A BLM rioter who set fire to a pawn shop and killed a man is facing a shorter sentence than normal because, according to US Attorney W. Anders Folk, he was “caught up in the fury” of the Black Lives Matter riots.
On June 5, 2020, in Minnesota, BLM riots were breaking out and becoming violent. Hundreds of people took to the streets and began looting local businesses, vandalizing private property, and recklessly setting fire to buildings. Montez Terriel Lee Jr. was one of these violent actors.
That night, Lee broke into a pawn shop, poured fire accelerant around, and set it on fire. These actions were caught on video.
According to court records, one of the videos captures Lee standing in front of the burning shop, saying, “F*** this place. We’re gonna burn this b**** to the ground.”
Over two months after Lee burned down the shop, a 30-year-old man, Oscar Lee Stewart, was found dead among the debris.
By joining in the violence of the BLM riots and being misled into thinking that was the right way to act, Lee took the life of an innocent man that night.
The typical sentence that would be applied to Lee’s case is over 200 months of incarceration. However, in a memo from the US Attorney’s office for the District of Minnesota, a lesser sentence was recommended because of the “motives” behind Lee’s actions.
The memo describes Lee’s motives as almost admirable. Forgetting the violence he enacted and the innocent life he took, at least his intentions were “good”.
Mr. Lee’s motive for setting the fire is a foremost issue. Mr. Lee credibly states that he was in the streets to protest unlawful police violence against black men, and there is no basis to disbelieve this statement. Mr. Lee, appropriately, acknowledges that he “could have demonstrated in a different way,” but that he was “caught up in the fury of the mob after living as a black man watching his peers suffer at the hands of police.”
The defense that Lee was “caught up in the fury of the mob” is a poor way to set an example for the rest of the country. There needs to be some maintained sense of right and wrong. If you are upset and seeking social change, you shouldn’t be allowed to do so by burning cities and being violent. Generating fear and endangering others is not a reasonable way to get a point across.
Hellbound and Down 