Police in the US State of Virginia are considering whether or not to lay hate crime charges against a man who drove his pickup truck through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters on Sunday.
Harry Rogers, 36, of Hanover County, is facing charges of assault, battery, attempted malicious wounding and felony vandalism, as well as possible hate crime charges after injuring a cyclist with his truck.
The cyclist was treated at the scene and there were no other injuries reported.
Mr Rogers has reportedly described himself as a Klu Klux Klan "leader" and a propagandist of Confederate ideology.
Witnesses say Mr Rogers drove his blue pickup truck through the group of peaceful protesters who were blocking a road near a local monument.
“People had been revving their engine in support, but all of a sudden it wasn’t going in the opposite direction. I turn around and I just see panic, people running and grabbing their kids, and trying to protect their kids. That was the most heartbreaking part, trying to grab them on to the sidewalks and medians,” Shannon Campanella, a protester, told local television station NBC12.
"I really thought this was going to be another version of Charlottesville, only worse,” said Adriana Ross another protester.
The incident has echoes of the Charlottesville march in 2017, when a white supremacist deliberately drove his car into an anti-racist demonstration killing one and injuring 28 others.
The incident has echoes of Charlottesville where protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally were driven into. Source: AP
The attacker in Charlottesville was handed a life sentence in what the FBI determined to be an "act of domestic terrorism".
Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor said the issue of hate crimes charges in this case was still being considered.
“While I am grateful that the victim’s injuries do not appear to be serious, an attack on peaceful protesters is heinous and despicable and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,” she said.
