FILE - This file image provided by the Henrico County, Va., Sheriff's Department shows Harry H. Rogers, an acknowledged member of the Ku Klux Klan, who was sentenced Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021, to three years and eight months in prison on charges he drove his pickup truck through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters near Virginia's capital city. (Henrico County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Republished February 11, 2021 - 6:38 AM
Original Publication Date February 09, 2021 - 2:31 PM
RICHMOND, Va. - An acknowledged member of the Ku Klux Klan was sentenced Tuesday to three years and eight months in prison on charges he drove his pickup truck through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters near Virginia's capital city.
Harry Rogers, 37, of Hanover County, was convicted of three counts of assault and battery, one count of destruction of property and one count of failure to stop at the scene of an accident in connection with the attack last June in Henrico County near Richmond, news outlets reported.
Rogers pleaded guilty Feb. 5 and had three felony charges and a fourth misdemeanour assault count dropped. He was originally sentenced to six years in jail in August, but he appealed that conviction.
Authorities said Rogers struck at least two people after driving over a median near a Confederate monument and then through a group of protestors in a roadway. Nobody was seriously injured, though officials said he ran over a man’s toe and twice hit a woman who stepped in front of the truck.
Defence attorney George Townsend argued that the protesters who were struck put themselves into the vehicle’s way. Townsend had previously said Rogers was a member of the KKK.
Before he was arrested, Rogers boasted about the incident on social media.
“This Chevrolet 2500 went up on the curb and through the protest,” he said on a Facebook live video played in court. “They started scattering like (expletive) cockroaches ... It’s kind of funny if you ask me.”
He told the court on Tuesday that he was sorry for his actions, and he said he “didn’t make the right decisions that day,” news outlets reported.
The incident came last year amid nationwide protests against racial injustice and law enforcement treatment of minorities after the police custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
News from © The Associated Press, 2021