched battles using rocks and pepper spray after far-right protesters converged to demonstrate against a plan to remove a statue of a Confederate war hero.

The chaos erupted around what is believed to be the largest group of white nationalists to come together in a decade — including neo-Nazis, skinheads, members of the Ku Klux Klan - who descended on the city to "take America back" by rallying against plans to remove a Confederate statue. Hundreds came to protest against the racism. There were street brawls and violent clashes; the Governor declared a state of emergency, police in riot gear ordered people out and helicopters circled overhead.

Peaceful protesters were marching downtown, carrying signs that read "black lives matter" and "love." A silver Dodge Challenger suddenly came barreling through "a sea of people" and smashed into another car, said Matt Korbon, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student.

The impact hurled people into the air and blew off their shoes. A 32-year-old woman was killed as she crossed the street. "It was a wave of people flying at me," said Sam Becker, 24, sitting in the emergency room to be treated for leg and hand injuries.

Those left standing scattered, screaming and running for safety. Video caught the car reversing, hitting more people, its windshield splintered from the collision and bumper dragging on the pavement. Medics carried the injured, bloodied and crying, away as a police tank rolled down the street.

The driver, James Alex Fields Jr, a 20-year-old who recently moved to Ohio from where he grew up in Kentucky, was charged with second-degree murder and other counts. Field's mother, Samantha Bloom, told The Associated Press on Saturday night that she knew her son was attending a rally in Virginia but didn't know it was a white supremacist rally. "I thought it had something to do with Trump.

Trump's not a white supremacist," said Bloom, who became visibly upset as she learned of the injuries and deaths at the rally Some of the white nationalists at Saturday's rally cited President Donald Trump's victory after a campaign of racially-charged rhetoric as validation for their beliefs.

Trump criticized the violence in a tweet on Saturday, followed by a press conference and a call for "a swift restoration of law and order." "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides," he said.