brennan gilmore joins me now.nk you for being here. >> thank you. >> woodruff: so, brennan, tell us again, why did you want to be part of this protest? >> well, i thought it was very important to be there as a show of numbers against these white supremacists. i think any time you have this very vial ideology show its face in this country, you need to have a majority of people who reject it show up and show that the numbers are on our side so that's what took me to charlottesville. >> woodruff: and you were saying this is close to your hometown. >> yes, i live in charlottesville. >> woodruff: what exactly did you witness? >> well, the day-- as soon as i got there early in the morning-- had already become quite tense and there were fights breaking out between counterprotesters and the white supremacists in the park. that became pretty violent pretty quickly, you know, a lot of fist fights, things that were thrown-- >> woodruff: on both sides. >> yes, this was happening on both sides. shortly thereafter, a state of e

it was taken by brennan gilmore. witnessed. >> i was filming a peaceful nonviolent march of anti-racist protesters coming up a very narrow street. i was in the middle of the street filming them and heard from behind me the acceleration of a vehicle spun around and saw the vehicle in question barrelling down a very narrow street with no traffic on it at a high rate of speed. clearly intent on doing damage and disruption to the crowd, passed over a barrier and went down the street and accelerated hard as it barrelled into the crowd sending bodies flying. >> oh, god. among the things you had publicly said yesterday via twitter and elsewhere, let there be no confusion, this was deliberate terrorism. you stand by that? >> absolutely. i don't know if the authorities here have used the word terrorism yet. i know there's a judicial process that will play out but it was clearly perpetrated by one of these racist nazis who came to charlottesville to spread their ideology and there was no question that he intended to cause mass

a 32- year-old woman was killed after a car slammed into a group of protesters...brennan gilmore / witnesscar flew by...and immediately you know there was victims started coming out. my friend ran after the car i gave first aid to a lady that had. come out from the scene. "and two virginia state patrol troopers were aslo killed in a helicopter crash while monitoring the ongoing situation in charlottesville. police say this man ...20 year old james alex fields jr is being held in a virginia jail in connection with a deadly crash..virginia's governor had a message to the white nationalists and right-wing activists... governor terry r. mcauliffe / -d- virginia: our message is plain and simple: go home. you are not wanted in this great commonwealth. shame on you. you pretend that you're patriots but you are anything but a patriot." president trump didn't áquite use those words...but he did condemn...president trump: "we condemn in the strongest possible terms this display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides."...> (marty) president trump is being criticized for his "many sides" commen

brennan gilmore was at the protests in charlottesville saturday, saw the deadly car incident up closeptured it on his phone in a video shared around the world. thank you for taking time with us. appreciate it. >> good morning, thank you. >> tell me what you saw not just in the video we've all now watched almost on a loop in the last 24 hours or so, but before the video started. tell us about the experience, what was in the air there? >> sure, it was very tense atmosphere from the beginning of the day in charlottesville. there was a central location for protests where we're standing now, in emancipation park, protests which became quite violent before there was a state of emergency declared. at that point groups disbursed into smaller groups, split up into town. at that point i went with several friends to observe what was going on and join the anti-nazi protests and peaceful rallies that were happening. at that point we were over on fourth street and saw a group of nonviolent peaceful protesters protesting racism coming up the street. got to the middle of the street to take pictures o

. >> brennan gilmore, far fortuna you're okay. >> thank you, involve, the vice mayor of charlottesville urging us to stand together against all the hate groups. hearing him in his own words when he joins us. that's coming up. discover card. hey. what can you tell me about your new social security alerts? oh! we'll alert you if we find your social security number on any one of thousands of risky sites, so you'll be in the know. ooh. sushi. ugh. being in the know is a good thing. sign up online for free. discover social security alerts. >>> i hope we vigorously prosecute this as a case of terrorism. this is not be tolerated in our free society. we stand on the rule of law. >> on "state of the union" with jake tapper earlier today. and speaking of protests in charlottesville, virginia. this opening up a formal civil rights situation into the circumstances surrounding the car that plowed into that crowd of protestors killing a 32-year-old paralegal from charlottesville, virginia. heather heyer. 32 years old. also this morning, the white house homeland security adviser tom bossert said both

tom perriello, a former democratic congressman from virginia and brennan gilmore, a former chief of staffor a congressman who shot the video. good evening. glad you're doing okay. tom, you were an eyewitness to the awful violence. tell me what it was like to be there. what did you see? >> brendon was the one that shot the video and shot that piece. it was preceded by two and a half hours of violent skirmishes. throughout the city as people came here with a white racist ideology that was hell bent on causing trouble. it was part of a deliberate three-month strategy that started with a tiki torch rally a few months ago, and then a kkk rally a month ago to be able to see people's tactics both on the police side and the nonviolent protest side, and then really have this as their coming out party, which they were quite explicit about, wanting to be seen, hoping to intimidate. but i know charlottesville will be stronger than that and how we'll push back. >> brennan, you captured that sickening moment, the driver slammed into the crowd on saturday. i want to play it again. but should warn viewer

then who saw the violence unfold, tom a former democratic congressman everybody virginia and brennan gilmore former chief of staff for a congressman. glad you're doing okay. tom, you were an eyewitness to the awful violence. tell me what it was like. what did you see? >> brendon was the one that shot the video and shot that piece. it was preceded by two and a half hours of violent skirmishes. people came here with a white ratist ideology hell bent on causing trouble, part of a deliberate three-month strategy that started with a tiki torch rally a few months ago and to see people's tactics on the police side and the nonviolent protest side and have this as their coming out party which he were explicit about wanting to be seen, but i know charlottesville will be stronger and how we push back. >> brennan, you captured that sickening moment, the driver slammed into the crowd on saturday. i want to play it again. but should warn viewers again it is graphic. what was going through your mind when this happened? >> i mean, it was a very chaotic scene as we've all seen. i was there actually filming a