This blog analyzes the statements of several people who said that they saw Michael Brown being killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014. These particular people said that Brown was shot dead in the same place where he stopped running away and turned around to face Wilson. The blog analyzes especially the statements of Dorian Johnson, Piaget Crenshaw and Tiffany Mitchell.
For a while before 1:40 p.m. on August 12, 2017, James Fields was idling his car just north of the intersection of Fourth Street and Market Street in Charlottesville, Virginia. One block behind Fields, as he sat in his idling car at that intersection, was Justice Park, where a large group of anti-racism counter-protesters had established a base in accordance with a city permit. Within this base, so-called "medic tents" had been erected.
From south to north, the west-east streets are
Water, Main, Market and Jefferson
At about 1:40, Fields drove southward into a crowd of counter-protesters who were starting to walk northward from Water Street.
VSP [Virginia State Police] helicopter footage shows a group of more than 100 counter-protesters leaving Justice Park around 1:20 p.m., walking south on 4th Street. As they passed through the
intersection at Market Street, there was no officer present and they passed the small plastic sawhorse that stood to prevent southbound traffic.
They crossed the Downtown Mall and Water Street, went under the railroad tracks, then arrived at Garrett Street. Dan Haig, who was with the group from Justice Park, told us that when they arrived someone from the community ran out to tell them that the everything was safe and they should stop shouting.
The group stopped for a moment to regroup. At 1:30 p.m., the group continued west down Garrett Street, then turned right on 2nd Street SE and moved back towards Water Street.
[Page 142]
The 100 counter-protesters who departed from Justice Park at 1:20
were walking west on Garrett Street at 1:30
The 100 counter-protesters walked southward through the intersection of Fourth and Market at 1:23. By that time, a police sawhorse had been removed from the intersection's south side.
The intersection of Fourth and Market at 1:23 p.m.
The 100 counter-protesters walked from Justice Park southward to Garrett Street because they thought mistakenly that some militia members had gone to the vicinity of Friendship Court Apartments (see the bottom of this post's second map) to harass the residents, who were predominantly African-Americans. Because no such harassment was happening, the 100 counter-protesters walked north on 2nd Street, back toward the town's center. (Independent Review, pages 140-142)
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At about 1:35:30, a maroon minivan drove south from the intersection of Fourth and Market. It reached the intersection of Fourth and Water at about 1:36:00 and stopped there for five minutes.
At about 1:38:45, a black truck drove south from the intersection of Fourth and Market. It reached the intersection of Fourth and Water at about 1:39:15 and stopped alongside the maroon van.
I speculate that those two cars were related to the group of 100 counter-protesters that had walked from Justice Park to Friendship Court Apartments. Justice Park had some so-called "medic tents" (Independent Review, page 77), and perhaps those two vehicles were serving as make-shift ambulances and so were positioning themselves to help people who might be injured in future fights.
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It seems that the counter-protesters turned from Water Street northward onto Fourth Street because many of them intended to return to Justice Park, which they considered to be their base for the day.
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The actions of James Fields might be related to the counter-protesters' walk southward on Fourth Street. Their walk might have attracted his attention to Fourth Street. Perhaps some stragglers from Justice Park saw his backing-up and idling on Fourth Street, or perhaps some such stragglers even attacked him.
SonofNewo is the YouTube pseudonym of William Evans, who is an outstanding critic of the official account of the Charlottesville incident. (He himself has revealed his true name.)
SonofNewo's YouTube home page is there. A YouTube search for "SonofNewo Charlottesville" lists those videos.
I have been a regular viewer of SonofNewo's videos for about a half year. I generally appreciate and respect his intelligence and insights. I became interested in the Charlottesville incident because of his videos, and I have recommended to other people they they watch them.
I immediately began to study that transcript, and it has caused me to find more fault with SonofNewo's explanation of the Charlottesville incident. For a long time, I have sent him e-mails commenting in a civil manner on his videos. However, he has become suspicious of me, and so he recently blocked my e-mails.
For the record, I don't receive any money or other rewards for writing my opinions about the Charlottesville incident or about any other subject that I discuss in my several blogs. I never have earned any money from my blogs, and I have no plans to try to earn money from them.
Also, I don't have any private source of information. I have obtained all my information about the Charlottesville incident from the Internet -- and without any private guidance from anyone.
Here I will point out two major mistakes that SonofNewo makes in his explanation of the Charlottesville incident.
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Newspaper articles about the pretrial hearing are not better evidence about the hearing than the transcript is.
I don't know when SonofNewo obtained the hearing transcript, but I have the impression that there was a time when his only source of information about the hearing was newspaper articles about it. Since he does have the transcript now, he should treat the transcript as the most authoritative, currently available source of information about what was said and shown during the hearing When there is a contradiction between the transcript and a newspaper article, then the transcript should be presumed correct and the article should be presumed mistaken.
I myself studied the transcript before I read any of the newspaper articles. When I did read the articles, I found that they included many mistakes about the hearing. For example, an AP News article about the hearing included the following passage:
Surveillance video from a restaurant showed the car head slowly in what Young testified was the direction of the counter-protesters, who were not in view of the camera. The car reversed before speeding forward into the frame again.
That statement is contradicted by the transcript, in which Detective Steven Young testified that the restaurant's surveillance camera filmed the car twice -- once driving forward and once driving backward. In particular, the video did not show the car "speeding forward into the frame".
I don't think that the AP News reporter is lying. Rather, I think that he simply misunderstood Young's testimony.
Reporters might have received and reported additional information in off-the-record conversations with knowledgeable officials. I appreciate any such additional information. However, when a journalistic report contradicts the transcript, then the journalistic report should be presumed to be mistaken.
Any journalistic report indicating that Fields' car was filmed passing through the restaurant camera's view more than twice -- 1) the first time forward southward, and then 2) the second time backward northward -- is mistaken.
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The restaurant video does not show the car driving south at a high rate of speed at 1:54:49.
During the pretrial hearing, some people in the audience caused two disturbances while the restaurant video was being shown. After the second disturbance, the prosecutor said she was resetting the video to 1:54:49.
SonofNewo thinks mistakenly that this moment in the video shows the car beginning to drive south at a high rate of speed".
The last bullet point is a mistake.
What the video actually shows after 1:43:49 is people running after the car, which already has driven southwards into the crowd and then backed up northwards through the restaurant camera's view. I explained this in my previous articles titled The Disturbances During the Pretrial Hearing and The Discrepancies Between the Camera Clocks. I will not repeat all that explanation here.
This mistake of SonofNewo was caused by his misreading of the following passage.
Judge
Quiet in the courtroom.
Bailiff
Quiet in the courtroom.
Judge
All right, he needs to go out. All of them.
Prosecutor
Your Honor, as you saw, that was the silver Dodge Challenger that drove south at a high rate of speed.
Judge
All right, once again, anybody else who makes a sound like that, out you go. All right.
Prosecutor
I’m pausing and starting again at 1:54:49 and Detective Young, you said it left view at a high rate of speed?
Detective Young
Yes. At this point, many people began to run after Mr. Fields and, at that point, encounter police as they ran east towards the police department.
(Page 32, lines 11 - 24)
When the prosecutor said Your Honor, as you saw, that was the silver Dodge Challenger that drove south at a high rate of speed, the prosecutor was reminding the judge about a set of facts that had been presented before that disturbance.
* The Dodge Challenger had driven south at a high rate of speed, according to eyewitnesses and to the helicopter video. The restaurant video had not shown the car driving southward at a high rate of speed.
* This same Dodge Challenger -- the one that had driven south at a high rate of speed according to eyewitnesses and to the helicopter video -- had been seen backing up northward in the restaurant video. Immediately when the restaurant video showed the car doing so, the second disturbance occurred in the courtroom.
