CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - The leader of a North Carolina based group associated with the Ku Klux Klan says he is glad that a woman died while taking part in a protest in Charlottesville, VA over the weekend.
Heather Heyer was killed when James Allen Fields Jr. allegedly drove a car into a crowd of protesters at high speed, then fled the scene by backing up. Nineteen other people were injured.
Fields was among a group of white nationalists protesting the removal of a Confederate statue in a Charlottesville, VA, park. Heyer was among the large number of counter-protesters last Saturday.
Monday night, Justin Moore - the Grand Dragon for the Loyal White Knights of Ku Klux Klan, said he was glad Heyer died in the attack.
"I'm sorta glad that them people got hit and I'm glad that girl died," Moore said in a voicemail to WBTV's Steve Crump. "They were a bunch of Communists out there protesting against somebody's freedom of speech, so it doesn't bother me that they got hurt at all."
"I think we're going to see more stuff like this happening at white nationalist events," Moore warned.
The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is based in Pelham, NC. Members of the group were in Charlottesville as a part of the demonstration.
"We were out there and I seen a lot of communist flags and anti-fascist and we're going to see more stuff like this," Moore said. "White people are getting fed up with the double standard setup in America today by the controlled press."
"We should have been able to go out there and have our protest and it should have been peaceful but it's the anti-fascist and the communists [...] continuing to try and stop us," he continued. "So I think there will be more violence like this in the future to come."
The group praises Fields in a recorded message that plays when you call the group's headquarters.
"Nothing makes us more proud at the KKK than we see white patriots such as James Fields Jr, age 20, taking his car and running over nine communist anti-fascist, killing one [expletive]-lover named Heather Heyer," the recorded message says. "James Fields hail victory. It's men like you that have made the great white race strong and will be strong again."
Meanwhile, Heyer's father says he has forgiven the man charged with her death.
“She was a strong woman who had passionate opinions about the equality of everyone, and she tried to stand up for that,” her father, Mark Heyer said. “With her, it wasn't lip service, it was real. It was something she wanted to share with everyone.”
VIDEO: Father of Charlottesville victim forgives man charged with her death
Heyer said the lesson of the tragedy in Charlottesville is that people on all sides need to learn to forgive each other.
“I include myself in forgiving the guy who did this,” he said. “I just think about what the Lord said on the cross, ‘Forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.’”
Copyright 2017 WBTV. Raycom News Network and CNN contributed to this story. All rights reserved.
