Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe had a strong message Saturday to the white nationalists behind a rally that degenerated into violence with protesters that eventually killed one person and injured 35 others: "Go home and never come back."
"I have a message to all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today," the Democrat told reporters at a news conference at City Hall. "Our message is plain and simple: Please go home and never come back.
"You are not wanted in this great Commonwealth. Shame on you.
"You pretend that you are patriots, but you are anything but a patriot," he said.
"You want to talk about patriots, talk about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who brought our country together.
"Think about the patriots today, the young men and women, who with wearing the cloth of our country," McAuliffe added. "Somewhere around the globe they are putting their life in danger.
"They are patriots. You are not.
"You came here today to hurt people. And you did hurt people.
"My message is clear: We are stronger than you."
Three people died in the violence that led to McAuliffe issuing a state of emergency earlier Saturday and canceling a rally over the removal of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's statue from Emancipation Park in downtown Charlottesville.
Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said that a 32-year-old woman was killed when a car plowed into a crowd after violence spilled into the city's downtown area afterward.
Her identity was not immediately released.
The driver of the vehicle, whom Thomas only identified as a male, was in police custody. Charges were pending.
"We are treating this as a vehicular homicide," the chief said.
Thomas said that the other two deaths occurred from the crash of a Virginia State Police helicopter.
Corinne Geller, a State Police spokeswoman, said that the crash occurred a few hours after the downtown car-plowing attack and linked it to the violence.
State Police also confirmed the deaths in a Facebook post, but did not indicate whether the fatalities were troopers.
The New York Daily News reported that the deaths were of Virginia troopers.
President Donald Trump condemned the violence as an "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.
"It's been going on for a long time in our country," the president told reporters in Bedminster, N.J. "Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama.
"This has been going on for a long, long time," he said. "It has no place in America."
He also later tweeted his condolences on the three deaths:
At the press conference, McAuliffe and other Charlottesville officials blamed the violence on the white nationalists and demanded that they leave Virginia.
"You have made our Commonwealth stronger," the governor said. "You will not succeed.
"There is no place for you here. There is no place for you in America."
McAuliffe said that he talked with President Trump about the violence, telling him that "there has got to be a movement in this country to bring people together.
"The hatred and rhetoric that has gone on and has intensified over the last couple of months is dividing this great nation.
"We need to work together," he added. "I told the president that twice.
"We're willing to work with you if we can work together to bring people together.
"Stop the hate speech," McAuliffe said. "Stop the rhetoric in this country.
"We have got to bring people together."
Mayor Mike Signer said that the white nationalists behind the rally "belong in the trash heap of history with these ideas."
"This tide of hatred and of intolerance and of bigotry that has come to us and that has marched down with torches the lawn of one of the founders of democracy, it is brought here by outsiders and brought here by people who belong in the trash heap of history with these ideas.
"They're going in be the trash heap of history," Signer said. "This day will not define us."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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