* Before that disturbance in the courtroom, the restaurant video had shown that the car left view of the restaurant camera, backing up northwardsat a high rate of speed.
Because of the courtroom disturbance, the prosecutor reset the video to 1:54:49, which was after the car already had backed up northward through the restaurant camera's view. Then the prosecutor showed the video's final part, which showed people running after the car.
I understand why SonofNewo interprets the above passage as he does, but his interpretation is mistaken. This one mistake has led to other mistakes in his analysis.
During the pretrial hearing of James Fields, case agent Detective Young said that the clock
* of the helicopter camera was approximately 12 minutes fast (page 27, lines 9-10)
* of the camera of the Red Pump Kitchen (RPK) was approximately 13 minutes fast (page 29, lines 4-6).
Young did not specify what was the "correct" clock to which these two cameras were compared, but I assume that it was the clock of the Charlottesville Police Department's dispatch clock. Anyway, Young considers some one clock to be correct, according to which other clocks are deemed to be fast or slow.
At one point in his testimony, Young indicated that Fields drove into the crowd at approximately 1:40.
At approximately 1:40, many witnesses and victims describe the Dodge Challenger drive at a very high rate of speed, south on Fourth Street, striking many people and striking the white [Camry] ragtop sedan.
In all these estimates, Young uses the word approximately.
* The car crashed into the crowd at approximately 1:40
* The helicopter camera was approximately 12 minutes fast.
* The RPK camera was approximately 13 minutes fast.
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In another couple of passages, Young indicated that the car crashed into the crowd before 1:40. Since he rounds these times to the minute, he means that the impact happened between 1:39:30 and 1:40:00.
When talking about the RPK camera, Young said
We confirmed through the personnel at Red Pump Kitchen that this footage is ... approximately thirteen minutes fast, but if you fix the time ... just before 1:40 it becomes relevant.
(Page 29, lines 4 - 8)
The above statement indicates to me that Young had calculated that Fields drove into the crowd just before 1:40.
In another passage, Young mentioned that the police dispatcher broadcast the first report of the incident at approximately 1:40.
Prosecutor
At some point throughout the day, did you hear radio traffic for an incident that had occurred here in the City of Charlottesville at approximately Fourth Street and Water Street?
Detective Young
Yes.
Prosecutor
What were you able to hear just for purposes with what you did next?
Detective Young
So, the time I heard radio traffic, I was actually on foot at Emancipation Park. I heard an officer claim that many people were reporting that a vehicle struck a large crowd of people and that the vehicle fled the scene. ...
Prosecutor
Do you recall the time that this radio traffic was being related to you?
Detective Young Approximately 1:40 p.m.
I assume that Young verified that this police report was broadcast at approximately 1:40, and so the car must have crashed into the crowd just before 1:40.
By interviewing the police officer who reported the crash to the radio dispatcher, Young could have determined that that police officer reported the crash less than, say, 30 seconds after the crash occurred.
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Let's suppose for the sake of argument that, in precise times, Fields drove into the crowd at 1:39:30, that a police officer at the scene sent a radio report to the radio dispatcher at 1:39:45, and then the radio dispatcher broadcast the first report, which Young himself heard, at 1:40:00.
The only precise times that Young would know for sure would be the 1:39:45 and the 1:40:00 times, because those two precise times would have been recorded by the dispatch system in accordance with the dispatch clock.
The 13:39:30 time would be an estimate that the police officer at the scene later told Young that he sent a radio report to the dispatcher about 15 seconds after Fields drove into the crowd.
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The helicopter's video shows Fields driving into the crowd. If Young determined that moment to be 12:39:30, and if the helicopter camera's clock showed the moment to be 13:51:30, then Fields could estimate that the helicopter's camera was running approximately 12 minutes fast, compared to the dispatch clock.
