Further update: The second video I posted has been taken down for violating YouTube’s standards of etc blah yak. Sorry about that — now it looks like we can no longer compare the two clips to determine whether the car accelerated before or after it was hit by the bat. If anyone finds another version of the second clip, let me know, and I’ll post it. Then we can see how long it stays up.
Update: A commenter sends this video, showing the same few seconds of the incident. He says: “If you look at this the baseball bat was done AFTER he had accelerated, this post should be removed, appearing to justify this is not good.”
Did he accelerate before the bat struck the car? You decide:
P.S. for the commenter: We don’t remove posts. We UPDATE them. The truth is better served by allowing earlier errors to remain in place, no matter how embarrassing they might be.
The brief clip below is an excerpt from a longer RT video that someone has modified by steadying it as much as possible and zooming in. In it you’ll see the car driven yesterday by James Fields, just before it ran into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville. The cameraman is on the east sidewalk of 4th Street, looking south towards Water Street. The point of view is just south of the pedestrian area of the Downtown Mall, as indicated by the newspaper boxes that briefly come into view on the left. The car that Mr. Fields’ car eventually rammed is farther down, hidden by the clot of pedestrians.
Watch closely as a counter-protester holding a bat swings it with both arms against the back of Mr. Fields’ Dodge:
There are several other things to notice and consider concerning this clip:
| 1. | The camera’s view of the car is foreshortened by distance and the effect of the zoom. However, it is apparent that the car was NOT traveling at a high rate of speed prior to being hit by the bat. The driver seemed to be proceeding with caution, as would be appropriate when driving on a street packed with rowdy pedestrians.
If you’ve seen any of the videos showing the impact of Mr. Fields’ Dodge with the back of the second car, you know how fast he was traveling when he ripped through that crowd. At some point after his car was hit with the bat, he must have floored it. |
|
| 2. | We can’t see what the people in front of his car were doing. Were they flipping him the bird? Brandishing with heavy objects? Yelling threats? | |
| 3. | During events such as this one, the Antifas own the streets. Anyone who ventures into their midst driving a muscle car is fair game. | |
| 4. | What kind of a peaceful protester carries a baseball bat to a demonstration for social justice? | |
| 5. | Mr. Fields’ route down 4th Street shows that he is from out of state and is unfamiliar with the local topography. No one who knows Charlottesville would drive down that piece of 4th unless he had business in one of the buildings along the street. It’s not a good route to get out of town, to get to another part of Charlottesville, or even to get to Water Street. One would normally proceed east down Market to 9th Street, or west to Preston. | |
| 6. | I suspect that Mr. Woods’ counsel will have this clip and others like it — and stills made from them — prepared for his client’s day in court. Which lies a LONG way in the future — there’s no way the trial can be held in Charlottesville, so we can expect many months of delay while motions to change the venue are filed and adjudicated. |
We all remember Reginald Denny …
Who’d want to be in that position?
Btw that baseball strike would have sounded like a gunshot inside the car – if anyone’s been in a big prang, or hit anything while driving a motor, then they’ll know just how loud and shocking something like that would be.
Good point. Remember that a Somali Policeman who shot an
Australian woman dead when she slapped her hand on
On his parked vehicle is likely to be exonerated under
Such a scenario suggested in your post.
I’m no forensic expert but the press cannot have it both ways.
The only difference is that the main stream media is
Desperate to find the policeman innocent whilst
Finding the driver of this vehicle guilty!
1. Scott Adams has an interesting observation, starting at 4:02 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEJ5yljIWqQ
gist of his remarks regarding the rally:
“Both sides wore helmets and protective padding.
Both sides brought equipment that could be turned into weapons.
Both sides showed up at a pre-arranged time and place.
There were referees present (the police were acting as referees).
The entire thing was televised.
We saw a sporting event disguised as a political event.”
2. A witness to the auto ramming (sorry, I can’t find the link now) saw the car moving slowly, turning the corner into 4th, and the crowd moving aside because, he thought, the Dodge resembled an undercover police car due to the tinted windows and lack of front license plate.
What if Jason Kessler were involved with Occupy and an Obama supporter until November 2016? Does that change anything?
This is according to the SPLC.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jason-kessler
Scott is sooo Verrrry even-handed, don’cha know. White guys is just sooo bad ‘n all.
