Just thinking..... EmpathyIn analyzing/thinking about what actually happened in this case, and Field's role in particular, I think it would be beneficial if people googled the meaning of EMPATHY. Try and apply some themselves in thinking about the happenings at the time of the crash in Charlottesville.
Think yourself into how Fields may have been thinking on the day.
If you are around 20 years old... good... a step twoards being able to have empathy. If not.. think back to when you were 20 years old. I am 65, but I can still do that
On the day of the event......The Alt-daft mob had apparently outnumbered and menaced smaller groups of Right demonstrators. They had harangued, and even assaulted, some as they returned to their cars after the planned (permitted) gathering and speeches were broken up.
My GUESS is that Fields was cruising around in his car looking for a new gathering of "his team". I don't think he wanted to find himself alone in the middle of hundreds of the Alt-left/Alt-daft. The one-way Street system meant that Fields ONLY route South from Market Street was via 4th Street (one way).
Imagine... driving down a narrow ONE WAY city street.. in your own car.. likely a prized possession... a large part of the few worldly possessions you have amassed in life. You would NOT take kindly to people kicking/ bashing your car with posts etc.
Anyway.. a ONE WAY narrow street... you drive (slowly) down one block, across the paved pedestrian "mall" of Main Street, and enter the top of the last block of 4th Street before reaching Water Street, and only then see at the far end of 4th Street, the crowd just starting to walk up, they and two cars blocking your ONLY way to continue traveling. The street is too narrow to do a U turn, and besides it is ONE WAY and so driving back the way you just came is not an option. Reversing all the way back across Main Street, and then an entire block is an option... at a pinch.. but few people would launch into that. (Note: that was what Field eventually had to do to escape, but It's still NOT an obvious option initially). The evidence suggests (see Sonofnewo vid on Challenger arrival time) that Fields waited over a minute after entering the last block of 4h Street. He may have been fully stopped or perhaps rolling forward at less than a snail's pace.. who knows.
He may have been waiting initially for the (small) crowd to pass by, but the crowd just grew and grew and filled the lower end of the street, and more kept coming. IMO... he eventually decided his only option was to proceed through the crowd... slowly with caution.. and started to do that (no doubt with fear and trepidation)... but as he drove down the street he was harangued. He had people step out in front of his car and had to BRAKE to avoid hitting them. After that there were other menacing gestures towards his car and he became fearful for his own safety (at the very least fearful of damage to his car). And then bat boy actually attacked his car viciously at the same time as a now apparently huge angry mob advanced towards him. I think Fields (20 years old) PANICKED and decided to up his speed... (continuing down the ONE WAY street being his ONLY option to get anywhere, especially away from the mob).....assuming the people in the mob would jump out of the way (as they have been seen to do in video of similar events). I am not sure (I doubt) Fields even knew there were 2 cars that would ultimately be an un-shifting road-block. He thought to travel the short distance remaining, through the crowd which would be forced to part and let him through.
The rest... as they say... is history.
Next witness... Calling "bat boy"