Men sentenced in torching of Georgia police car during summer of racial unrest, feds say
Five men in Georgia were sentenced on federal arson charges on accusations of setting fire to a police car parked at an officer’s apartment complex.
The Department of Justice said in a Nov. 17 news release that the five men — Jesse James Smallwood, Delveccho Waller, Jr., Bruce Thompson, Judah Coleman Bailey and Dashun Martin — met in the parking lot of a pharmacy in downtown Gainesville on June 1, 2020.
They planned to attend what officials called a “legitimate protest” against the murder of George Floyd, whose death while in police custody in May 2020 sparked an avalanche of protests across the nation against police brutality and racial injustice. Floyd died after now-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes, as three other officers chose not to intervene. In June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.
Bailey brought a flare gun and cartridges with him that night, according to officials, and the five men discussed their knowledge of a Gainesville Police Department patrol vehicle. They planned to go to the location of the car and have someone shoot the flare gun at it, the news release said.
Smallwood drove the group to an apartment complex, where the five men exited the car and put masks and bandanas on, according to officials. Bailey is accused of approaching the car and shooting a flare through the car’s rear windshield, setting it on fire.
The five men then fled the scene in Smallwood’s car, the news release said, but were arrested shortly afterward when police received a tip about the men from a witness in the apartment complex.
Waller, Jr.’s attorney, Arturo Corso, told McClatchy News that the men “got swept up in the emotion of an otherwise peaceful protest march” in the wake of George Floyd’s death, and that they “gave into a frenzy of their own emotion and did a very, very stupid thing by firing a flare gun into an unoccupied, parked police car.”
“[Waller, Jr.] admitted what he did because he wants to be an example to other young people not to make the same mistake and slow the progress of police and criminal justice reform,” Corso said.
McClatchy News reached out to the attorneys of the four other men and did not immediately receive a response.
The five men all pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit arson and were sentenced. Smallwood, Waller, Jr. and Bailey were all sentenced to one year and nine months in prison. Martin was sentenced to one year and five months in prison, and Thompson was sentenced to one year and two months in prison, the news release said.
Bailey, Thompson, Martin and Waller, Jr., are all between 21 and 24 years old. Smallwood’s age was not listed on the release.
All of the men were also ordered to serve three years of supervised release after their imprisonment and were ordered to pay the Gainesville Police Department $3,678.17 in restitution.
Gainesville is located about 55 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Men sentenced in torching of Georgia police car during summer of racial unrest, feds say."