Howsabout: one side came prepared (physically, armored and with malice aforethought) then attacked when the ‘police’ drove the other into its ambush; the other side simply warned and ready to DEFEND itself against a sworn enemy?
Actions are the thing here.
Howsabout: the ‘car’, trying to get the hell out of Dodge after being attacked leaving its parking garage–lost in the unfamiliar city full of HOSTILE RIOTERS–gets assaulted AGAIN by part of the mob and then NAILS THE ACCELERATOR?
“Which side” the driver was on politically is just NOT RELEVANT here.
But we wuvvves the MSM narrative, don’t we???
You nailed it, Yank. So how come you know about the horrendous parking garage? Thank God I don’t have to go there anymore.
Perhaps someone living in the area can explore whether George Soros money was involved in generating the flash crowd. Were there buses rented to bring people in?
Were any of Soros’ organizations active in town before and during the event? It is hard to believe that such a huge demonstration was “spontaneous.”
https://youtu.be/hfWpaJ91ROw
If you look at this the baseball bat was done AFTER he had accelerated, this post should be removed, appearing to justify this is not good.
Your video has been removed. In the absence of contradictory evidence, the one above is convincing enough for me. Slow the speed down to 0.25, the slowest setting. Still think the driver accelerated before the bat made contact? Also, if the car had already started to accelerate, one would expect that the batter would have had some trouble timing his swing, which, unfortunately for your case, was unhurried and well-timed.
The video came from Vlad Tepes, but I see it has gone from there as well, there was audio which appeared to also indicate a screech of tires as he accelerated before the baseball bat, but of no major importance. The point is someone was killed and doing other than expressing concern etc is bad.
Tell that to the press.
If the police had done their job instead of standing down, no one may have died that day. The police chief, mayor and the governor have blood on their hands.
There are loads of unanswered questions as to the entire weekend.One is, were there in the ranks of the ‘protesters’ dark forces to provoke violence ?
Well that young man is used to driving in NY the
Cab has rite of way . not people .
KKK had permit peoples spitting & throwing newspaper boxes,
Hiting with clubs should habe been arrested .
Detailed image report from Charlottesville
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4783914/White-nationalists-hold-torch-lit-march-UVA-campus.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3576909/posts?page=2#2
Eye witness to arrest of driver claims the male identified and photographed in media is not the male pulled from car and has surveillance video to prove it.
Here’s more …
http://www.departmentofmemes.com/article/protesters-attacked-charlottesville-drivers-car-baseball-bat/
Hat tip: Knuckledraggin
The center does not hold for the Left, again!
BLM is the replacement for the KKK as the militant arm of the Democratic party, this is a turf war.
There always are dark forces in these situations.
An interesting drone video to add to your collection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4MKwzPYrbk
That video is strange. It doesn’t show the actual impact. There’s a long RED car going into the intersection, and a lighter car behind, with doors open. Not the same scenario at all.
I have driven that intersection many times (once for an art exhibition of the Baron’s in a restaurant now long gone from that side street). I believe the driver of the Challenger (or whatever that muscle car was called) was deliberately mis-led when he came out of the parking garage. Had he turned right and gone up to the light, he could have circled round and gone away from the melee. Unless you know the area well, it’s quite confusing. Especially since there are only TWO side streets that offer egress via the pedestrian mall and this one is quite round about.
When this boy’s trial comes up, the defense will have maps galore to illustrate how he was led into that bottleneck. I’m dying to see which lawyer gets his case…
Higher definition:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/896434516260212737
Being startled into looking over your left shoulder would tend to push your right foot forward as your hips twisted – worse yet if your left foot was midway in releasing the clutch, because that foot would pull back as you twisted.
Consider also that this is a 20 year old, not a long experienced driver. I’ve been riding with a learners permitted teen lately – a beginner has to think about every move, if they are startled …
Also consider that: that would be a scary situation, anybody would be jumpy and prone to over-react. And he’s a young guy with a cool car being threatened and harassed by thugs. Anybody would be angry at the [lefties] , a young man even more so.
It’s just evolution in action – [redacted].
Mankind periodically goes to Hell. That is simply the tragic flaw in our nature. There never was a time when this innate savagery could be kept under control for long. And once it breaks out, it just has to run its bloody course. There is simply nothing else worth saying about such facts of life. Other than praying that these terrible things – by some miracle – will pass you by.
