(WN)-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.
"I'm so sorry that happened to
you," Norton told the family that endured the assault, weeping in the
courtroom at Monday's sentencing. "I am so sorry."
After telling the court that she accepted
responsibility for her actions, Norton turned to the area of the courtroom
where families who attended the birthday party were seated.
"But I want you all to know that that is
not me," Norton told them. "That is not me." 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.
The sentencing comes weeks after a jury found
Torres and Norton guilty of making terroristic threats and violating the Street
Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act. The jury also convicted Torres for
aggravated assault. Although Georgia doesn't have a law specifying a hate
crime, that's the term both McClain and District Attorney Brian Fortner used to
describe the group's behavior.
The assault occurred in July of 2015, one
month after a racist gunman killed nine worshipers at a historically black
church in Charleston, S.C. Prosecutors say Norton, Torres, and other members of
a group that called itself "Respect the Flag" went on an
alcohol-fueled racist spree in Douglas and Paulding counties, west of Atlanta.
With Confederate battle flags affixed to the
beds of their pickup trucks, the group gathered for a ride that was purportedly
meant to celebrate the flag's heritage.
"However, Paulding County 911 began
immediately receiving calls that members associated with this group were
threatening African American citizens at various locations in Paulding County
and hurling numerous racial slurs in the process as well," according to
the Douglas County District Attorney's Office.
After threatening black motorists, the group
headed to Douglasville, where they happened upon an outdoor birthday party that
included a cookout and bouncy castle. "Victims and witnesses from the
party, who were predominantly African American, testified to observing the
group of trucks whose passengers were hurling a litany of racial slurs at them
as they passed by," prosecutors said.
Several members of the group some of whom are
now serving prison terms of their own got out of their trucks and approached
the partygoers, threatening to kill them all. According to their fellow
defendants and witnesses, it was Norton who retrieved Torres' shotgun a tactical
12-gauge with a pistol grip and loaded it before giving it to him.
Cellphone footage from the party shows police
attempting to form a barrier in front of the families as the trucks drove off. During
his trial, Torres told the court he was carrying the shotgun for this own
defense. But he then acknowledged lying to police about the gun and to selling
the weapon before he was arrested.
Months after the attack, the "Respect
the Flag" group was indicted as a street gang by a Douglas County grand
jury.
"They recognized that it was not about
flying a flag but it was about pointing a shotgun at other people and
threatening to kill them because of the color of their skin," Fortner said
Monday. Testifying for the victims at Monday's sentencing, Hyesha Bryant, who
attended the party, said she forgave the couple.
"I never thought this would be something
I'd have to endure in 2017," Bryant said, according to the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. "As adults and parents, we have to instill in our
children the values of right and wrong. That moment you had to choose to leave,
you stayed."
"I forgive you. I forgive all of
you," she said, as Torres and Norton sat weeping. "I don't have any
hate in my heart. Life is too short for that." The stiff punishment is
being both celebrated and questioned, in a debate that touches on both free
speech and the nature of terrorism.
Some of those points are summed up in two
top-rated responses to the district attorney's Facebook posting that announced
the punishment.
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