The helicopter crashed. If the helicopter camera survived and its clock continued to run, then Young could have compared the helicopter camera's clock to the police dispatch clock and measured the time discrepancy.
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During the investigation, Young could have compared the RPK camera's clock to the police dispatch clock.
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However, Young was not able to synchronize all these events and clocks precisely, to the second. That is why Fields had to say rather imprecisely that
* Fields drove into the crowd just before 13:40
* Young heard the dispatcher broadcast at approximately 1:40
* Although Fields' car, after the crash, backed northwards into the RPK camera's view when its clock showed 13:54:06, this camera's clock ran approximately 13 minutes fast.
If I correct the RPK time by precisely 13:00:00 minutes, then the corrected time is 13:41:06. However, the actual precise time might be as much as 30 seconds earlier or later, because Young's 13-minute discrepancy is rounded to the whole number 13.
In other words, although the RPK camera showed the car backing northward into the camera's view at the camera's precise clock time of 13:54:06 (corrected precisely to 13:41:06), the actual precise time might have been 30 seconds either way -- anywhere between 13:40:36 and 13:41:36.
Roughly in time, Fields drove into the crowd just before 13:40 and then backed northward into the RPK camera's view at approximately 13:41.
During the pretrial hearing of James Fields, there were two disturbances in the audience while case agent Detective Young was showing the video from the surveillance camera of the Red Pump Kitchen (RPK). The hearing transcript indicates the disturbances but does not reveal what the disturbers were saying. The transcript includes the following two passages:
Judge Downer
Quiet in the courtroom.
Bailiff
Quiet in the courtroom.
Judge Downer
All right, he needs to go out. All of them.
(Page 32, lines 11 - 14 )
... and ...
Judge Downer
All right, once again, anybody else who makes a sound like that, out you go. All right.
The video was too much for some of the victims of the Aug. 12 car attack to bear: James Alex Fields drives his 2010 Dodge Challenger toward a crowd of protesters, stops, reverses, and then, with even more room to build up momentum, speeds toward the mass of people.
Prosecutors played the footage during a court hearing Thursday to help make the case for upgraded charges against Fields — who now stands accused of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation ....
It was the first time the video, captured by a restaurant’s security cameras, had been viewed publicly, and the courtroom stirred with anger at the moment when Fields is seen backing away in what prosecutors presented as an apparent windup to the attack.
Three of about 20 victims who attended the proceedings abruptly left as the judge and bailiffs called for order.
“I’ve got to go; take me out,” shouted one man who was struck in the attack ...
The disturbers were angry because Fields allegedly had backed up to give himself a better starting position before he drove into the crowd.
Right before the first disturbance, Detective Young had said:
At this point, you’ve got many witnesses testify that the Challenger began to back up, assuming that it would head back onto Market Street and leave the area.
(Page 32, lines 8 - 10)
Then Young continued showing the RPK video to the court. When the video showed the car backing up -- after it had crashed into the crowd -- through the RPK camera's view, the second disturbance happened.
It seems from the above article and from the transcript that people left the courtroom only after the first disturbance.
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The second disturbance happened as the RPK video showed the car backing up after it had crashed into the crowd.
Because of the second disturbance. the last part of the video was shown to the court again. The last part showed the video after Fields had backed up through the camera's view. In the video's last part, no vehicles were seen.
Prosecutor
I’m pausing and starting again at 1:54:49 and, Detective Young, you said it left view at a high rate of speed? Detective Young
Yes. At this point, many people began to run after Mr. Fields ...
(Page 32, lines 19 - 23)
Because the RPK clock ran approximately 13 minutes fast, the time 13:54:49 is corrected to 13:41:49.
In an earlier statement, Young had said that the car backed up through the camera's view at 13:54:06 (corrected to 13:41:06).
In other words:
* At 13:54:06 (13:41:06), the car, after the crash, backed up into the view of the RPK camera.
