A 62-year-old white man convicted of attempting to run down six Black men at the site of the Rosewood massacre has been sentenced to a single year in prison.

David Allen Emanuel appeared solemn and reserved on Thursday as federal Judge Allen Winsor delivered the sentence on six counts of hate crimes for attempting to run over Historian Marvin Dunn, his son and four other Black men who were surveying Dunn’s Rosewood property to build a memorial for the massacre.

The judge’s sentence called for 12 months plus one day in federal prison for each of the six charges, which he allowed to run concurrently. The Justice Department had sought a “substantial” prison term of between five and six years.

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    41 year ago

    A big part of the prison system is to remove threats from society. It’s fantastic that this guy’s victims survived and it’s also really good and healthy for them to ask for mercy as it means they likely aren’t holding the negative feelings that will continue to hurt them in the long term. But the legal system should go above and beyond the victim’s desires to protect the rest of society because this guy’s next victims might not be so lucky.