When feelings are running high things very quickly get out of hand on all sides. People see red and lose control.
I thought that was all anyone need say. However, many here said more, and indeed often a great deal too much – though none were liable to any accusation of prolixity, as I fear I may be.
Nevertheless, I feel I must say that the attempts by some GoV contributors to portray this known Nazi lunatic, who rammed his car into the crowd of Leftist troublemakers, as an innocent who only made some kind of understandable blunder, leaves a very bad taste.
I must take issue with this lapse of editorial policy, even at the risk of possibly testing the editor’s patience (if no-one else’s).
Surely nobody involved in such rioting can be excused from their personal responsibility for what happens when two sides go out spoiling for a fight?
Of course the local authorities might have handled the debate about starting to put away old Civil War symbols a lot less provocatively, and a lot more sensitively. Then perhaps political hotheads from outside this locality, lacking all sympathy for its difficult history, would not have been alerted to an easy propaganda coup, and local feelings would not have been inflamed as a result.
The pc brigade shows its true colours when deliberately stirring up the sleeping dogs of old fights: They make political capital out of provoking the reactions that validate their ideology. The Agit-Prop theatre of the streets is the greatest Recruiting-Sergeant of these rabble-rousers.
Authority should have shown greater wisdom than to have allowed such ancient enmities to be inflamed anew, especially when claiming to exorcise the ghosts of those old soldiers of a misguided and utterly lost, yet fundamentally honourable, cause.
The issue was completely mismanaged, the local government allowed itself to be seen as siding with uncompromising Left-wing ideologues, all hope of calm dialogue and compromise vanished and riots duly ensued.
Beyond all the mindless squalor on the street, it must be pointed out that the American outrage most on show in Charlottesville is the historical inability of the Yanquis to forgive the Confederates, and honour their beaten foe!
Blame wicked and weak human nature – blame insensitive and tactless political blunders by the responsible authorities – blame leftist agitators – but for goodness’ sake: Please don’t try to whitewash the sort of moronic Nazi thug whose violent impulses overwhelmed him with an urge to mindlessly and indiscriminately slaughter the agents provocateur of the Left!
Such homicidal maniacs are a political disaster for the rational Right, making decent rightist ideology appear toxic by association, and rendering every media interview a public show trial, instead of an opportunity to calm fears and make friends.
Tolerating such dangerous idiots, and then actually attempting to make specious and contrived excuses for them is to play right into the hands of the media-savvy Left.
Besides which, making friends with such filth makes you dirty as well. I mean this guy admires Hitler!
Do try to remember, good people: We’re only being portrayed as dangerously Right-wing because we have allowed the Left to calibrate our relative positions; actually, in any sane world, all our best instincts are those of the old Centre in politics. It is because of such extremism on either hand that the Centre has failed to hold. We want to frustrate extremism and restore the sane balance of society.
Nobody forced this mad idiot to mow down a crowd of annoying disturbers of the peace. He wasn’t a policeman licensed to shoot if threats to life and limb came from that quarter – or from any other quarter, for that matter. If – God forbid – social order ever breaks down anywhere in the West to the extent that the entire population is forced to choose which side they are on, there will be legitimate armed forces raised in the name of each cause, and we will march out to do battle, that the issue may be settled once and for all. We will not then be murderers in any ordinary sense, terrible though our duty would be.
And yet the situation in Charlottesville today is that the legitimacy of a Confederation of American States who fought for what they believed in, albeit socially and politically doomed, is being repudiated, and deliberately dishonoured. We don’t even dishonour the German servicemen and women who lie in their war graves across Europe, despite the evils that their leader brought upon us! Presumably the vast majority of those Germans ultimately fought to defend their country, even despite the mad adventurism which led them to disaster.
But the driver who mowed people down on the street at his own evil whim possesses absolutely NO honour that the contributors of GoV should wish to defend, or that could allow them to forgive his wickedness. Did these indulgent apologists apply the same ingenious arguments in amelioration of perceived Islamic guilt, subsequent to the various driving ‘accidents’ in the news lately, where many were crushed by careering trucks – and cars – that might similarly have been portrayed as not quite under the full control of their drivers – – – ? Or would they have accepted that such a lone wolf attack was in the service of some perceived Higher Cause? Frankly, how far would these misguided apologists for evil be willing to go in exculpating the inexcusable and the indefensible?
