A judge in Georgia has sentenced two people to prison for a combined 19 years after a jury convicted them of terrorizing a group of mostly black people at a child’s birthday party.
A month after the Charleston church shooting in 2015, a confrontation between a pro-Confederate flag group known as Respect the Flag and people at a birthday party in Douglas County near Atlanta was caught on video. The footage went viral during the contentious aftermath of Dylann Roof’s racist rampage and the subsequent national debate about flying the Confederate flag and displaying Civil War-era monuments.
In the video, a convoy of trucks waving the flag can be seen driving by the party and the occupants yelling racial slurs. The party goers also taunted back, “We’ll see y’all again.” Police were there on the scene and created a barrier between the two groups. There were conflicting reports initially on what led to the confrontation, including the attendees throwing rocks and other items at the trucks.
The ultra-leftwing hate group Southern Poverty Law Center jumped on the case and represented many of the accusers. In what The New York Times called “an unusual legal maneuver,” the district attorney pursued charges against the flag group for violating Georgia’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act. Here is NPR's report on the sentencing:
A Georgia judge has sentenced Kayla Norton, 25, and Jose "Joe" Torres, 26, to spend a combined 19 years in prison for their role in a group's racist rampage at an 8-year-old's birthday party — an assault that included shouting racial slurs, making armed threats and waving Confederate battle flags…
Norton and Torres, who are not married, have three children together. Prosecutors say they were part of a gang of white supremacists who targeted African-Americans with racist taunts and threatened to murder minorities.
In court Monday, both Norton and Torres sat hunched over and crying after Superior Court Judge William "Beau" McClain handed down his sentence: 13 years in prison and seven years' probation for Torres, and six years in prison with nine years' probation for Norton. Both of them are also banished from Douglas County, McClain said.
Torres admitted to the court that he was carrying a loaded 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip for his personal protection. The district attorney posted a lengthy description of the events to Facebook explaining from the prosecutor's view that witnesses saw Torres use the weapon in a threatening manner. Norton is said to have loaded the weapon for him. There were multiple 9-1-1 calls that day placing the truck convoy at various locations continuing the harassment. Torres also lied to the police about the weapon which he sold before he was arrested.
Norton, the female, stood before her accusers and through tears said, “I do accept responsibility for what I’ve done. I know I was in the wrong. But I want you all to know that that is not me; that is not me, that is not him [Torres]. I would never walk up to you and say those words to you and I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
One of the victims stood up and said, “I forgive you. I forgive all of you.”
The assistant district attorney assured this case was “not about the First Amendment or someone’s right to fly the Confederate flag” but “about the fundamental right that all people have in our community to live free of the fear that at any moment they will be assaulted, threatened, and possibly killed simply because of the color of their skin.”
Some believe the punishment fit the crime because a weapon was brandished, while others are concerned that the long sentences are too harsh of a punishment for being simply ignorant or racist.
Georgia’s anti-street gang statute was passed in 1992 after lawmakers said Georgia was in a “state of crisis… caused by violent criminal street gangs whose members threaten, terrorize and commit a multitude of crimes against the peaceful citizens of their neighborhoods.” The district attorney maintains the law was “worded very broadly to deal with any type of activity that occurs with a group that’s organized that commits a crime.”
Below are a selection of videos about the case:
