Nationwide — Michael Frederick Jr., a man from Warren, Michigan, who attacked and shot at the home of a Black family last year because of a Black Lives Matter sign they had in the window, has been sentenced to 4 to 10 years in prison.
Frederick, who is 25-years old, reportedly fired shots at their home in September last year. He also slashed the tires on their vehicles and wrote racist graffiti on their pickup truck. He then threw a large rock through the front window and fired a bullet again the next day.
Frederick was eventually arrested and charged with ethnic intimidation, discharging a firearm at a building, using a firearm during a felony, and malicious destruction of property, to which he pleaded no contest.
In his recent sentence hearing, Frederick claimed he wasn’t targeting the family personally. Before, he denied that the attack was about race but later he admitted that the “Black Lives Matter” sign in the window was the reason for it.
“I targeted these people because I didn’t like their political sign that they had in the window,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “I think you guys are some great people and didn’t deserve this at all.”
Meanwhile, the Hall family expressed their forgiveness to Frederick despite the anxiety it may have caused them, that even the designated judge was awed.
“I’m not angry, I’m not. I’m forgiving,” Candace Hall said. “You’re a good kid and have a chance. You made a bad choice, and we understand that. We have children ourselves. We’re not hateful people, we’re Christians.”
She continued, “With so much of the bad that happened, so much good came out of this because even though it was an evil, hateful act, it actually brought us — the neighborhood — together with love and comfort and compassion, even including his parents.”