* After 13:54:49 (13:41:49), no cars were seen in this last part of the video. Rather, people were seen running after Fields.
It is not true that the car began to drive forward again at 13:54:49 (13:41:49).
In a previous post titled James Fields' Block-Long Backup on Fourth Street, I argued that Fields first pre-crash backup was quite long and placed him north of Market Street. I provided wto speculative illustrations. In the first illustration, the car begins its backup close to Main Street, and in the second, the car begins in the middle of the Main-Market block. Both illustrations show the backup ending north of Market Street.
A backup beginning close to Main Street
A backup beginning in the middle
of the Main-Market block
When Fields did this long backup, his car still had not passed by the surveillance camera of the Red Pump Kitchen (RPK). In other words, Fields had turned from Market Street south onto Fourth Street and had driven much of the way to Main Street, but not far enough to enter the RPK camera's view. Then Fields stopped and backed up through the Fourth-Market intersection and then idled his car north of that intersection.
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Fields' car was seen idling north of the Fourth-Market intersection by two men, Chris Mahony and Brennan Gilmore. Mahony's public statements have been collected in a SonofNewo video, which I will embed below in this post here. Based on Mahony's statements, I speculate the following sequence of events.
* Mahony and Gilmore were walking east on the north side of Market from Emancipation Park toward the Fourth-Market intersection. When they reached the the Fourth-Market intersection, they noticed that Fields' car was idling north of the intersection although the traffic light was green.
* Mahony and Gilmore turned south onto Fourth Street.
* About 20 seconds later, Mahony saw the Pie Chest cafe on the street's west side. Mahony went into the cafe while Gilmore continued to walk south.
Click on the image to enlarge it.
* About 45 seconds later, Gilmore passed Main Street and stopped well south of the Fourth-Main intersection.
* Fields drove his car south and through the Fourth-Main intersection. The RPK camera's clock was at 13:52:56. Since the clock ran approximately 13 minutes fast, the time is corrected to 13:39:56.
* At the moment when the car passed beyond the camera's view, the 1:10 minute interval began.
* Fields stopped behind Gilmore, who was standing in the middle of the street and looking south toward the counter-protesters, who had begun to walk north on Fourth.
* Mahony came out of the Pie Chest and began walking south to catch up with Gilmore.
* After idling for a short while, Fields backed up his car into the Fourth-Main intersection and stopped.
* Fields revved his engine loudly. Surprised, Gilmore jumped to the side of the street and turned around to look. Gilmore began filming as Fields' car sped by, south toward the crowd of counter-protesters.
* Mahony heard the car fly over a speed bump. He began to rush south.
* After crashing into the crowd, Fields backed up.
* The 1:10 interval ended as the car backed north through the Fourth-Main intersection. The RPK clock showed 13:54:06, which is corrected to 13:41:06.
* Mahony still is in the middle of the Main-Market block, and he photographs the car as it continues to back up toward Market.
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In Gilmore's video, the duration of Fields' drive south and then back into the Fourth-Main intersection is about 45 seconds.
Since the car was out of the RPK camera's view for 70 seconds (1:10 minute), the car was idling and backing up behind Gilmore for about (70 - 45 = ) 25 seconds.
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SonofNewo collected the following statements made publicly by Mahony. (Click on any image to enlarge it.)
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Shortly after the incident on August 12, 2017, Mahony was standing in the Fourth-Main intersection, where he told a reporter the following.
Mahoney's first statement on August 12
The car was, we [Brennan and Chris] were walking down the road [points up 4th Street]. You can see back up there, we were walking down the road to join these protesters, down here [points at crash shite]. And we saw the car whizz straight past us, full throttle effectively ... Maybe 40-50 miles per hour. I usually work in kilometers. It slammed into the crowd. And then we started moving quickly down to try to help people, and we saw it slam back through.
When Mahony said we saw the car whizz straight past us, he meant that Brennan saw that happen.
