A Missouri man was sentenced Thursday to nearly 22 years in prison for hate crimes following the May 2019 murder of a gay teenager.
Malachi Robinson, 25, shot the teenager, known in court documents as M.S., eight times after meeting him at the Kansas City Public Library and luring him into the woods under the pretense of finding a location for sexual act according to the United States Attorney Office for the Western District of Missouri.
On the day Robinson met M.S., who was 16 at the time, he messaged his girlfriend about M.S. and said, “He tryna set me up on sumn now, gonna unfriend him, might shoot this boy if he try some gay shit,” according to court documents.
M.S., was taken to the hospital in critical condition and stayed in the hospital for two weeks. The department said he suffered “long-term effects from the shooting,” including multiple surgeries and physical therapy. Prosecutors said he still had multiple bullets in him.
As part of the plea deal, Robinson pled guilty to one hate crime involving attempted murder and was sentenced to 21 years and 10 months in prison without parole, according to the order.
The FBI’s 2021 supplemental hate crime statistics found that hate crimes increased 11.6% nationwide, from 8,120 in 2020 to 9,065 in 2021.
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Out of more than 10,500 single prejudice incidents involving 12,411 victims most – 64.5% – were targeted due to offender bias. against their race, ethnicity, or origin, followed by 15.9% who were attacked because of perpetrators’ prejudice against their sexual orientation, 14.1% who were attacked because of perpetrators’ prejudice against their gender identity, and 3.2% who were attacked because of perpetrators’ bias the perpetrators’ bias against their gender identity.
Over the past two years, LGBT people, places and events have increasingly become targets of violence.
Earlier this month, a man was stabbed to death in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime.
LGBTQ venues, events, and groups across the country – including a senior housing project in Boston – have been threatened or destroyed. And in November, a gunman killed five people at a gay club in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
