US man sentenced to 20 years for hate crime shooting targeting Blacks and Arabs

A man in the US state of Georgia has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for shooting into a convenience store with the intent to kill Blacks and Arabs.

According to the charges, in July 2021, Larry Edward Foxworth, 48, fired shots through a window and a door of a gas station convenience store in Jonesboro in Georgia. He did the same at another nearby convenience store. In both cases, no one in the stores was hit by the gunfire.

Foxworth was arrested after the second attack. He told the arresting officers that he had targeted the locations because he believed there were Blacks and Arabs inside. 

"Foxworth used a firearm to commit a brazen and heinous hate crime," US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a public statement issued earlier this month.  

"He fired repeatedly into convenience stores in his effort to kill those inside based solely on the colour of their skin.  This abhorrent act of violence and intimidation left the victims, their families, and the community traumatised and merits the prison sentence Foxworth received. The Department of Justice and our federal law enforcement partners will continue to vigorously prosecute hate crimes," he said.

"The defendant fired a gun into a store wanting to kill people who he thought were Black or Arab," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. 

In December, Foxworth pleaded guilty to a hate crime based on actual or perceived race or colour. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Hopefully this lengthy sentence proves that the FBI will not tolerate intimidation and violence against anyone because of their race or ethnicity," said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta.