Charlottesville murder suspect was high school race bully
Accused white supremacist killer James Fields bullied African-American classmates and marched around his school making Hitler salutes, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The 20-year-old hatemonger also daubed swastikas on his work and plastered his books with the Confederate flag, according to former student Chloe Alyssah.
Alyssah and her younger brother Caleb Orndorff were among a handful of non-white students who attended Randall K. Cooper High School in Florence, Kentucky, at the same time as Fields.
'He and another kid would constantly make Nazi salutes,' she told DailyMail.com.
'They would just come straight up to me, call my name and do the salute right in my face.
'I didn't know whether to feel threatened or take it as a joke - but I guess we have our answer now.'
Nazi salute: Fields raised his right hand in court but former classmates have told DailyMail.com how he made Nazi salutes, used racial slurs and bullied them for being African American
Horror: Fields is alleged to have been at the wheel of his Dodge Challenger as it was driven at speed into the crowd of anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville, VA, on Saturday
Multiple charges: Field faces murder, malicious wounding and hit and run charges already after the car was driven at speed into the anti-white supremacist counter-protest
We were victims: Chloe Alyssah and her younger brother Caled Orndorff attended Randall K. Cooper High School at the same time as James Alex Fields Jr. and have told of their racial bullying by him and his friends
Didn't do enough: Chloe Alyssah and Caleda Orndorff say that facilty at the
HOW DID HE GET CLEARED BY OHIO TO WORK SECURITY? James Fields told the court in Charlottesville where he appeared by video link Monday that he had worked for Securitas, the security giant. He said he earned $650 every two weeks. The security firm told DailyMail.com in a statement that he had worked for them since May 5, 2016, as a security officer, with a break between July and November 2016. It said: 'Fields was hired in accordance with appropriate laws and company requirements, and he was issued a security officer license by the State of Ohio. 'During the time of his employment he performed his duties satisfactorily. 'At the time of the incident he was on a previously requested vacation leave. His employment has been terminated.' DailyMail.com has reached out to the State of Ohio for comment.
Fields appeared in court Monday accused of deliberately plowing his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia two days earlier.
He was held without bond for the murder of Heather Heyer, 32, as well as three counts of malicious wounding and one charge of hit and run.
Fields was living alone in an apartment in Maumee, Ohio, after a failed stint in the military but he grew up a three-hour drive south in predominately-white Florence, 10 miles outside Cincinnati.
'There was a big group at school that didn't like black people and James Fields was part of that,' Alyssah, 27, who overlapped with Fields for a year as she retook grades, told DailyMail.com.
'He repeatedly used the N-word. He had a Confederate flag sticker on his agenda book. He drew swastikas on some of his homework papers.
'Quite a few of his friends would have the Confederate flag on the side of their trucks. They would justify it by saying some nonsense like "we just love the South".
'My brother would come to me saying they were making fun of his skin color and his hair. The teachers did nothing.'
Call center worker Orndorff, 22, said he eventually grew tired of the insults and squared up to Fields beside the school swimming pool.
'It got pretty heated, we both said cuss words,' he told DailyMail.com.
'He called me a n****r, a bitch. He was quite a smart kid but he made it pretty clear he didn't care for black people or Mexicans.
'He was an unstable person, little things would set him off.'
DailyMail.com can reveal that Fields lost his father to a drink-drive car crash before he was even born, leaving him to be raised by just his paraplegic, wheelchair-bound mother Samantha Bloom.
Family member say the late Jay Fields was a respected art teacher at the Northern Kentucky University who was politically liberal and rejected racism.
However he also abused alcohol and suffered from bipolar disorder, a condition that seems to have afflicted successive generations of the Fields family.
Jay Fields was being driven home by two friends in December 1996 when they skidded off a road and hit a lamppost.
Father: James 'Jay' Fields died in a car crash before his son was born and is seen for the first time with his first wife, Rhonda Hendrix, at their wedding
Remembered: Jay Fields was being driven home by two friends in December 1996 when they skidded off a road and hit a lamppost in Erlanger, KY, marked by this memorial to him
Tragedy: Jay Fields, 33, was found dead inside the wreck by police after the driver fled. Bloom, his girlfriend, was just months away from giving birth to their first child, James Jr.
The 33-year-old was found dead inside the wreck by police after the driver fled. Bloom, his girlfriend, was just months away from giving birth to their first child, James Jr. 'The two in the front were saved by the airbags.
But when the car flipped it snapped his neck,' said 53-year-old David Fields, Jay Fields' brother.
'His friends got out of the car and went straight back to the bar to have another drink. They didn't do a thing for my brother, just left him to die.
'I was happy for my brother that he was going to have a son so it was a tragedy that he never even got to hold him.
Difficult: Ronda Hendrix, 61, told DailyMail.com her ex-husband Jay Fields had been 'a wonderful man' and talented artist who was not a liberal, but that when he drank he was abusive. 'I honestly believe the son could have got the bipolar from his daddy. '
'Sam was a great girl but I know my nephew gave her a lot of problems. He was fighting with other kids at school. He stole stuff, mainly little things from stores.
'But he wasn't some rude little bastard, he was quiet and distant. At family gatherings he barely said a word to anyone.
'I don't have a clue where all this racism comes from. If he had a father maybe this would never have happened but we are headstrong people.
'My mom and dad had their roots traced once and they said we were all descended from the Hatfields and the McCoys.' [The notorious feuding Southern families of the late 1800s.]
Jay field's ex-wife Ronda Hendrix, 61, told DailyMail.com he had an alcohol problem and a long family history of depression.
There have also been family members with schizophrenia, other family members said. The former couple were married for seven years but broke up before he started a relationship with Bloom.
'When he didn't have episodes he was a wonderful man,' she told DailyMail.com. 'He was an extremely talented artist and some of his artwork is still hanging in the university.
'We didn't talk too much about politics but I would say he was liberal. He was very open-minded and absolutely not a racist.
Mother: Paraplegic, wheelchair-bound mother Samantha Bloom raised Fields alone after his father Jay's death before his son's birth
'But when he was drinking he ruined everything. He had a terrible temper and he beat the hell out of me for seven years.
'I honestly believe the son could have got the bipolar from his daddy. '
James Fields is accused of driving his Dodge into a crowd of counter-demonstrators who had gathered in response to a white nationalist rally on Saturday afternoon. He was held without bail on Monday.
Alt-right groups have been protesting the planned removal of a Robert E Lee statue when hundreds turned out to oppose them.
Horrific videos filmed by bystanders show the moment that Fields' speeding muscle car rammed into the crowd, catapulting bodies through the air and killing Heyer, before reversing away.
Bloom, who lives in Maumee, told reporters she knew her son was going to a rally but denied any knowledge of his alleged ties to racist groups. 'I thought it had something to do with Trump.
'Trump's not a white supremacist,' she told reporters, hours before she was interviewed by the FBI. Fields enlisted in the Army in 2015 but left after less than four months for reasons that remain unclear, even to his own family.
He received money from his late father in the form of a trust that matured when he turned 18.
'It can't have been much,' his uncle David told DailyMail.com. 'We used to joke that Jay was a professional student because he stayed so many years in college.
'I think James will be in jail for a long time but my door will always be open to him. I would have never in a million years have guessed he was involved with neo-Nazis or anything like that.
'Eventually I will ask him why he did this - but I'm not sure he'll give me much of an answer.'