This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A federal judge imposed a life sentence on the self-described neo-Nazi who killed Heather Heyer by crashing his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a white supremacist rally, saying release would be “too great a risk”.

The 22-year-old neo-Nazi, James Fields of Maumee, Ohio, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He had sought a lesser sentence, apologizing after the court viewed video of him plowing his car into a crowd after the 12 August 2017 Unite the Right rally, also injuring 19 people.

'We are unbreakable': Charlottesville survivors applaud guilty verdict Read more

District Judge Michael Urbanski, was unmoved by his plea, saying he had had to avert his eyes while the court viewed graphic video of the attack that showed bodies flying into the air as Fields crashed into them.

“Just watching them is terrifying,” Urbanski said. “The release of the defendant into a free society is too great a risk.”

The rally proved a critical moment in the rise of the “alt-right”, a loose alignment of fringe groups centered on white nationalism and emboldened by Donald Trump’s 2016 election.

Trump was criticized from the left and right for initially saying there were “fine people on both sides” of the dispute between neo-Nazis and their opponents at the rally. Subsequent alt-right gatherings failed to draw crowds the size of the Charlottesville rally.

Heyer’s parents described the grief of losing their daughter.

“It was an incident I will never fully recover from,” said Heyer’s father, Mark Heyer.

Her mother, Susan Bro, described herself as “deeply wounded” and recounted crying uncontrollably at times.

Ahead of Friday’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors noted that Fields had long espoused violent beliefs. Less than a month before the attack he posted an image on Instagram showing a car plowing through a crowd of people captioned: “you have the right to protest but I’m late for work.”

Even after the attack, Fields remained unrepentant, prosecutors said, noting that in a 7 December 2017 phone call from jail with his mother, he blasted Bro for her activism after the attack.

“She is a communist. An anti-white liberal,” Fields said, according to court papers filed by prosecutors. He rejected his mother’s plea to consider that the woman had “lost her daughter”, replying, “She’s the enemy.”

Timeline A history of recent attacks linked to white nationalism Show Hide In the past decade, across continents, white supremacists have repeatedly chosen the same targets for shootings, stabbings, bombings and car attacks. Utøya island and in Oslo, Norway 77 killed in a bomb attack, followed by a shooting targeting the island summer youth camp of Norway’s Labor party. The shooter wanted to prevent an 'invasion of Muslims' and deliberately targeted politically active young people who he saw as 'cultural Marxists'. More than half of the dead were teenagers.

Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, US Six worshippers including the temple president are killed. The shooter, a ''frustrated neo-Nazi' who had played in white power bands, was a regular on racist websites. He had previously talked to one colleague in the US military about a 'racial holy war that was coming'. Piraeus, Greece Rapper and anti-fascist activist Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed to death. A senior member of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party was imprisoned after confessing to the killing. Overland Park, Kansas, US A former Ku Klux Klan leader shot and killed three people at a Jewish centre and retirement home, one of them just 14 years old. He said he believed Jews were destroying the white race, and that diversity was a kind of genocide. Charleston, South Carolina, US Nine people killed during Bible study at a historic black church. The victims included elderly longtime church members at the Mother Emanuel AME church, and Clementa Pinckney, a state senator. The shooter, a self-avowed white supremacist, said he wanted to start a race war.

Trollhättan, Sweden An attacker stabbed students and teachers at a high school, targeting those with darker skin, police said. Three died, including 15-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who was born in Somalia and had recently moved to Sweden. Birstall, West Yorkshire, UK Labour MP Jo Cox shot and stabbed to death a week before the EU referendum vote in 2016. The man convicted of killing her, a white supremacist obsessed with the Nazis and apartheid-era South Africa, shouted: 'This is for Britain,' 'Keep Britain independent' and 'Britain first' as he killed her. Quebec City, Canada Six people killed and nineteen injured during evening prayers at a mosque in a shooting which the gunman said was prompted by Justin Trudeau’s tweet that refugees were welcome in Canada, and that 'diversity is strength'. New York, US Timothy Caughman stalked and killed by a white supremacist with a sword. His killer, an American military veteran, said he targeted a random black man on the street in New York City as a 'practice run' for a bigger attack, and as part of a campaign to persuade white women not to enter into interracial relationships. Portland, Oregon Two men were killed and one injured after they tried to intervene to protect young women on a public train who were being targeted with an anti-Muslim tirade. Their alleged killer shouted 'Free speech or die' in the courtroom, and 'Death to Antifa!' Finsbury Park, London, UK One killed and 12 people injured after a van ploughed into worshippers outside a mosque. The killer shouted 'I want to kill all Muslims – I did my bit' after the van attack. A judge concluded he had avidly consumed anti-Muslim propaganda from prominent rightwing figures. Charlottesville, Virginia, US Heather Heyer killed and dozens injured after a car ploughed into anti-Nazi protesters. The killer had been obsessed with Hitler as a teenager, according to a former teacher. Kentucky, US Man attempted to enter black church before allegedly killing two black people in a supermarket. A witness said that during the attack, the alleged shooter said: 'Whites don’t kill whites.' Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US 11 killed in a mass shooting targeting the Tree of Life synagogue. The alleged shooter had an active profile on an extremist social media site, where he accused Jewish people of trying to bring 'evil' Muslims into the US, and wrote that a refugee aid organisation 'likes to bring invaders in that kill our people'. Christchurch, New Zealand 51 people were killed and 49 injured in two consecutive attacks on mosques during Friday prayers. The gunman live-streamed the first attack on Facebook Live. They opened the live stream by urging viewers to 'subscribe to PewDiePie', a meme used by the online alt-right and white supremacists. Poway, California One person killed in mass shooting targeting a synagogue in Poway, California, US. The alleged shooter, 19, from California, opened fire in a synagogue during Passover services, killing a 60-year-old woman and injuring three others. An“open letter” posted on the 8chan extremist message board before the attack included white nationalist conspiracy rhetoric and said the shooter was inspired by the New Zealand mosque attacks. Walmart shooting, El Paso, Texas 21 people killed after a shooter opened fire at a busy Walmart store packed with families shopping. Two dozen more were injured. The 21-year-old white male suspect had driven nine hours to reach his target. and had posted a "manifesto" on 8chan. Lois Beckett and Martin Belam

Fields pleaded guilty to the federal hate crime charges in March under a deal with prosecutors, who agreed not to seek the death penalty.

He was photographed hours before the attack carrying a shield with the emblem of a far-right hate group. He has identified himself as a neo-Nazi.

Fields’s attorneys suggested he felt intimidated and acted to protect himself. They asked for mercy, citing his relative youth and history of mental health diagnoses.