Georgia: Prison sentences for Confederate flag wavers who terrorized child's party

[Razer]

So-called "Patriots". Drunk, and "and pointed a shotgun..." at children.

Convicted of "Criminal Gang Terrorism".

    In July 2015, a group of 15 people calling themselves “Respect the
    Flag” boarded several pickup trucks, each outfitted with Confederate
    and American flags, and embarked on a drive around Douglasville,
    Ga., a small city west of Atlanta.

    Tensions concerning the Confederate flag were already high. Barely a
    month had passed since Dylann Roof, the avowed white supremacist who
    had posed with the Confederate battle flag, killed nine black
    Americans at a church in Charleston.

    And the small Respect the Flag group went far beyond a display of
    Confederate pride.

    Hatred, a Georgia judge said during a sentencing Monday, propelled
    the group as they descended upon a child’s birthday party, unleashed
    a storm of death threats and anti-black slurs, and pointed a shotgun.

    “Their actions were motivated by racial hatred,” said Judge William
    McClain, of the Douglas County Superior Court, according to the
    Associated Press. Georgia legislature does not include a law
    regarding hate crimes.

    The 10 men and five women who made up Respect the Flag harassed
    black drivers as well as customers at a Walmart and a convenience store.

    Then they happened upon a birthday party for an 8-year-old black
    child. Witnesses told the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit
    group that tracks hate crimes, that after driving the trucks across
    the property belonging to the child’s grandmother, the men got out
    of the vehicles and began to yell racial epithets and shout death
    threats.

    “They even threatened to kill children at the party,” according to a
    statement issued by Douglas County District Attorney Brian Fortner
    in early February. One of the men, 26-year-old Jose Ismael Torres,
    pointed a pump shotgun at the partygoers, prosecutors said. Several
    panicked people called the police.

    “Everywhere you went, 911 call centers were flooded with calls,” the
    judge said, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

    “I was scared,” Melissa Alford, the host of the party, told the
    Southern Poverty Law Center in October, a few days after the group’s
    members were indicted. “My first thought was if these people start
    shooting at us, we wouldn’t be able to get all the kids inside the
    house in time.”

    The defendants in the case argued that a party attendee triggered
    the incident by hurling an object at one of the trucks. Cellphone
    video taken at the scene showed otherwise, the judge said.

    “If you drive around town with a Confederate flag, yelling the
    n-word, you know how it’s going to be interpreted,” the judge said,
    per Atlanta’s Fox 5. “It’s inexplicable to me that you weren’t
    arrested by the police that day.”

    The members of the group, two of whom pleaded guilty, were convicted
    in early February.

    Following the convictions, the Douglas County district attorney
    issued a statement clarifying that this case was not an issue of the
    First Amendment but of harassment.

    “Many people tried to make the case about simply flying the
    Confederate battle flag. However, it wasn’t about that at all,”
    Fortner said in the statement. “Instead, this case was about a group
    of people riding around our community, drinking alcohol, harassing
    and intimidating our citizens because of the color of their skin.”

    The judge handed down the final two sentences on Monday. Torres was
    sentenced to 20 years, serving 13 in prison. The mother of his
    children, Kayla Rae Norton, 25, was sentenced to 15 years and will
    serve six. After their prison terms, they will be banished from
    Douglas County. They were found in violation of Street Gang
    Terrorism and Prevention Act; Norton was found guilty of violating
    the act as well as a count of making terroristic threats. The jury
    convicted Torres of three counts of aggravated assault, one count of
    making terroristic threats and one count of violating the act.

    The scene in the courtroom was an emotional one. Both Torres and
    Norton cried as their sentences were announced, the Associated Press
    reported. Norton apologized to the victims.

    One of the victims, Hyesha Bryant, expressed her forgiveness. “I
    forgive you,” Bryant said. “And to your family, I’m sorry it had to
    come this far.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/28/they-waved-the-confederate-flag-and-a-shotgun-at-a-black-childs-party-now-theyre-headed-to-jail-on-terror-charges/

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/html
Size: 5768 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/attachments/20170228/52d37de1/attachment.txt>