-------
Later on August 12, Mahony said the following.
Mahony's second statement on August 12
We were walking down the road as Brennan mentioned [points north up 4th Street]. But we came around the corner, and you could see the car just over the other side of the road, just sat there, looking down the road. And as you said, the protesters were coming down 4th Street. So I thought that's a bit strange, there didn't seem to be any other cars stopping him from going. And then, of course, moments later we heard a car going incredibly fast, down the road, and saw it plow into the crowd, and then it reversed back, and then some of us ran after the car to take a photo.
Some people claim that a video shows Mahony standing in the Main-Market block and photographing Fields' car as the car backs up during Fields' getaway.
Mahony might be the man in the purple shirt photographing the car.
------
On August 13, Mahony said the following:
Mahony's first statement on August 13
We [Brennan and I] walked past the car, which was stopped at the top of the hill, looking down the street toward the protesters. And I thought it was strange, because it was at an intersection, it had a green light, but it wasn't going through the intersection, and there were no other cars around. And I didn't think of it again, and began walking down the road towards the anti-racism protesters, who we were going to join. And then maybe 10 to 20 seconds later, the car flew past us.
The last sentence does NOT fit with my hypothesized sequence of events. It's fair for someone to say that Mahony might be lying here for some reason.
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Later on August 13, Mahony said the following:
Mahony's second statement on August 13
We [Brennan and I] actually walked past the car, which was at the top of the hill looking down the street at the protesters. And I thought to myself, "It's strange", because the car was at an intersection but wasn't driving through the intersection. It had a green light, and it was just sat there. And I didn't think much more of it, but then 20 seconds or so laer, it came screaming past us and into the crowd of protesters.
Again, this last sentence about the 20 seconds does NOT fit with my hypothesized sequence of events.
This statement is a major problem for my explanation. A possible explanation is that Mahony has told his story so many times that he began tell his story in a rushed and sloppy manner.
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Still later on August 13, Mahony said the following.
Mahony's third statement on August 13
First I saw the car at the top of the hill, before it came down. We walked past it. And I thought it was very strange that the car wasn't going through the intersection. It was sat there at the traffic light, no other cars around, but with a green light. Tinted windows.
And I didn't think too much. I walked down the road, and maybe 10 to 20 seconds later, I saw a coffee shop that I thought might be open, walked off the middle of the road, and then heard it hit the speed bump and sort of bounce.
And then I looked back and saw it go through the next block and then plow into the group of people.
I was right next to your previous guest, Brennan, who was taking the footage at the time.
Here Mahony clarifies that the "10 to 20 seconds" is the duration of his walk from the Fourth-Market intersection to the Pie Chest coffee shop.
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For a different interpretation of the evidence, watch the following two SonofNewo videos.
At about 5:38 in the second video, SonofNewo shows where the RPK camera was mounted.
I just now noticed in the transcript of the pretrial hearing of James Fields the following statement by Detective Steven Young about the Red Pump Kitchen's (RPK) surveillance camera that filmed a video that he showed during the hearing. The statement is on page 29, lines 13-17. Click on the image to enlarge it.
... if you can pause it [the RPK video]. This is 4th Street NE. Just south of here is the pedestrian mall, and what you're seeing now is a camera affixed to Red Pump Kitchen, facing the 100 block of 4th Street NE.
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This causes a problem for me, because I have guessed that the camera covered roughly the following area.
My resolution of this problem is that I think Young meant to say that the restaurant -- not the camera -- faced the 100 block of Fourth Street.
However, Young indeed might have meant that the camera was pointed toward that 100 block. If so, then my guess about the camera's coverage is mistaken.
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Correction on March 3, 2018
At about 5:38 in the following video, SonofNewo shows where the RPK camera was mounted.
During the preliminary hearing of James Fields on December 14, 2017, case agent Detective Steven Young mentioned several times that Fields backed his Dodge Challenger car up on Fourth Street before he drove into the crowd.
