Washington: A car ploughed into a crowd demonstrating against a white supremacist rally in the US state of Virginia, killing one person and injuring 19 others, while two police officers died when their helicopter monitoring the rally, crashed near the protest site.
The deaths came at the end of a day marked by clashes between far-right nationalists and people who had come to protest their occupation of a park in Charlottesville containing a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee.
A 32-year-old woman died after the car rammed into the crowd holding peaceful protests. James Fields (20), of Ohio, the driver of the car, has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The cause of the crash remains under investigation at this time, the police said in a statement.
Two Virginia State Patrol troopers were also killed in a helicopter crash while assisting public safety resources with the ongoing situation in Charlottesville. In addition to the one death and 19 injuries in the car-ramming incident, the city said there were at least 15 other injuries associated with the scheduled rally by white supremacists against the planned removal of the statue.
Following the clashes, a state of emergency was declared by authorities, and police and security forces were deployed in riot gears. President Donald Trump meanwhile described it as a terrible event.