If, in defence of our beliefs, we have to stoop to excusing – which is covertly applauding – the mindless tactics of the rabble, then our beliefs will not deserve to be vindicated.
Still less would anyone be justified by seeming to approve of methods associated with terrorism.
If there is any extenuation to be made for zealous actions in the thick of the fray, which perhaps might be seen by a disinterested observer not caught up in the press of events as sometimes excessive and regrettable, let us instead grant such extenuation to the hard-pressed forces of the Law, in Charlottesville, who I am sure have been insultingly branded ‘Fascists’ for bravely withstanding those forces of disorder increasingly rampaging through our broken Western society.
The forces of law and order are surely supremely worth honouring for their brave stand in defence of civil society? Shall we indulge the sick cruelty of some crazed individual instead?
That seems beneath the decency and reasonableness I always thought GoV subscribed to.
I hope I have correctly understood the nature of the ‘good fight,’ in which those at the Gates of Vienna are engaged.
Even though your comment is 1100 words long and judgemental as all get-out, I let it in. Man, you’re even more verbose than I, and that’s saying something.
Given your British spellings of “honour” and so on, I presume you’ve never actually driven that street the fellow was on. Your mind-reading, here — But the driver who mowed people down on the street at his own evil whim possesses absolutely NO honour that the contributors of GoV should wish to defend, or that could allow them to forgive his wickedness. — is harsh at best and ignorant of the context at best.
I grant him confusion, fear, and even possibly being set up to make a wrong turn trying to get away from the hostile crowds. A jury will eventually more likely agree with my assessment than yours, especially if he is given a justifiable change of venue away from the Republic of Charlottesville.
I’ve driven that tiny street, but only when I had to. It’s a crossing point that allows vehicles to move past the pedestrian (in so many ways is it pedestrian) Downtown Mall and get back to regular traffic. Having done what he did, I can surmise he was either set up to turn that way or was confused.
Here is a likely scenario, less harsh than yours but based on actual experience (three decades’ worth) with that town and with that street:
He most likely came out of the parking garage and turned left instead of right. The latter turn would have brought him to the corner of Market and Ninth St. where he could have circled away from the melee. But which way to turn is not immediately obvious; it’s not obvious at all. People learn it the hard way, even when it’s not mobbed. I’m sure he saw the mobs further up Market St and thought he’d be safer turning left onto 4th St. To turn right, he’d have to have gotten over real quick…if you can even legally make that turn. Used to be you couldn’t.
I find your assessment wanting in common courtesy. But judge away; it’s your karmic burden.
I appreciate your inclusion of my views on this matter – which is magnanimous, in view of your complete – even contemptuous – disagreement with me.
Considering the contrived and really rather disturbingly indulgent excuses being offered for the crazy behaviour of someone who drove what must have been his pride and joy – his car – into a crowd of people, I am surprised to find my sincere unease at such devious and dishonest distortion of the truth being characterised as ‘wanting in common courtesy’.
[600 words, including insults, redacted]
Don’t expect to find me on this Website again. I am rather sorry about that, because otherwise GoV has much honest alternative news about important affairs not easily found elsewhere. And some really interesting and worthy correspondents.
But I am not going to associate myself any longer with political fantasists who are clearly prepared to make Nazis look good, at any cost to their own integrity.
Clearly, you folks can’t handle counter-arguments. If rational disagreement and straightforward criticism of a position I find deplorable is to be taken as insulting, then perhaps this site is not as enlightened nor as intelligent as I had believed.
Since, additionally, the carefully articulated body of my last response – a response, please note, rendered essential by the contemptuous and patronising tone of the editorial stance which met my previous comment – has been excised, rendering my careful discussion otiose, I really do not feel that my contributions here (on this or indeed any other subject) can ever really have been appreciated in the forthright but always entirely rational spirit in which they were proffered.
It is your undeniable right to disprise my opinions, to regard my arguments as redundant, and to be impatient of my considered mode of delivering them.
But it is also my right to remove myself from the needless and undeserved censure of people too many of whom appear to hold extreme opinions, resent debate and find any dispute of their fundamental tenets intolerable.