In one passage, Young describes two backups -- the second of which was the backup after the crash into the crowd. The first backup seems to be from the vicinity of the Main Street crossover to the vicinity of the Market Street intersection.
[First backup, before the crash into the crowd]
Many witnesses I spoke to noticed a gray Dodge Challenger slowly drive on Fourth Street from Market Street towards Water Street at a slow pace. At one point it was idling near the [Main Street] crossover on Fourth Street, and this is confirmed through video. One witness I spoke to actually commented that the Dodge Challenger was an unfortunate driver and is stopped here on the downtown mall, but it's a good thing there’s no one at the intersection of Fourth and Market and that the Dodge can simply back up and leave the area.
Several witnesses claim and confirm through video that no one was at the intersection near Fourth and Market. There were some people but no crowds whatsoever at Fourth and Market, which is where the Dodge Challenger came from.
Many witnesses saw the Challenger back up towards Market Street, thinking that the Challenger would just simply get back onto Market and leave the area.
[Second backup, after the crash into the crowd]
At approximately 1:40, many witnesses and victims describe the Dodge Challenger drive at a very high rate of speed, south on Fourth Street, striking many people and striking the white ragtop sedan. Right after he initially strikes the crowd, he backs up at a high rate of speed. This is when people start to hit the back windshield of the Dodge Challenger. This doesn’t stop Mr. Fields. He continues to back up at a high rate of speed. ... He backs onto Market Street and takes off from there
(Page 20, line 13, through Page 21, line 19)
In another passage, Young describes a backup -- before the crash into the crowd -- that began south of Main Street. Before this passage, Young described how Fields' car drove south past the surveillance camera of the Red Pump Kitchen (RPK) restaurant, which was located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Fourth and Main. When the car drove past, the camera's clock showed the time 1:52:56 (page 31, lines 11-15). Since that clock ran 13 minutes fast, I will correct the time to 1:39:56. Now I will quote the passage:
And as you can see, he proceeds south on Fourth Street onto the crossover and many witnesses said he then made his way to the 100 block of Fourth Street SE, which is where he stopped. ... At this point, you’ve got many witnesses testify that the Challenger began to back up, assuming that it would head back onto Market Street and leave the area.
This is not the same before-the-crash backup that Young described in the first passage that I quoted above.
* The first before-the-crash backup began north of Main Street and ended north of Market Street.
* The second before-the-crash backup began south of Main Street and ended inside the intersection of Fourth and Main.
The first, long backup from Main to Market
The second, short backup from the Main-Water block
into the Fourth-Main intersection
In the second, short backup, the car did not back northwards past the RPK surveillance camera's view, which covered roughly the following area.
Soon after the second, short backup, the car drove forward, crashed into the crowd, and backed up past the RPK camera when that camera's clock showed 13:54:06, which is corrected by 13 minutes to 13:41:06.
=====
During his testimony, Young did not describe the length of either backup, but journalists who attended the hearing learned in off-the-record conversations that one backup was quite long -- about a city block. However, journalists added details in published articles.
However, the articles included mistakes.
The best evidence currently available to the public is the hearing transcript. When details in the articles are contradicted by details in the transcript, then those details in the article should be presumed to be mistaken.
Prosecutors played the surveillance video from a Charlottesville restaurant in addition to a video from a Virginia State Police helicopter monitoring the events.
Authorities say the footage captures Fields' Challenger stopping about a block and a half away from protesters, reversing, then driving into the crowd and speeding away in reverse. Fields was apprehended about four minutes after the collision, about a mile away.
This CNN article indicates that the first, long backup began "about a block and a half away from protesters", which means that it began in about the middle of the the Main-Market block.
Authorities told CNN that one backup began about
a block and a half away from the protesters.
