CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. _ A Virginia judge Monday declined to set bail for James Alex Fields Jr., the 20-year-old Ohio man arrested on second-degree murder and other charges after authorities said he plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters near the scene of a white supremacist rally that erupted into violence.
Meanwhile, the police chief in Charlottesville _ under fire for his department's handling of the violence that boiled over during and after Saturday's rally _ expressed regrets but defended the performance of his officers.
"We were hoping for a peaceful event," Chief Al Thomas said.
"Absolutely, I have regrets," the police chief said of the "tragic, tragic weekend" during which a counter-protester was killed and two state troopers died in the crash of a police helicopter.
The judge's ruling Monday means that Fields, whom news reports have described as fascinated by Nazism, will remain in jail at least until his court-appointed attorney requests bail.
The local public defenders' office informed the court that it could not represent him because of a potential conflict of interest. Someone in the office has a relative who was involved in Saturday's protests in Charlottesville.
Fields said he makes $650 a month and could not afford a lawyer. The attorney appointed to represent him, Charles L. Weber Jr., could seek bail before the next scheduled hearing Aug. 25.
Fields appeared via video link for Monday's hearing. He briefly responded to questions from Judge Robert Downer, replying, "No, sir," when asked whether he had any ties to the Charlottesville community.
Saturday's car rampage killed Heather Heyer, 32, a Charlottesville paralegal who was among counter-protesters responding to the rally by white nationalists and others. Those groups oppose a plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a park.
Fields was arrested soon after the attack.
Photos circulating on social media appeared to show Fields posing with members of Vanguard America, a white nationalist group, the day of the main rally. Fields held a black-and-white shield with the organization's insignia. The group said Fields was not a member and that the shields were distributed widely.
Earlier Monday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the attack met the legal standard for an act of domestic terrorism. The car rampage, which also injured 19 people, was an "unequivocally and unacceptable evil attack," he said on ABC.
Sessions met Monday with President Donald Trump and also defended the president against widespread criticism that he had not specifically condemned white supremacists for Saturday's events, but instead blamed "many sides" for inciting the violence. Critics called on the president to explicitly denounce the right-wing hate groups behind Saturday's march.
"He said that yesterday, his spokesman did," the attorney general said in the ABC interview. He was referring to a White House statement, issued Sunday without a spokesperson's name attached to it, that maintained Trump's previous comments had implicitly included condemnation of white supremacists and allied groups.
Other senior Republicans, including Vice President Mike Pence, on a trip to Latin America, have denounced by name various hate movements including white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump, returning to the White House Monday from his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., did not respond to questions about whether he condemns white nationalists.
But later, in a White House appearance 48 hours after the violence in Charlottesville, Trump issued the specific condemnation his critics sought.
"Racism is evil," he said in a televised statement in which he named the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists as "criminals and thugs."
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(King reported from Washington.)
