A Florida man was convicted on hate crime charges for a "racially motivated" attack on a Black man, the US justice department confirmed this week in a release.
The victim, known only by the initials "JT", had been driving with his four-year-old daughter and partner in Seminole - some 24 miles west of Tampa - last summer when 29-year-old Jordan Patrick Leahy started verbally attacking them using racially-charged language.
He also pretended to "shoot" at JT's car with disturbing hand gestures, according to evidence presented at the resulting trial. For the best part of a mile, Leahy tried to run JT off the road.
The two drivers then confronted each other at a light, which saw Leahy leave his car and attempt to assault JT, all the while screaming racist abuse.
What Leahy didn't know was that JT is a practicing mixed-martial artist, who quickly put Leahy into a chokehold until he was unconscious and restrained him until law enforcement arrived on the scene, NBC News reports.
Prosecutors referred to the incident as a "racially-motivated attack," arguing that Leahy targeted the the father due to his skin color and due to the fact that he was driving on a public road.
According to police, when Leahy was in custody, he threatened to carry out a mass shooting.
The man, now a convict, said he wanted to "fight a random colored person" and said that deputies "needed to control them", according to the Tampa Bay Times, which cited an affidavit.
“Across America, families must be able to freely travel our public streets without fear of being attacked because of race,” the US assistant attorney general Kristen Clarke said in a statement.
“This verdict should send a strong message that the Department of Justice remains firmly committed to prosecuting, to the fullest extent of the law, those who would use violence to enforce heinous racist beliefs.”
Leahy now faces up to 10 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release and up to $250,000 in fines. He has been remanded to the custody of the US Marshals pending sentencing.
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