This backup was not captured by by either the RPK restaurant's camera or by the helicopter's camera. Perhaps the CNN misunderstood the off-the-record statement given by the "authorities".
If this backup indeed was captured by a camera, then it was the surveillance camera of the Pie Chest that is located on the west side of Fourth Street (see the above image). For information about that camera, watch the following SonofNewo video.
Perhaps CNN receive the off-the-record statement from the FBI.
The video shows counter-protesters gathered at Fourth and Water streets in downtown Charlottesville. A black pickup truck approaching the crowd pulled to the side of the road. A maroon van then stopped on the street in front of the crowd, and a Toyota Camry stopped behind the van.
Fields’s Dodge approached the Camry from behind at a moderate speed. It then backed up, traveling more than a block, before accelerating forward at a rapid clip, ramming into the back of the Camry. Heyer and numerous other people were standing near the vehicles, and the collision sent bodies flying.
Nowhere in the hearing transcript did Young say that the car backed up "more than a block", so any such detail could have been stated to Duggan only off-the-record.
If the car indeed backed up more than a block, then this backup must have been the first backup, which therefore began in the Main-Market block and ended north of Market. If so, then Duggan is mistaken that this backup happened after Fields' car closely followed the Camry past the RPK camera.
The video was too much for some of the victims of the Aug. 12 car attack to bear: James Alex Fields drives his 2010 Dodge Challenger toward a crowd of protesters, stops, reverses, and then, with even more room to build up momentum, speeds toward the mass of people. ....
Prosecutors played the footage during a court hearing Thursday to help make the case for upgraded charges against Fields — who now stands accused of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation and carries the possibility of a life sentence. The attack killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured dozens.
It was the first time the video, captured by a restaurant’s security cameras, had been viewed publicly, and the courtroom stirred with anger at the moment when Fields is seen backing away in what prosecutors presented as an apparent windup to the attack.
Oliver is mistaken. The RPK camera shows Fields' car backing away only after it drove into the crowd.
During the hearing, Young testified that this second pre-crash backup was described by eyewitnesses (rather than being seen in video shown during the hearing) and that it happened during the 1:10 minutes when the car was not in the RPK camera's view.
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AP News reported -- in an article titled Suspect in Virginia car attack faces upgraded charge, written by Sarah Rankin and published on December 15 -- that the car made a series of movements, according to "authorities".
Authorities say the 20-year-old, described by a former teacher as having a keen interest in Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, drove his speeding car into a group of counterprotesters ....
Surveillance video from a restaurant showed the car head slowly in what Young testified was the direction of the counter-protesters, who were not in view of the camera. The car reversed before speeding forward into the frame again.
The video that Young showed during the hearing did not show Fields' car speeding forward into the frame of the RPK camera after a pre-crash backup. Judging from the article, Rankin seems to have attended the hearing, but her reporting about this point is mistaken.
Rankin too seems to have received an off-the-record statement from "authorities", but her report is muddled, because she did not understand that there were two pre-crash backups. The correct sequence of events is:
* The car headed slowly in the direction of the counter-protesters
* The car reversed
* The car drove forward into and through the RPK camera's frame
* While outside the camera's frame for 1:10 minutes, the car backed up, sped forward into the crowd, and backed up again.
* The car sped backwards through the RPK camera's frame.
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The fact that the car's first pre-crash backup went north of Market Street is confirmed by two eyewitnesses -- Chris Mahony and Brennan Gilmore -- who have said that, while walking south on Fourth Street, they passed Fields' car while it was idling north of the Fourth-Market intersection.
As Mahony and Gilmore were walking south on Fourth and approaching Market Street, their view was similar to the following screenshot from GoogleMaps (click on image to enlarge it).
The view southward down Fourth Street from a position
north of Market Street
It seems that Fields' car attracted the attention of Mahony and Gilmore because the car was idling in the middle of Fourth Street and not driving southward through the Fourth-Market intersection even though the light was green.
