A gun-toting white Donald Trump supporter will be sitting behind bars for shooting a Black teenage girl in the leg after a rally in Iowa last year for the former president.
On Monday (August 9), a judge sentenced Michael McKinney to up to 10 years in prison, ABC News reported.
The 26-year-old Army veteran, who wore body armor and carried multiple guns during the shooting, pleaded guilty in June to intimidation with a dangerous weapon and willful injury.
According to USA Today, the Dec. 6 pro-Trump rally was organized by a group of Trump supporters named Women for America First who believed that the ex-president won the 2020 presidential election.
Several Black teenage girls in a car exchanged insults with the Trump supporters after the rally. The girls reportedly called the rally-goers white supremacists, and the rally-goers asked them if they were on welfare.
After the Trump fans surrounded the car, the driver backed up but hit a pickup truck.
That’s when McKinney fired into the vehicle and struck the then-15-year-old girl who was standing in the car’s open sunroof, prosecutors say..
McKinney claimed to police that he fired at the car to protect himself.
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In a written statement read to the court on Monday, the victim said, “I believed I was going to die the day I was shot. I didn’t know if I would be able to walk again.”
McKinney, who was arrested at the scene, apologized in court to the victim, blaming his actions on “poor judgment.”
According to USA Today, the intimidation with a dangerous weapon and the willful injury charge both carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.
The judge ordered two sentences to run concurrently, for a maximum of 10 years.
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