Jose Torres and Kayla Norton cried like babies when they were handed down sentences in their controversial confederate flag case yesterday.
Several trucks bearing confederate flags confronted a group of African-American adults who were hosting a kid’s party on the lawn.
The child?s mother, Melissa Alford, said the group parked on her grass, walked up to her property, yelled racial slurs and even threatened her family with guns but the local authorities did nothing when they were called.
Fortunately it was all captured it on video and the culprits have now all been charged with a hate crime…
In July 2015, just weeks after the Charleston church massacre, a large group of people drove up to a birthday party that was being in Douglasville in trucks, flying American, military and Confederate flags.The people accused in the case, members of a confederate flag group called “respect the flag,” said the confrontation started when someone at the party threw an object at one of the trucks, but the mother?s accusations and cell phone video of the incident proved otherwise.
Kayla Norton and Jose Torres were a part of that disruptive group on that fateful day and have each been charged with violating Georgia?s street-gang terrorism law.? A judge even referred to their actions as a racially motivated hate crime.
The couple, who are unmarried wit three children, cried uncontrollably as the sentencing was issued.? The judge had no sympathy for them and considered their acts a hate crime as they terrorized the attendees of a birthday party being held for an 8-year-old black child.
Attorneys for the couple pled for lighter sentencing, saying that two other defendants, Thomas Charles Summers and Lacey Paul Henderson II, had pled guilty to terroristic threats and battery charges and received lighter sentences than Norton and Torres were facing. (Summers, is serving 4 years in prison and Henderson is serving two).I do accept responsiblity for what I’ve done. I was in the wrong. I want you all to know that is not me… that is not me.
I would never walk up to you and say those words to you and I’m so sorry that that happened to you.
But in issuing the sentences, Superior Court Judge William McClain said that families have a right to celebrate a child?s birthday party in peace and that Torres and Norton would have to answer for their behavior.
He sentenced Torres to 20 years in prison, with 13 to serve and Norton to 15 years in prison, with six to serve.
The judge also called into question the Douglasville Police Department?s decision not to arrest any of the ?Respect the Flag? group that day. He called it ?inexplicable? and ?a very bad mistake.?
?If you drive around town with a Confederate flag, yelling the ‘N’ word, you know how it?s going to be interpreted,? Judge William McClain said. ?It?s inexplicable to me that you weren?t arrested by the police that day.