So would you please, forthwith, remove all of my offending comments that remain on your Website – since all are necessarily offensive and superfluous to the evident thrust of your editorial credo.
You are obviously too inspired by the street violence of the sinister Tweedledum and Tweedledee of direct action, the embattled rival camps of Left and Right.
To me, any involvement in such pointless and counter-productive gutter politics can only render reasonable discussion impossible, and any resolution beyond grasping.
Your stance on fundamental issues is doctrinaire, not philosophical, which I find inimical to a proper understanding of certain important events. I regret this, as I do believe we are in accord on the necessity of not taking everything the mass media peddle as the ‘Gospel truth.’ To that extent, I wish you, and GoV, well.
But this is the definitive parting of the ways. No longer can I abide the righteous humbug generated inside the community bubble of this Website. Your feedback loop is starting to generate pernicious, self-serving nonsense.
Of course, this note is not for publication.
Too bad. You post it in the comments; it gets moderated, and approved or not, at our discretion.
No, I’m not going to remove any of your previous comments. That’s too much work. They can stay, and people can scroll past them.
Comments that are inordinately long may be shortened by redaction, or deleted, especially if they are not on-topic. That has always been the case here. If you had read the guidelines for comments, you would have known that.
So it was too much work even to remove just my current comments on the shameful goings-on in Charlottesville – even though you seem – oddly – to imply that they are ‘off-topic’ according to your interpretation of the guidelines?
I sympathise with your need to keep this site polite and decent.
But if you are going to hit me with the ‘rule-book’ the editor should really observe it him- or herself. Your co-editor’s condescending and of late even sarcastic tone offend against your own injunction to civility. Nor do I see in the rules any specified word-limit, which I took as allowing that contributors may need to enlarge upon a many-faceted issue.
Most egregious of these editorial failings, i.m.h.o., is the blatant intemperance and rush to actually defend that reckless person now in jail and charged with murder. This is tantamount to excusing – or speciously exculpating – the entirely reprehensible behaviour of this man and his cronies on the day of the riots in Charlottesville.
I have already acknowledged that the Leftists were troublemakers, and can admit that the poor leadership of the gendarmerie, in failing to keep opposing rioters apart, made the whole horrible mess worse than it need have been.
But driving a car at speed into any crowd ought to be condemned by all decent persons of any persuasion. Your failure in connection with your own injunction to observe temperance in expressing oneself therefore exposes you to an accusation of arrant hypocrisy. And you permit a number of comments that strain logic in order to minimise the role of the Nazis in this mob violence, which is frankly tantamount to making a victim out of someone who was reckless at best, and probably culpable by known association.
Someone died and many were hospitalised. That is just obscene, even if you disagree with the views and behaviour of those attacked. You can’t tolerate open warfare on American streets, surely? There are no excuses possible for this mayhem. Your defensive stance on behalf of a Nazi low-life reveals a bias verging tastelessly on siding with a right-winger, and putting all the blame for the outrage on a leftist rioter’s indefensible but certainly not instrumental brandishing of a baseball bat. Fields was on a mission for his Nazi masters and already intent on evil.
Your spinning of this evil smacks of the worst insinuations of partisan propaganda. And to make it crystal clear, I can’t stand the Leftist extremists either.
This all saddens me greatly. It is very disappointing – I expected better.
As a long-time reader of this blog, and also a contributor, I can’t say that I found your original comment or your defense to be particularly logical, factual, or enlightening. The main feature of your posts was a logical fallacy termed “assuming the antecedent”. You are criticizing the article on the basis that it defends the use of violence by the protesters or doesn’t condemn them, and that it entertains the possibility that the driver of the car was not simply a Nazi out to murder liberals.
So, your comments assume things as facts which are very much in dispute: in fact, the discussions in the article are in fact reasoned disputes with just these assumptions.
According to your statement,
[600 words, including insults, redacted]
contained a reasoned and factual defense of your positions, and deleting that portion of your statement rendered the rest of your comments into undefended gibberish. But your comment repeats the assumption of the antecedent: that is, it states the propensity to violence of both sides and the murderous intent of the driver, neither of which is at all obvious.
I admit I would have preferred to see your entire defense, but I was not very persuaded by the parts of the posting that did remain.