Page 5 - aruba-today-20181208

A5
U.S. NEWS Saturday 8 december 2018

Man who drove into

crowd convicted of

first-degree murder

By DENISE LAVOIE
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.
(AP) — A man who drove
his car into a crowd of
counterprotesters at a
white nationalist rally in
Virginia was convicted Fri-
day of first-degree murder
for killing a woman in an
attack that inflamed long-
simmering racial and po- This aerial photo taken from video provided by KABC-TV shows traffic at a standstill on Interstate 5
litical tensions across the near Gorman, Calif., early Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018.
country. Associated Press
A state jury rejected ar- This undated file photo pro-
guments that James Alex vided by the Albemarle- Storm brings record rainfall,
Fields Jr. acted in self-de- Charlottesville Regional Jail
fense during a "Unite the shows James Alex Fields Jr.
Right" rally in Charlottes- Associated Press snow to Southern California
ville on Aug. 12, 2017. Ju-
rors also convicted Fields ald Trump — streamed
of eight other charges, in- into the college town for By AMANDA LEE MYERS More than 300 people liv- Pasadena foothills, and in
cluding aggravated mali- one of the largest gath- Associated Press ing in a San Diego shelter San Diego County.
cious wounding and hit erings of white suprema- LOS ANGELES (AP) — Crews had to be evacuated to a Some residents took ad-
and run. cists in a decade. Some were busy Friday assessing stadium. vantage of the rare rainy
Fields, 21, drove to Virgin- dressed in battle gear. damage and cleaning up The storm also caused sev- day, with at least one man
ia from his home in Mau- Afterward, Trump in- after a storm that brought eral roof collapses and sent captured on video surf-
mee, Ohio, to support flamed tensions even fur- record rainfall to Los Ange- an airliner skidding off a ing down the street as an
the white nationalists. As ther when he said "both les, snowfall to northern ele- runway in Burbank, though SUV pulled him. Another
a large group of coun- sides" were to blame, a vations, snarled traffic and no associated injuries were paddle-boarded in a wet-
terprotesters marched comment some saw as a forced evacuations as de- reported. suit near a flooded truck in
through Charlottesville refusal to condemn rac- bris flows hit areas burned "It did cause a lot of head- Costa Mesa.
singing and laughing, he ism. by wildfires. aches," said Eric Boldt, a While rain caused numer-
stopped his car, backed According to one of his Evacuation orders were meteorologist with the Na- ous accidents and back-
up, then sped into the former teachers, Fields either lifted or downgrad- tional Weather Service. ups on LA-area freeways,
crowd, according to testi- was known in high school ed Thursday night and Fri- He said the storm was more heavy snow forced the
mony from witnesses and for being fascinated with day morning as the storm typical of January or Feb- closure of Interstate 5 in
video surveillance shown Nazism and idolizing Adolf moved out of the area. ruary for the region and the Grapevine area be-
to jurors. Hitler. Jurors were shown That includes the area of called it a win for drought- tween Los Angeles and the
Prosecutors told the jury a text message he sent Orange County's Trabuco weary Los Angeles. San Joaquin Valley. The
that Fields was angry after to his mother days before Creek, which overflowed "It does put us ahead for hours-long shutdown along
witnessing violent clashes the rally that included an with debris that took down Los Angeles," he said. "It's the key north-south route
between the two sides image of the notorious a guardrail and overcame kind of a good start for De- caused backups for miles.
earlier in the day. The vio- German dictator. When a narrow bridge. Workers cember." Drivers were urged to use
lence prompted police to his mother pleaded with need to clear out the de- The downtown area set a caution on mountain pass-
shut down the rally before him to be careful, he re- bris from the bridge and in- rainfall record for the day es, where up to 10 feet (3
it even officially began. plied: "we're not the one stall a new guardrail. with 1.9 inches (4.8 cen- meters) of snow fell at high-
Heather Heyer, a 32-year- (sic) who need to be Other crews were fo- timeters) of rain, nearly er elevations.q
old paralegal and civil careful." cused on Malibu, where double the previous record
rights activist, was killed, During one of two re- a mudslide shut down the set in 1997, the National
and nearly three dozen corded phone calls Fields Pacific Coast Highway Weather Service reported.
others were injured. The made to his mother from and surrounding roads Normal monthly rainfall
trial featured emotional jail in the months after he in and around neighbor- for December is only a bit
testimony from survivors was arrested, he told her hoods charred by wildfire more — 2.33 inches (5.8
who described devastat- he had been mobbed last month that destroyed centimeters).
ing injuries and long, com- "by a violent group of ter- more than 1,000 homes Rainfall also broke a record
plicated recoveries. rorists" at the rally. In an- and killed three people. in the high-desert city of
The far-right rally had other, Fields referred to There were no reported in- Lancaster, northeast of Los
been organized in part the mother of the woman juries associated with the Angeles. That city saw 1.4
to protest the planned re- who was killed as a "com- mudslide or debris flows inches (3.5 centimeters) of
moval of a statue of Con- munist" and "one of those and no homes were seri- rain, beating the previous
federate Gen. Robert E. anti-white supremacists." ously damaged, though record of 1.2 inches (3 cen-
Lee. Hundreds of Ku Klux He posted the meme pub- multiple people had to be timeters) in 1997.
Klan members, neo-Nazis licly to his Instagram page rescued in Los Angeles, Or- Other total rainfalls ex-
and other white national- and sent a similar image ange, Riverside and San ceeded 4.5 inches (11.4
ists — emboldened by the as a private message to a Diego counties as water centimeters) in some parts
election of President Don- friend in May 2017.q overcame roadways and of Los Angeles County, in-
at times submerged cars. cluding Avalon and the