By Danielle Young
Special to the NNPA from The Michigan Chronicle

(NNPA) — Sarah Adelia Graves, 22 and Shelbie Brooke Richards, 21 were sentenced to five and eight years, respectively, for the brutal murder of Black man, James Craig Anderson. These two women were part of a 10-person group who drove around Jackson, Mississippi in search of Black people to attack. They found Anderson on June 26, 2011. Two of the 10 men got out of their Jeep to distract Anderson while Richards and Graves arrived in another truck with a friend.

According to reports, two of the men then beat Anderson and ran him over. Hotel surveillance video showed the truck backing up and then lurching forward before Anderson disappeared under the vehicle. Disgusting. The other men involved have also been charged. Six of them were prosecuted as a part of a federal hate crime and have been sentenced a range of four to 50 years.

Reports claim that two others, John Louis Blalack, 21, and Robert Henry Rice, 24, both of Brandon, Mississippi, are awaiting sentencing. All 10 criminals admitted that they conspired to harass and attack Black people in and around Jackson. They started their awful romps in the spring of 2011, chasing down Black people in cars, using slingshots to shoot beer bottles at their victims. They often targeted Black people who seemed to be drunk or homeless because they would be less likely to report the crime.

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Vanita Gupta, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said she hoped the convictions would “provide some measure of closure to the victim’s family and to the larger community affected by this heinous crime.”

We wonder if the races were swapped–the kids who did the crime would have received life sentences. Well, at least the justice system is working in some regard. What do you think of their sentences? Sound off in the comments.
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